desk duty

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Albert Einstein, big five, ocean traits, psychology, quotes, Sam Gosling, Snoop - What your stuff says about you, tidy desk, work

Before I head back into college tomorrow and lecture my socks of (a hard task as I am still barefoot in my shoes) I need to pay a little attention to my desk today.

With several projects in the pipeline (yes I got some of those jobs I applied for recently), 14 hours of teaching and preparing for, some bills that need my attention and then of course my manuscript that I need to finish in the next thee weeks, or so, my desk has become a little cluttered and unorganised.

So, today I will spend a few hours preparing lessons for next week, filling in the last  hateful forms of administration, organising my schedule for next week and generally just tiding up the debris of a busy week.

As I shuffle, file, tear up, sort through I can’t help but think about an article I read about what a desk says about you. It was based on a book by Sam Gosling PhD called Snoop – What your stuff says about you and took a closer look at how people perceive us when they see our desks.

A nest of post-it’s may indicate that you can’t remember things, a collection of toys and novelty items show that you aren’t taking your work seriously, general messiness that you aren’t organised.

Gosling basically links up our possessions and how we display them to the OCEAN Traits, the big five (Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism).

I’m not sure if our desks are a  true reflection of who we are but  I do know I work better when I have a little more space, it’s as if a tidy desk allows my mind to run wild with no distractions from clutter around it. However the clutter I collect while in the middle of things does seems to be an important aspect of how I work.

But for now, to give myself a fresh start for a new semester, I will keep organising today, give myself a little bit of room to settle in to a new rhythm and try and be one step ahead of my deadlines.

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a  cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?

Albert Einstein

If you want to take the test and see how you rank on the OCEAN traits follow this link

monday morning maneuvering

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Albert Einstein, photography, photos, procrastination, quote, thoughts, time, times

A new day, a new week and a whole lot of things to do. This week is filling up fast as is my desk with notes, lists, reminders. And somewhere in all this chaos I will have to find time to tackle my manuscript, after all my own set deadline is approaching fast.

So while I sit and maneuver my hours and minutes of this week, trying to make time for everything I need and want to do, I can’t help but wonder about time and how fleeting it can be.

At the beginning of the summer I had a few months of empty space, unplanned freedom rolling out expansively before me and now, with about four weeks left until students and lecturing dominate my life once more, my time is becoming more and more valuable.

With time seemingly running faster I am reminded of something I once read. To paraphrase it basically said that we don’t have too little time to do everything, we just priorities according to our wants and needs.

This means that I need to shake up my priorities and make sure that I don’t get into that all to familiar pattern of letting myself be caught up with things that are less important but very time consuming. Here’s hoping I can stick to my guns, be realistic about my timekeeping and beat procrastination into submission. But thankfully I still have a little time and don’t need to do everything at one.

The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.

Albert Einstein

serendipitous coincidences

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Albert Einstein, coincidence, laugh, miscellaneous, night out, rambleings, ramblings, serendipity, thoughts, wine

Last night over a bottle or two of delicious red wine I was asked what I thought of coincidences. I had to pause and think because while I do believe that things happen that can lead up to events that can effect you, I also am a great believer in choice. However, I also believe in serendipity, not just because I love the way the word sounds and moves around in my mouth, but for its lovely meaning of “a fortunate accident” or  “a happy surprise”.

Still faced with this conundrum niggling away at me I choose to look up what coincidence really means. It is derived from the Latin words cum (with, together) and incidere (to fall on, to happen). And in science coincidence is only use to to figure out whether things are related or not, not considered proof of causal affects but just a higher possibility. And statistically speaking coincidences are bound to happen, in a group of 23 or more people there is a more than 50% chance that two share the same birthday. This is not a coincidence, but a mathematical equitation.

Serendipity in comparison is quite a new-ish word. The first person to use the term in English was Horace Walpole in 1754 when he wrote to a friend about the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip. Funnily enough serendipity is also one of the ten hardest English words to translate … coincidence or just a happy accident?

Feeling a little smarter but not wiser I think when it comes to coincidences I will quote Albert Einstein from now on “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.” or maybe I will follow writer Simon Van Booy and his “Coincidences mean you’re on the right path.” 

But overall be it a coincidence or serendipity I had a lovely evening last night, enjoyed myself, laughed and had charming company. So hopefully I will fall upon another happy accident, or chosen event that mathematically will lead to a repeat.