I just ended one of the most stressful stretches of days in recent memory. One of those times when everything in life clumps up together for no apparent reason, all you can do is break out the chisel and start pecking through.

Six of the past ten days were spent sunrise to sunset working on philosophy papers. I love doing it, of course, but the constraints of artificial deadlines means I can't explore the ideas I want to explore at pace. Get an idea, push it out, check the logic, move on. I'm still a little bleary-eyed and sponge-brained from it all. The other four days were spent doing work, whcih I swear I was only functioning at 20% capacity.

Fortunately, just before the week began I settled on a coworking space. This was after visiting three other spaces, two of which over/mischarged me and wouldn't respond to my attempts at contacting them. The third felt like I was working in a display case at a department store while business bros walked around behind me and discussed typefaces on their cards.

Before taking this plunge I was worried that using a coworking space was a waste of money, that I should just buck up and work from home like I have for the past 15 years. After spending more time in the coworking space than at home this week, I'm happy to report the experiment went well. I genuinely do not think I could have gotten through this work/school week without that office space. Being able to neatly divide relaxation from non-relaxation by simply changing environment is incredibly powerful.

With this space in my toolbelt I'm hoping to cut down on necessary work and focus more on side projects I've been neglecting. It has been tough getting time/space for writing and researching books, but with coworking HQ all I have to do is show up, then accomplishment mode is engaged.