Quote for the Day: Office Feng Shui

“The ideal office is a room of your own with a regular shape (preferably square or rectangle), natural lighting (at least one window), a solid door you can close, and a good position for your desk.”

- David Daniel Kennedy

Where is your home office? Is it working for you?

Favorite Tip for Office Organizing

By Jessica Hoelzel

One of my favorite products to use to store things in an office is the magazine butler. And one of my favorite tips is to turn them around, so you don’t see what’s inside. You only see the back. Choose a plain design for a streamlined look, or a pattern to get funky.

Some I like

Question to Ponder

Here’s a question to ponder…



How do I feel when I’m in my workspace?



If you feel like sharing, leave a comment below...

Quote for the Day: About Work

“The same principles apply to Feng Shui at work as they do at home except that in the office the most important consideration is the energizing of wealth and harmony luck to ensure that employees work as comfortably as possible.”

- Lillian Too

Feng Shui at Work: Watch Your Back

By Jessica Hoelzel

I’ve written before, in an earlier post, about the importance of your desk being in the “command” position of your office. You want to make sure you:

Have a view of the door

Are not too close to the door

Are not in direct line with the door

Are towards the back of the room (ideally diagonal from the door)

If you don’t work in an office, but rather a “cube”, you are usually at a disadvantage because they are designed so that you face into the cube, not out. You back is, most often, to the entrance. This is troublesome because, energetically, anytime you have your back to the entrance, it sets you up to be vulnerable, at risk for being “stabbed in the back”, “blindsided” or “taken by surprise”.


Feng shui is all about metaphors. It’s based upon the well-founded, scientific idea that everything in our universe is energy. So even though it may seem preposterous to move your desk away from the lovely view out the window, turning it so it faces out (What? It doesn’t have to be up against the wall?) and then diligently organizing your computer cords so they are not unsightly, and no one breaks his or her neck tripping over them…it is not. (Preposterous, that is.)

When you rearrange your desk to be in the command position, you change the flow of energy. Instead of blasting you in the back, you are there to meet it. Hello world. Whatever you present me with today, I am fully prepared to meet, head on.

If you’re in a cube, situate yourself the best you can, and put a mirror in front of you. Either hang one or put one on your computer, so you can see what (and who) is coming. Here are some convex mirrors from fengshuishopper.com that will work nicely.

By enhancing and directing chi flow, we are able to direct our fate in a positive way.

- Kirsten M. Lagatree

Good "office luck" to you! Please comment if you have a workplace challenge you'd like me to address.

Making Feng Shui Work for Your Work Life: Enhancing Wealth

By Jessica Hoelzel
 
Are you in control of your finances?
If your financial papers are a mess, chances are your finances are too. How do you regain control? By putting things in order. Knowing what you have, and where to access information when you need it will put you in the driver’s seat with your financial matters. Here are a few simple ways to do it:

Open the mail right after you get it, and sort statements into piles: 1) to pay, 2) to file, 3) to do – for if you need to take some other action like make a call.

Have two folders to put your “to pay” statements into, one labeled “Bills due 1st -15th, and one labeled “Bills due 16th-31st”.

Create another file labeled “Taxes”. Put anything you might need at tax time in there. It doesn’t need to be organized yet, just use it as a catch-all for now. You can sort things out at tax time.

Create separate folders for your statements to go into after you pay them, or take any other action necessary. Label!

Convenient places to keep files:1) a file cabinet or drawer
2) a portable file box
3) a box with a lid
4) stacking trays
5) a vertical desktop file holder

If you get all your statements online, you can organize them in a similar way to above, on your computer. Label the electronic files just like you would paper.

Trust me, you will get a sense of satisfaction and control to know you have a handle on your financials. And keep it up!

Making Feng Shui Work for Your Work Life: Enhancing Wealth

By Jessica Hoelzel

Shred ‘Em

Old papers, especially ones tied to the energy of struggle, despair, or loss will hold you down. These need to be released – purged if you will – in order to open up space for abundance to flow in. You’ll want to shred old papers instead of tossing them because of account and other information they contain, which could put you at risk of identity theft if they ever landed in the wrong hands. Check with an tax expert, though, before beginning your shredding party, to make sure that you are keeping records you might need for tax purposes. Some OfficeMax locations now offer secure ShredIt services. Priced very reasonably, you can drop off your papers and pay by-the-pound for them to be taken off you hands. See if yours does here: http://www.officemax.com/storelocator/storeLocatorHome.jsp;jsessionid=u8HzzzuTCUTu62k3F0zH0Q**.atgb2c3-app4.

