The DE Genius Zone

Welcome back to Delux Designs (DE), LLC!
If you’re new to the DE website, we often blog and have different discussions on a variety of different topics but our main focus is on being a Creative, Arts and Crafts, along with Design work and Digital Marketing.
Today’s post topic is centered around our creative workspace.

The DE Genius Zone, or the creative area where our designs and creations are done, has always been small.
I personally started off creating from just a PC computer. One of those old school box types, that was really heavy and came with a lot of different parts and cords to it. When computer internet was run off of dial up and not Wi-Fi. Then as time passed my mom would get a newer model computer and I would be able to work from newer models at school as well. Keep in mind during that time period I was around 14-15 years old, just now transitioning from middle school life to the beginning of my high school educational career. Soon after enrolling into college when I was just 17 years old I got my first laptop. Like a brand new laptop fresh out of the box to get my school work done with and to push towards my ambitions to design and be creative.

So once I received my first laptop, my dorm room automatically became a work area for me for my business. Our dorm rooms at the time were private in this suite type of style so I had a lot of privacy of my own to get work done. My school work would be in one section of my desk and design orders in another. During undergrad, I ended up moving to an apartment and I would find space either in my bedroom or the living room of my one bedroom apartment. This was great but a little too spread out. My work was just everywhere and all over the place.

Now I have my own workspace from home where I have an area to place my work table which counters as a work desk so I can have more space, then another area for my painting easel, that way there’s not such a huge mess and paint all over everything. Storage units were put into place to remove everything from off the floor because starting off I didn’t have that many shelves or baskets and bins so everything was literally sitting on the floor for me. Had to start somewhere until I could get the money to get the necessary storage methods I needed.

What I Need for a Good Day in my Work Space

The main thing I need for a successful and good day in my work space is a continuous good playlist of music to listen to on my Tidal app. I have had a subscription with Tidal since the very beginning of it’s existence and won’t change to another music streaming service. They have pretty much everything that you would ever want to listen to, in full albums and no commercials. I love it. So in the mornings I will mainly listen to something upbeat to get me going but mellow at the same time. Something maybe soulful or r&b, with a family cookout vibe. If not that, my mornings start with gospel music, preferably Mary Mary and Kirk Franklin.

To go along with my music playlists daily, I need that natural light to come through and shine.
This is mainly during the late morning going into early afternoon for me.
During that time I am hard at work taking photos of my designs, crafts and products, or I’m painting to get creative juices going to begin my day. I always make sure I take advantage of that early in the day natural sunlight before anything else. Late in the evenings and nights is when I do most of my design work, paperwork and things of that nature.

Speaking of juice, I always have something to drink in my creative space.
Sometimes it’s coffee. Well everyday it’s coffee, preferably Dunkin Donuts Coffee, but I always have one or two bottles of water sitting around to drink as well. I have a snack area where I have little snacks like granola bars and cheez-its. I don’t like bringing real food into my work area like dinner plates and fast food in the event of a big drink spill, or grease and food getting onto art pieces.

Staying Productive in Genius Zone

To stay active and productive throughout the day, I made sure that I didn’t place a clock in my space.
The only way to tell time is by my phone or computer screens. For me having that physical clock in my space is counter productive and only leads me to continuously look at it all day counting down the minutes until I can take a break instead of focusing on getting my work done so I didn’t place one on the wall. I do however have a dry eraser board calendar to keep up with day to day assignments and upcoming project deadlines. It was important for me to purchase one that was dry erase so I can make continuous changes to it monthly without making a mess like with a chalk board and without wasting paper like with your traditional planners. With the calendar, I also made sure that I purchased a variety of different color dry eraser markers. This helps me with organizing and prioritizing. I have a small bulletin board for safe keeping important documents, and lots of pens, pencils and other little items for filing paperwork.

Hopefully, my Genius Zone will keep expanding over the next years to come and I will be back with a new post on the advancements. We have a goal to make it to our own physical brick and mortar art studio and gallery one day, so we will see soon where this creative journey takes us.

What’s in your Genius Zone?
Any items that you must have or that you would prefer not to have in your work space? Leave your thoughts and comments in the comment section below.

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