Quote-A-Day: Day 191

Vary your work space often.  Nothing breeds new thinking like a slightly altered environment.  #QuoteADay #Day191 #edchat #edu #EmbraceChange

This morning I'm sitting in the office of our Environmental Center, about twenty miles away from where I normally spend the day.  Our Center for Environmental Education  is short-handed for a bit this summer, so during a number of days, I'll be serving as the PoC up here at our beautiful outdoor campus.

We run a number of camps throughout the summer, and after spending a few minutes this morning discussing reptiles and amphibians with a number of elementary students, two of our camp leaders have taken the students to our lower classroom to "play with the snakes."

So far this morning I've done a number of things differently than I would have had I been in my "normal" office.  In fact, even my thinking process appears to be a bit different, as I'm considering ideas in slightly different ways than I would have under normal circumstances.

There's much to be said for altering how we work, and where we work, on a regular basis.  If your office or work space hasn't changed over the last few months, it is time to change it up.

How do we make this change?

Well, this might look like a major reorganization of your space, a minor alteration to a work process, or simply a new location for a work break.

By changing the way we do things, we make ourselves more effective at leading and learning (for more on this, I strongly recommend reading Charles Duhigg's "Power of Habit").  Simply stated, any form of status quo is a problem; if we don't keep changing things regularly, we're apt to forget how necessary change is.