A place is a tool – Herbert Lui
Whenever you feel like what you’re doing is really difficult, try changing where you do it. I wrote about this in-depth at Forge.
I also recently heard Paul Ford and Rich Ziade describe the office as a tool, which reminded me of a story from my student days, about how the library was a tool for me to work through burnout and study:
Between my freshman summer and my sophomore year in college, I experienced my first—and maybe worst—serious burnout. As I was working through it and recovering, and figuring out a more sustainable method of working and studying, I noticed that a lot of my friends purposely went to the library to study.
This was a habit I didn’t have. I didn’t like the library much at all. The bathrooms were gross, the food situation was inconvenient, and it would take me at least 20 minutes to commute there and often another 10 to find a decent spot. My roommate in first year, also a good friend, seemed to be able to study at home just fine—with Messenger tools open, music playing, and such. I tried doing the same, but it just didn’t work for me.
So, desperate times called for desperate measures. Studying at home wasn’t working for me like it did for my roommate, so against my preferences, I started commuting to the library. I noticed the nicest library, focused on arts and humanities, was particularly social, so I usually avoided that one—and instead I went to the science library.
