Designing New Year’s Resolutions – The Long Read

As one year ends and another begins we’re driven to think about the high and low points of the last 12 months and to plan for the next 12, and beyond.  All of which leads to New Year’s resolutions, specific plants for making the next year more successful (however we define success) than the last.

Since design has such a big effect on how we think and behave, starting 2024 off with plans to elevate design-based experiences makes lots of sense.

As 2024 dawns:

• Really and carefully consider how the spaces you control can move your life in the directions you’d like it to go. Do you need to create a place in your home to meditate?  (If your answer to this question is “yes,” read this article.) To really concentrate on work you’ve brought home from the office?  (If so, read this article). To get your health in hand and eat healthy food? (For more related info on this topic, read this article.) Over the years, the Space Doctors have profiled in depth how to accomplish each of these things and many more.  Use the search box at the top of this page to steer yourself to the information you need right now.
• Move beyond thinking about just what you see as you move through your world. Most of us, happily, also have ears and noses and nerve endings in our skin that work hard for us every day.  Not considering them as you create a space is passing up opportunities to power up your world to achieve your goals.   The Space Doctors has reviewed all sorts of sensory inputs that can make their way to your brain; use the search bar above to learn more.
• As you consider the full range of your sensory experiences remember that one of them is dominant for you, it has the single most powerful effect on how you experience the world—which means it makes it much more likely that you’ll decide to act in one way or another or do something, or not. Your dominant sense is the one that pops first into your head when you reminisce about your best times.  For example:  when you think about great end-of-the-year gatherings you’ve attended, maybe times with all your cousins at your grandmother’s place, is your first sensory flashback the smell of the hot mulled cider?  The sound of the snow crunching under your feet as you hiked to the lake with your family?  The gentle warmth of the crocheted coverlet your Mom draped over you when you fell asleep waiting for Santa?  The sort of sensory experience that’s first to flash into your head is your dominant sense.  You have a dominant sense and so does everyone you share a space with.  Ask them the same questions you’ve asked yourself so you can plan the best for all.
• Turn a critical eye to the places where you spend your time and get rid of all of the annoying things in it. A set of wind chimes that’s always rattling?  Banish them to the basement (but only if they’re your wind chimes, the law frowns on cutting down other people’s chimes).  Upholstery on the dining room chairs that itches after you’ve sat on it for a little while?  Whip up or buy some slipcovers.  And, if you are unlucky enough to have the proverbial environmental annoyer: a dripping faucet?  Run to the store for a replacement washer.  Things that happen at random time intervals, not on predictable schedules, should be particularly high on your “fix it” list. Try to maximize your exposure to things that make it less likely you’ll feel stressed—for example, since seeing wood grain de-stresses us, you might want to roll back your carpets (but don’t create a tripping hazard!) so more of your hardwood floors show or open the window if you can hear nature outside—designing to reduce stress levels is discussed in this article.
• Remember that not everyone who will use the space is the same, and, particularly that they might not have the same place related expectations and ultimately, experiences, that you do—and even if you live alone, probably you will eventually have people visit your home. If you’re extraverted, for example, you may feel great about all of the options people have to sit on sofas in your living room, but as we talked about in this article LINK on designing to support different personalities, introverts prefer single-person chairs to sofas, that’s where they are most comfortable.  Also, extraverts prefer a sensory-rich experience, while introverts prefer one where sights and sounds and smells and textures are more carefully curated.  Extraverts are more positive about open environments, those with fewer walls between spaces for different sorts of activities, while introverts prefer a more segmented space, one in which spaces for different purposes are clearly delineated, with, as useful, walls and doors.  Extraverts and introverts even differ in the sorts of art they prefer—images, etc., with visible people for extraverts and those without, say landscapes without humans, for introverts.  And, as discussed in the linked-to article people’s personalities can also vary based on their openness to experience and conscientiousness (technical terms that are explained in the linked-to article and can sometimes be misleading without those explanations).  We’ve also talked about different ways of processing sensory information that are currently being discussed in the press, etc., as “neurodiversity;” neurodiverse individuals may be on the autism spectrum or have ADHD or dyslexia. Designing for neurodiverse people is reviewed here. 
• People have core space-based needs and not every room in every home, etc., needs to support all of them but the collection of spaces that people have at a single site must (say, all of the areas in a home, altogether). Those fundamental needs are discussed here, but here’s a quick recap:
  • People need to be able to pull messages from the world around themselves that elevate their self-esteem. If they are proud to be an Olympic sailor, something in their world must say “I am an Olympic sailor,” even if only symbolically—so the message could come from a photo of them marching into the Olympic stadium with teammates to sea shanties playing over a sound system (although let’s be real, the circle of sea shanty enthusiasts is very small indeed).
  • Even the most introverted of us needs to spend time with other people when we choose to—not every room in a home, etc., can only be equipped with only one seat. For more information on designing for mingling, read this article.
  • A space where people will spend time needs to be comfortable, for example, biophilicly designed, as discussed in this article.  an search for Biophilic Design in our search bar and also create your own report on Biophilic esign using our new i-journal). Another aspect of a comfortable space:  we have some control over what happens to us there, we can move curtains/blinds, choose our seat or even, perhaps, the room that we’re in. The single most important sort of control we can have over our physical lives, as determined by its effects on our mental wellbeing, is the ability to have privacy whenever we need it—that means no one can see or hear us and we can’t see or hear anyone else and we determine when or even if that condition will change.
  • Spaces need to seem familiar and we need to be able to understand how we’re supposed to use them, even if they’re not exactly like any place we’ve ever been before. A kitchen that’s distinctive because all of its walls are covered with rough-hewn natural stones may be a sort of place we’ve never been before, but if it doesn’t come complete with a way to cook food, it can’t succeed.
  • Places need to support our efforts to grow in ways that we find personally meaningful—if we want to be a great (or at least good amateur) cellist, we need to be able to practice, which may require soundproofing our practice room.
  • Most important of all, and as discussed at the beginning of this article, spaces and objects need to have forms, be designed, in ways that give us the opportunity to, at least potentially, succeed with whatever we’ve planned—which might be to write compelling advertising slogans in our home office (in which case we need to be able to concentrate and think creatively there, as discussed in this article) or get into great physical shape, which the physical environment can also support, as detailed in this article.  Since much of what we plan to do in the spaces we use is mentally exhausting, requiring that we concentrate/focus; the places where we spend time must, somehow, help us mentally refresh, as discussed in this article.
• Finally, be honest with yourself about what you and the people you share a space with like and act accordingly, as long as no one will be hurt, etc. If you like the colour blue (and odds are you do, because it’s the most popular colour, worldwide), paint your walls a shade of blue, even if peach is the trendy colour of the moment.  When we’re seeing the colours we like, feeling textures we have positive feelings about, etc., our mood is likely to improve, all else being equal, and when our mood gets better, our brains are more effective at reasoning and thinking creatively, for instance, and we get along better with other people, just for starters.