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Title: Watch Our for Knee Jerk Feng Shui Make
sure that people can see the entrance to their work space from their workstation.
This issue is often a problem in the work place and yet it responds to a simple
solution most of the time, yielding substantial gains in effectiveness and stress
reduction immediately. You can pivot the desk to accomplish this but most of the
time it just requires putting a rear view mirror on the desk so that you don't
have to twist around and look every time someone comes in. Rear view mirrors are
very helpful. When you're driving your car how often do you use one of your three
mirrors? And I bet your poor desk doesn't even have one! Did you ever lose one
of your car mirrors? How disturbing is that? You keep looking for it and its not
there, you look again and its not there. It makes you nervous. Back
in the days when Feng Shui first became popular in the west, something you heard
all the time was 'don't work with your back to the door'. The problem with that
is, some people can only get their work done if their back is to the door. You
see this with physicians all of the time, or really anyone whose parents were
very ambitious for them. They remember that feeling from childhood of having their
parent looking over their shoulder, and having their back to the door simulates
that. Not only does it
put pressure on them to get their work done, but there's also the feeling that
someone who cares is watching over them, protecting them from mistakes. Now this
doesn't work for everybody, business owners, senior executives, entrepreneurs,
creative people almost always like what we call the 'throne position'. They like
to command the door and anyone who
comes into their space. They're most comfortable
and productive when they feel confident, and reducing their body's sense of risk
helps them do that. Even
though your conscious mind knows that there aren't tigers and packs of wolves
prowling around inside your office complex, your body's mind, which we call the
autonomic nervous system, isn't so sure about that. Genetically, this very ancient
system remembers when there was. So even though your conscious mind knows better,
your body can be frightened by things like 'working with your back to the door'. But
this is easy to fix. After all, you were a little bit frightened when they first
put you behind the wheel, but you got over it, especially when you learned to
use your mirrors. Having a mirror on the desk reduces your stress and neck pain
because you can see who is coming up behind you. Know what else it also reduces?
Typing mistakes, by about twenty percent! Every time you twist around your fingers
move off their position, and in the next three taps, one is probably going to
be a typo. So a little
piece of mirror can boost typing effectiveness by ten to twenty percent, while
reducing stress and neck pain. Is that a good investment or not? But if you're
dealing with a very successful person who is happy working with their back to
the door, well, don't argue with success.
Drs.
Ralph & Lahni DeAmicis are authors, professional speakers and consultants
who specialize in environmental design and health. Besides conducting hundreds
of public seminars, they have lectured extensively at international conferences.
They are authors of hundreds of articles, four books and several successful audio
programs. They were the directors for seven years of America's largest and most
modern Environmental design program of its kind. Recently their area of focus
has been on the art and science of improving the effectiveness of organizations
through workplace design. They appear frequently on television and radio.
Email:
Ralph@SpaceAndTime.com Website www.SpaceAndTime.com
They will be
speakers at the International
Conscious Design Conference in Parsippany, N.J. September 28-30.
Ralph
& Lahni will also bepresenting a special Focus Day class on Thursday, September
27, 2007 Empowerment
in the Office.
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