Behold...the antique oak filing cabinet that was handed down to me by my mother. Will I be more productive now that I can see the top of it?

I’m cleaning my home workspace to make room – well, honestly, to make it presentable – for an exchange student who is coming to stay with my family in a couple of weeks. Our house is a small one, and my home office space is at one end of our spare bedroom. It includes the family filing cabinet and a desk, in addition to my computer table, and stuff tends to accumulate. A lot of stuff. I’m too embarrassed to tell you how much stuff, but it’s honestly enough to justify the term “anal-expulsive”. ‘Nuff said.

I’m also too embarrassed to let a complete stranger see it, let alone live in it for 2 weeks, which explains my current cleaning project.

It’s gratifying to see a sense of orderliness start to take hold. What I’m really curious about, though – aside from whether I’ll actually keep it tidy moving forward – is whether this improved aesthetic will actually make me more productive. Will I spend more time here just because it’s not such a mess? Will I get more accomplished in the time when I am working? Will I perhaps even be able to better organize myself and my blogging? It’s kind of an exciting thought, and I’m definitely hopeful.

In the meantime, my husband has started asking if we should move my work table out of this room while our exchange student is here, so that she can better claim the space as her bedroom. And I’m torn on that one. Now that I’ve got the space all organized, I’m hesitant to leave it, even temporarily. And yet, it certainly would be counterproductive if I ended up doing less work because I didn’t want to get in the way of our guest.

So I’m leaning toward moving out for the short term. But only for the short term. I really want to find out if my work habits change along with the state of my workspace.