The Happiness Project: Quiz: Is the Design of Your Office Space Making You Happy? Or Driving You Crazy?

The Happiness Project

THE HAPPINESS PROJECT is the memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier – happily, it was a #1 New York Times bestseller. As one of the hundreds of experiments I've conducted, I started this blog. Here, I recount my daily adventures in pursuit of happiness. –

Gretchen Rubin

What Started Me Thinking

"The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up." Mark Twain
“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson
"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil
“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Colette
“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton
“A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.” Joseph Addison
“Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
“Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope

Happiness Theories I Reject

Flaubert: "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
Vauvenargues: “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”
Eric Hoffer: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
Sartre: "Hell is other people."
Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”
John Stuart Mill: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

Every Wednesday is Tip Day—or quiz day.
This Wednesday: Quiz—is the the design of your office space making you happy?

Of all the books I’ve read in the last few years, few have made a deeper impression on me than A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction. This strange, brilliant, fascinating book uses architecture, sociology, psychology, and anthropology to describe the most satisfying architectural environments.

Instead of talking about familiar architectural styles and elements, for example, it focuses on the Sitting Wall, the Front Door Bench, the Child Caves, the Sequence of Sitting Spaces, the Sleeping to the East. I love these! I want them for my own apartment!

Ever since I read this book, I’ve been working my way through everything written by Christopher Alexander. Fascinating stuff.

The book discusses houses, but it also covers commercial spaces and offices. Are you being driven crazy at work by misplaced walls or the wrong kind of noise? Take this quiz to see how your office measures up.

I put a “yes” or “no” after each element, as it applies to my own office.

there’s a wall behind you (so no one can sneak up behind you). Yes.
there’s a wall to one side (too much openness makes you feel exposed). Yes.
there’s no blank wall within 8 feet in front of you (or you have no place to rest your eyes). No, I sit right in front of a wall.
you work in at least 60 square feet (or you feel cramped). No; my office is tiny.
your workspace is 50-75% enclosed by walls or windows (so you have a feeling of openness). Not exactly sure what this one means.
you have a view to the outside (no matter how large your office, you will feel confined in a room without a view). Yes—no nice view, but I can see outside. Having a window is enormously important to me.
you are aware of at least 2 other people, but not more than 8 people, around you (less than 2, you feel isolated and ignored; more than 8, you feel like a cog in a machine). No, I'm all alone.
you can’t hear workplaces noises that are very different from the kind of noises you make at work (you concentrate better when the people around you are engaged in similar tasks, not very different tasks). No, I can hear other kinds of workplace noises. The building next door to mine is undergoing a lot of construction, so I hear jackhammers, workmen talking, etc.
no one is sitting directly opposite you and facing you. No.
you can face in different directions at different times. Yes.
you can see at least 2 other people, but not more than 4. No.
you have at least one co-worker within talking distance. No.
to make the space more attractive, incorporate Windows Overlooking Life, a Half-Open Wall, Thick Walls, Open Shelves, Pools of Light (over the workspace), and a nearby Sitting Circle.

Most of us can't change much about the design of our offices, but these elements at least furnish a few ideas.

My office is very, very small. If I had more room and space, I would love to have a horseshoe-shaped desk, with enormous amounts of surface space, as well as a treadmill desk. Oh, how I long for a treadmill desk! And, of course, Windows Overlooking Life.

How does the design of your workplace measure up? Do you agree with these points?

* I was so excited to see my book featured on CoverSpy, where "a team of publishing nerds hits the subway, streets, parks & bars to find out what New Yorkers are reading now."

* It’s Word-of-Mouth Day, when I gently encourage (or, you might think, pester) you to spread the word about the Happiness Project. You might:
-- NEW! Watch the TV commercial! (crazy, right? a TV commercial!)
-- Forward the link to someone you think would be interested
-- Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @gretchenrubin)
-- Sign up for my free monthly newsletter (about 42,000 people get it)
-- Buy the book
-- Join the 2010 Happiness Challenge to make 2010 a happier year
-- Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update
-- Watch the one-minute book video
Thanks! I really appreciate any help. Word of mouth is the BEST.