Willard Van Orman Quine - "Dad built himself a small "shack" as he called it to be as far away from the family noise as possible. That way he could work to his heart's content and not interfere with the noisy comings and goings of the likes of my brother and me and our friends. It was not wired for electricity, so when it was late or dark or stormy, he would light his kerosene lanterns and keep pounding away on his typewriter."
Wilhelm Peterson-Berger - Wrote warm, lyrical piano songs called Frösöblomster in a rustic house called "Sommarhagen" that he built on the island of Frösö.
Birgit Friggebo - In 1979 this Swedish Housing Minister changed the building codes to exempt structures under 15 square meters. Minimalist cabins ensued and are called "friggebods."
Gustav Mahler - Built a tiny composition house or "Komponierhäuschen" at the edge of a lake.
Cave Monasteries of Byzantine Cappadocia - VERY rudimentary, created by orthodox monks seeking Hesychasm.
Skellig Michael clocháns - beehive dwellings made of piled stones used by monks on cliffs on an island off of Ireland.
Ludwig Wittgenstein - built a cabin in Skjolden Norway in which to do his uncompromising philosophy. There are pictures and details of this cabin in the book "Ludwig Wittenstein: There where you are not."
Toru Takemitsu - Wrote haiku-like music blending Eastern sensibilities with Western instruments. He lived in a barn for a time to better focus on composition.
пустынь - In English, poustinia. A small, sparsely furnished cabin for solitary (generally religious) retreats.
Dick Proenneke - Filmed himself building a cabin in Alaska in the movie "Alone in the Wilderness." He's pretty amazing.
Ryōkan Taigu - A buddhist monk who left the monastery to live in a hut outside of town. He wrote poems about his daily life and his shack.
Ted Kaczynski - Aka The Unabomber. Before he snapped he was a mathematician studying complex analysis. Built a tiny cabin in Montana which he filled with books and supplies.
The movies about Dick Proenneke are amazing. He filmed himself building his "house" and then proceeded to film and document his surroundings. When watching him build the house in "Alone in the wilderness" I thought that was what "flow" must be like. He has excellent woodworking skills, seeing the house rise from the ground was amazing.
I recently did this for my girlfriend, for about $200 and two weekends we converted an old garden tool shed into her film scoring and sound design studio. I can see her productivity skyrocket when she went from working in the house to working out in the studio. I really think it is about a single focus in a cozy space that has a single purpose.
My theory was that it's about interruptions - it's easier to work someplace where there are barriers to interruptions. If you're doing something at the dinner table, someone walking by and casually asking you a question can break you out of flow. If you're in a shed in the backyard, casual visitors are less of a problem.
My current issue is self-interruptions. Even with nobody around and the phone turned off, I'll be working away and with no conscious intent I'll suddenly have spent 10 minutes checking Facebook or something.
Sadly, I don't have a shed, so my project this weekend was to rehab my old laptop to be the "fun" laptop and my main one to be the "productive" laptop. I've set up LeechBlock, removed the personal mail account, and deleted a bunch of other distractions. I hope keeping the fun-capable computer physically separate (and probably switched off and in a drawer) will have some of the same context-setting power as a shed.
By coincidence I just visited George Bernard Shaw's "writing hut" today. His house is now a National Trust museum called Shaw's Corner. I noticed that his hut had electricity, heating, a bed and a telephone -- pretty modern!
My solution is to find a University library, and find a desk in the remotest stacks (Celestial Mechanics seems to work well). Not customisable, but quiet.
It is surprising that people were able to write legendary works with simple paper and pencil. There must be something wrong with my quest to find a perfect productivity technique.
In the UK, allotments can have sheds. Allotments are public fields that you can rent a plot on for not too much money to grow food. They are often near railways, just below the embankments. They date from when terraced houses did not have any yard space. Some are very popular with waiting lists, some less so.
I go past a shed on an allotment each day that is built from old doors. The long walls are five doors, and the short walls are three doors. They are nailed to fairly substantial planks top and bottom, and there is a tarpaper style roof. One of the doors is actually mounted on hinges so is the actual door. The owner has used half glazed doors so the interior must have fantastic light. I'd imagine there must be some kind of floor rather than just earth.
I wonder if there is a business idea in this?
There are a lot of writers in NYC. So you buy a warehouse, and divide the space up into really small, sound-proof rooms.
Charge customers $250 a month to rent the space.
Just have to make sure customers are not sleeping in the room.
Love it. I wanted to do this in Singapore. There are lots of co-working spaces but they're all so damn social, and what I really want is solitude.
I thought it'd be great to make a co-working space called "Solitude" with lots of little 1-person rooms, and make it clear to any new customers that we're not here to chat and hang out.
But alas it seemed that not many people were into this idea, and Singapore is so insanely expensive that it makes more sense to just find a quiet place at the library or something.
Willard Van Orman Quine - "Dad built himself a small "shack" as he called it to be as far away from the family noise as possible. That way he could work to his heart's content and not interfere with the noisy comings and goings of the likes of my brother and me and our friends. It was not wired for electricity, so when it was late or dark or stormy, he would light his kerosene lanterns and keep pounding away on his typewriter."
Wilhelm Peterson-Berger - Wrote warm, lyrical piano songs called Frösöblomster in a rustic house called "Sommarhagen" that he built on the island of Frösö.
Birgit Friggebo - In 1979 this Swedish Housing Minister changed the building codes to exempt structures under 15 square meters. Minimalist cabins ensued and are called "friggebods."
Gustav Mahler - Built a tiny composition house or "Komponierhäuschen" at the edge of a lake.
Cave Monasteries of Byzantine Cappadocia - VERY rudimentary, created by orthodox monks seeking Hesychasm.
Skellig Michael clocháns - beehive dwellings made of piled stones used by monks on cliffs on an island off of Ireland.
Ludwig Wittgenstein - built a cabin in Skjolden Norway in which to do his uncompromising philosophy. There are pictures and details of this cabin in the book "Ludwig Wittenstein: There where you are not."
Toru Takemitsu - Wrote haiku-like music blending Eastern sensibilities with Western instruments. He lived in a barn for a time to better focus on composition.
пустынь - In English, poustinia. A small, sparsely furnished cabin for solitary (generally religious) retreats.
Dick Proenneke - Filmed himself building a cabin in Alaska in the movie "Alone in the Wilderness." He's pretty amazing.
Ryōkan Taigu - A buddhist monk who left the monastery to live in a hut outside of town. He wrote poems about his daily life and his shack.
Ted Kaczynski - Aka The Unabomber. Before he snapped he was a mathematician studying complex analysis. Built a tiny cabin in Montana which he filled with books and supplies.