Greetings from Hyderabad, India!

I start my fourth semester at Minerva University this week. Moving to a new country every semester as part of my program has made me realize that there are three levels to our living environment:

• Individual
• Neighborhood
• Country/Regional

All of these levels, to some extent, influence how we feel and act on a daily basis. Today, I’ll delve into the individual level and how I’ve tried to optimize it.

🏡 The Individual Level

For most people, this level encompasses their home and work environments—environments they spend a lot of time in.

As such, this is the level with the most significant and direct influence on how we feel and act.

• Do you work from a cubicle that you can focus in, or an open office that facilitates team collaboration?
• Is your home bright and airy, or painted in dark colors for a more chill vibe?

If your living space doesn’t pass your vibe check now, that’s okay! I found these three questions helpful in tweaking my living space, and I hope they will be for you, too:

💰 1. How much autonomy and resources do you have?

The optimizations you can make greatly depend on:

1. the size of your budget, and
2. the amount of autonomy you have over your space.

For example, a wall-mounted painting might inspire you to be more creative, but that painting that truly brings out the best in you might be beyond your budget.

That light blue paint on your room’s wall might be too cheery for you, but as a tenant, it might be too much hassle to get it painted (and repainted when you move out).

🤔 2. What vibes do you want this space to have?

Having a vision for the space before transforming it can help you save time and money.

For example, I might not need to repaint the walls if I want to feel creative when working in my bedroom.

A simple, inexpensive re-positioning of my desk, such that I am facing the window whenever I work, might do the trick. The natural sunlight coming through the window will lift my mood, which will help me feel creative, too.

Two questions that helped me create a “vibe check” for my ideal space were:

• What are you using this space for? (Work, relaxation, introspection, etc.)
• How do you want to feel when you are doing these activities in this space, and why?

⚒️ 3. What transformations do you need to pass your vibe check?

Here are some areas you can play around with, starting from those that require the most autonomy and money:

Furniture

Apart from aesthetics, it’s vital for you to feel comfortable using your furniture.

Otherwise, you’ll associate the furniture and the surrounding space with pain and discomfort.

In Seoul, my chair was uncomfortable to sit on, so I couldn’t focus when working at my desk.

Eventually, I spent most of my time working from my bed or at a cafe nearby—I was much more productive in these locations than working from my desk.

Colors

Apart from the colors of your walls or furniture, you can also control the color of your bedsheets, sofa covers, and room lighting.

While subtle, colors can become the main contributor to the mood of a space. In Taipei, most of my room’s furniture was white. The room would’ve felt as sterile as a hospital if it wasn’t for the warm-colored ceiling lights.

Stationery and (re)movable decor

Are your pens all over your desk? Organizing them with a small desk organizer can help.

If you have a thing for plants, the cuteness oozing from a pot of baby succulents can lift your mood too.

An often-overlooked aspect of a space is its smell. Some of my classmates have reed diffusers in their rooms, and the light lavender scents they used made me feel relaxed and welcomed.

Likewise, you can use scents to help you relax or concentrate better. If you’re afraid to commit to a proper diffuser, a few drops of scented oil on a piece of tissue can be an inexpensive way to test the waters.

Level of Organization

A cluttered workspace can make it difficult and discouraging to work in.

In Taipei, my roommate kept nothing but her water bottle on her desk. Meanwhile, my mini whiteboard, mechanical keyboard, random stationery, and stacked receipts left very little space for me to work at my desk.

(I kept telling myself I’d paste those receipts into my journal later, but I never got to it, so the stack of papers collected dust throughout the semester.)

The clutter eventually motivated me to work from my bed, which was only one step away from my desk, while my roommate continued to use her desk for work.

How am I transforming my space in Hyderabad?

Since I’m staying in university-provided accommodation, I have limited freedom to play around with furniture or colors.

I also share my bedroom and workspace with others. For some semesters, this means that I might not have a desk of my own—as is the case this semester.

With these circumstances in mind, I’ve decided to focus on reducing clutter this semester. Historically, my mechanical keyboard took up a lot of desk space, so I’ve switched to using a smaller, thinner Bluetooth keyboard.

It’s only been a week with this arrangement, so I haven’t gathered enough data on whether it’s an effective transformation.

However, I do miss the heavenly feeling of typing on my mechanical keyboard, so my workspace has been less motivating to work in than before. I’m curious to see how it’ll go.

Next week, I’ll discuss the neighborhood level—inspired mostly by my childhood growing up near a beach and my semester living at the edge of San Francisco’s seedy, yet diverse Tenderloin neighborhood.