If you’re like my grandmother, though, you might just enjoy the satisfaction of putting the darn things through the shredder yourself. Although more time consuming when you have a bulk of things to shred, it can be very ritualistic. My grandma may not realize it, but she is doing an actual feng shui adjustment. The act of putting those things through the shredder is allowing her to consciously and unconsciously disconnect from their energy. Whether the ties to them are positive or negative, she is letting go of the past, and clearing out clutter, “zzzzzz” by “zzzzzz”.

Making Feng Shui Work for Your Work Life: Enhancing Wealth

By Jessica Hoelzel

Get Control of Your Finances Before Your Finances Control You

How would you describe the state of your finances? If your answer is “chaotic”, you need to take some serious time to straighten things out.

Adjusting the feng shui of your Wealth area can bring about significant results, enhancing your prosperity and your experience of abundance. However, it will not work on top of clutter and disorder. Don’t let your feng shui efforts will be thwarted by a mess in your office.

Overflowing stacks of paper and files in disarray are an exhibition in loss of control. Unopened mail and misplaced important documents contribute to the loss of your handle on money.

Any financial planner would agree. The top five things you need to have straight regarding your finances are:

Know what you have
Know what you spend
Know what you owe
Know what your goals are
Know your plan for getting there

This means that your papers should be in order, and easily accessible. Stay tuned for hints on how to do it.

Office Feng Shui - Making Feng Shui Work for Your Work Life

By Jessica Hoelzel

Now that you’ve had the chance to dream, let’s put some of those exciting ideas into action. What’s the best way to set action in motion? To plan! You don’t have to create a spreadsheet or anything (although if you want to no one’s going to shame your for it!) but at least put some form to your ideas, so you can have a logical sequence to how to bring your dreams for you space to life.

I recommend placing the feng shui bagua, or “map” over your space before you launch in, so that you have an idea of what you will need for what area. For example, once you locate the Wealth or Career areas, you can choose colors and decorative accents appropriately, knowing the special elements and colors that support them. It will be especially helpful so you can discover if there are any missing pieces of the bagua, and correct for them.

Click https://www.fengshuishopper.com/product_cat_list.php?cid=28 for some books that show that bagua and discuss the details of it.

Here are some things to sketch out in your plan:

1. Are you doing it yourself or hiring professionals?
Feng Shui Consultant
Interior Designer
Painter
Handyperson
Cabinet Maker
Professional Organizer

2. What is your timeline?
3. Do you need to (get to!) go shopping?
Storage containers
Decorative accents
Feng Shui cures
(Jot some notes about ideas you have, of what you think you might want and need.)

Stay tuned – more to come on specific ways to enhance different areas of the bagua.

Office Feng Shui - Making Feng Shui Work for Your Work Life

By Jessica Hoelzel

You can apply feng shui in large and small ways, to enhance your work space and work life. You can do it all at once, or a little here and there as you have the time.

Before you dive in, though, you need to clear out all that clutter! The energy of clutter is distracting and draining. And you’ll need a fresh, clean slate to work from. Click http://day2dayfengshui.blogspot.com/2010_04_01_archive.html for my earlier blog post with good tips and tricks.

Next, you’ll need to reflect upon, and get clear about what you need and want from your space:

What do you want your space to look like?
How do you want it to feel?
How do you want it to nurture you?
In which areas do you need support?

Spend some time dreaming about your ideal space. Take some notes. Cut out some pictures of magazines. Put together some ideas and just let them brew. Click http://www.hgtv.com/designers-portfolio/home-offices/index.html for some lovely inspiration.

Whether you have a corner office suite, a cube or a tiny nook in the kitchen, you can enhance it and make it work for you. Click http://www.askthebuilder.com/341_Maximize_Small_Home_Office_Space.shtml for great small office solutions.

Ultimately, your office should be a place that calls to you, a place that you feel comfortable and confident in, and a place where you can thrive. Happy Dreaming!

More to come on enhancing your office with feng shui…Stay tuned!