Space to assert your identity and needs

Spatial intelligence is fascinating to me.

Because it’s not my strength. The ability to visualize the positions of objects, their shapes, their spatial relations to one another and the movement they make, that’s hard for my brain. Words and ideas are more my thing.

However, working at an innovation studio for a few years helped me develop this skill. Our founders were fanatical about building physical products and building out immersive environments for our clients, like museum exhibits and other interactive experiences.

Their mentorship helped me developed a few tools in the spatial realm that have been incredibly useful.

The key is defining space as an area to assert your identity and needs. Understanding it that way makes spatial intelligence easier to express.

For example, have you ever found yourself out of your physical element and struggling to snap into the right creative mode? If so, the spatial tool that might help you is called turfing.

This is when you thoughtfully and intentionally build an environment framed to support your individual pursuit of meaning. No matter where you find yourself doing your creative work, optimize the user interface for your mind, body and spirit. Give yourself permission to modify your physical environment to nurture and relax you.

If you’re on the road, transform your hotel room into a space of psychic effectiveness. If you’re working out of a different office for a few weeks, organize your temporary desk so that it triggers healthy creative habits without thinking. If you’re home for the holidays, set aside a dedicated space and carve out specific time where you can process all your feelings and thoughts productively.

In short, make the space yours. If you can’t play on your home turf, roll it up and bring it with you.

Here’s another spatial tool that improves your ability to visualize objects, processes and relationships between them.

Flooring is where you corral the entirety of your project to be viewable in a single frame.

By spreading out your work on the floor, it gets you out of your chair and physically grounds you. It’s healthy for the soul.

What’s more, flooring speeds up the visualization process of evaluating ideas. It becomes easy to recognize patterns in a mass of information. What’s more, it allows other people on your team to stop by and spontaneously contribute to and interact with your project.

When you’re down on your knees, pushing papers and notecards around on the floor, curious coworkers won’t be able to resist engaging. Sure, it’s a bit performative, but that’s kind of the point. Even if you’re not really working that hard, it has the optics of a movie detective trying to solve a crime.

Both of these tools, turfing and flooring, are useful strategies to help you become more prolific. Even if you’re a more verbally or interpersonally motivated personality, consider engaging your spatial intelligence to drive innovative results.

How do you assert your identity with space?