The Magician: What does your most creative space look like?

When the COVID-19 pandemic forced many of us to work from home, I immediately fast-tracked one of my many stalled projects: I created my home office.

Like, a real office I would want to sit in all day. 

One frenetic day of typing at my dining room table — with the sounds of my daughter and barking chihuahuas in the background — was enough for me to focus all of my energy into making this happen.

So within a week, I turned the upstairs guest bedroom into my “Office of Magic.” 

I wanted a space that evoked whimsy and mystery and magic. A room with a Harry Potter/Hogwarts vibe.

And luckily, I already had the most expensive elements strewn around the house. So I went “shopping” in my other rooms:

It started with the desk: The wide, fancy brown desk that was one of my first adult purchases of my 20s. This is the desk that inspired the nickname,  “Oval Office,” in our tiny starter home. We moved this monster upstairs, along with our printer and a decorative filing cabinet. I turned an unused TV into a second monitor for my laptop (one of the best decisions ever).

Then there was the salmon-pink area rug I got on sale about a year earlier, along with the feminine, tufted Victorian chair that makes me think of fortune tellers and seances.

My husband hung the “Phases of the Moon” and “Signs of Zodiac” framed prints that were stored away in a closet, waiting for this moment.

The painted dresser I bought at an estate sale years earlier would display my tarot cards and candles.

Once the foundational items were in place, I treated myself to an online quest for the finishing touches: 

• A medieval “Unicorn in Captivity” fabric wall hanging, which can be seen during my Zoom chats.
• A Griffin floor lamp, from the Harry Potter collection at Pottery Barn Teen. (A real splurge!)
• Quality external speakers that plug into my laptop — gamechanger.
• A mousepad that looks like a small area rug.
• Finally, an inexpensive pin board to hang over the desk. This serves as my ever-changing vision board.

With about $500 and a short amount of time, I created a delightful “Office of Magic” — a space where I spend more than 40 hours a week. 

This entire creative experience is what comes to mind when I consider the meaning of The Magician. 

When I look at the Magician card, I first notice the wand and the table: All of the tools are ready to go. In this case, the tools are all four suits of the tarot: Pentacles, Cups, Wands, and Swords. I also note how the mage is surrounded by natural beauty: Vines and white lilies grow from below and red roses are draped from above. 

The general consensus about the card’s theme is the power of the mind — the creative power of the concentrated mind. 

In order for me to concentrate and really get into creative “flow,” I need all of my tools on the table. I need the space and time to radically focus. 

My “Office of Magic” is designed to help me focus. It’s the one place in my home that is designated for paid work. I burn scented candles, adjust the light and temperature as necessary, and stream music to fit the mood: Sometimes Tibetan singing bowls to relax, sometimes Jock Jams from the ’90s to fire me up. 

Beyond concentrating on my tools and physical space for creating magic, I also have learned the power of focusing on concrete goals.

Early in 2019, I checked out the business book “Traction” by Gino Wickman. 

One of the most memorable takeaways was the concept of “Rocks,” which the author actually credits to an analogy in Stephen Covey’s book “First Things First.”

This passage is long, but it could change your life. Trust me!

Wickman writes:

Picture a glass cylinder set on a table. Next to the cylinder are rocks, gravel, sand, and a glass of water. Imagine the glass cylinder as all of the time you have in a day. The rocks are your main priorities, the gravel represents your day-to-day responsibilities, the sand represents interruptions, and the water is everything else that you get hit with during your workday. If you, as most people do, pour the water in first, the sand in second, the gravel in third, and the rocks last, what happens? Those big priorities won’t fit inside the glass cylinder. That’s your typical day.

What happens if you do the reverse? Work on the big stuff first: Put the rocks in. Next come the day-to-day responsibilities: Add the gravel. Now dump in the sand, all those interruptions. Finally, pour the water in. Everything fits in the glass cylinder perfectly; everything fits into your day perfectly. The bottom line is that you need to work on the biggest priorities — your Rocks — first. Everything else will fall into place.

While the book is aimed at businesses, I used its trademarked Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS) to create my own personal strategic plan. It forced me to think through my core values and personal priorities — about the life I really wanted for myself and my family. What were our Rocks?

After chewing on the ideas for weeks, I chose 12 areas to focus on, including “health,” “wealth,” and “adventures.” What do I want to see happen in each category in 10 years? In three years? In one? And then … how can I get closer to that vision in the next 90 days?

What daily habits will help me realize this vision?

I refuse to organize my life in corporate terms (quarters), so instead, I organize by the natural seasons.

My first 90-day plan began on the first day of spring 2019. I kept track of my goals and progress with a modified template provided in the book. This template lives in one of my Google Docs … kind of my own personal dashboard … and I use it and my Google Calendar to stay on track.

I started theme-ing each of my seasons with only one word, to help focus even more. For example: Fire, Joy, Magic, and Peace.

A year later, I was excited to report: 

HEALTH: I developed daily yoga practice … and yes, with a handful of exceptions, it really was daily. Even through vacations and overnight work conferences and a badly bruised knee. All because of the free “Yoga with Adriene” videos on YouTube. I started small with Adriene’s “30 Days of Yoga” series. And I’ve kept up the habit with her monthly calendar: https://yogawithadriene.com/calendar/.

WEALTH: Beyond meeting my ROTH IRA savings goal for 2019 (yay!) … our family established a weekly “Sunday feast” with Grandma that doubled as meal prep, which helped cut our annual restaurant spending in half. (This was well before the COVID pandemic.)

ADVENTURES: Before my Traction plan, I rarely took advantage of the abundant outdoor amenities here in Virginia’s Blue Ridge. (I didn’t even own a bike.) By the end of the year, our family was biking the greenway almost every warm weekend. In the realm of kitchen adventures, I learned how to make some of my favorite foods: Homemade chicken noodle soup … banana bread … and cinnamon rolls from scratch.

Now it’s almost been two years since I started my first Traction plan, and I realized 12 areas of focus are way too many! This was overly ambitious. Five (5) seems like a much more manageable number, especially now that our lives have been turned upside down by COVID. Since the onset of the pandemic, I trained for a 5K (that never happened) and purged and organized key rooms in our house. All I had to do was focus.

Most importantly, “Traction” helped fortify a habit of looking toward the weeks and months ahead and prioritizing my “rocks.” I’m much more intentional, and I concentrate my mental energy on what matters most … like sending birthday cards on time … or turning milestones into “magic moments” with a little extra sparkle. Example: How could you make the first or last day of school a little more special?

Even spending just 30 minutes thinking through the next season, noting the birthdays/anniversaries and a few goals on your calendar, could change you life. Here are four “start” dates to consider: Dec. 21 (winter); March 21 (spring); June 21 (summer) and Sept. 21 (autumn). This is an excellent way to savor the seasons … to make time for picnics, pumpkin hunts, and other activities we often forget to schedule. Why not start now?

With radical focus, I’m designing my life for joy, peace, and magic. And I’m usually designing it while jock-jamming in my beautiful “Office of Magic.”

Questions to consider if you draw The Magician:

• Do you have a designated space to get into a creative flow? (This could be any room for any creative activity, including cooking.)
• How could your space help you make more magic? What tools do you need? What inspires you?
• What are your “rocks” in life? Where do you want to radically focus your energy?