Chi comes in the main office door and circulates around the room, exiting through
other doors and windows.
If your office door does not open all the way due to furniture or boxes in the way, you are blocking the flow of chi—vitality, inspiration, and opportunities—to your business. Make sure your office door opens completely and easily, and that nothing is stored behind it.
If your office windows are open and there’s a steady breeze through the room,
chi may be coming in the windows and leaving through the door. This effect is
temporary, lasting only so long as the windows remain open and the breeze contin- ues to blow. If the breeze is strong enough to blow papers off your desk, there’s too much chi coming through: close the window!
The number and position of doors and windows in your office is the primary factor in how chi moves through the space:
• If chi flow is blocked, the energy in the office will stagnate, and so will your business; you are likely to feel that no matter how much time you spend at your desk, you just don’t get much done.
• If chi flows too quickly through your office, it will be difficult for you to benefit from the energy and opportunities that it brings; you may feel as though you are working frantically at many different tasks without reaping much benefit from your efforts.
HOW YOUR OFFICE LAYOUT DIRECTS CHI
Here’s a brief review of some typical room layouts, and how they affect chi flow (suggested remedies are provided in Chapter 5).
• One door, one or two windows (see diagram, previous page)
This type of layout encourages chi to move around the space before exiting out the windows or a secondary door.
• One door, no windows:
Chi comes in but there’s no place for it to go except back out the way it came in.
This creates creates confusion and a bottleneck at the doorway. The corners of the room are likely to feel “dead.”
You may feel that “you don’t know if you are coming or going,” directionless, muddled-headed, and uninspired in this space. Good ventilation, natural light, and a pleasant view are chi indicators: this room has none of these important features.
Aligned doors encourage chi to flow out of the room as quickly as it comes in. • Two aligned doors, no (or very small) windows
Here the chi comes in one door and goes straight through the room and out the other door. The chi flow between the two doors is too strong, but in the rest of the room chi is weak.
This room layout is common in city townhouses that have been converted to floor-through apartments. In a room in the middle of the apartment any win- dows (if there are any) are small and open onto an airshaft, providing little in the way of ventilation and natural light.
Depending on where you are seated in this room, you may feel tense or un- settled, or be easily distracted, feeling that all the action is happening elsewhere and you ought to go check it out.
• Too many windows (plate glass wall, large sliding glass door, etc.)
In a room dominated by large windows (and/or sliding glass doors), the chi flowing out the windows is partially balanced by chi coming in through the windows along with all that natural light and air.
However, you will probably find that it is hard to keep your mind on your work, because your focus is likely to go out the window. You may spend more time daydreaming than working.
Rooms with many windows encourage your thoughts to wander.
ARRANGING YOUR FURNITURE FOR GOOD CHI FLOW
As you decide where to place the rest of your office furniture, keep in mind how that will affect the flow of chi:
• Where chi is flowing too quickly, it can be diverted by a side table, chair, file cabinet, or bookcase.
• Where chi is flowing slowly, try to leave the area open and unblocked.
• Encourage chi to circulate through the room by allowing access to doors and windows
• Pay attention to the corners of the room. Chi tends to get stuck there, and it’s where clutter accumulates. Try not to fill up all the corners of a room with furni- ture or stuff, to help prevent stagnant energy in the corners.
This will help to keep the chi in your office fresh, and by making the effort to find appropriate storage for extra things, rather than just dumping them in a convenient corner, you will help prevent clutter from piling up.
DON’T CROWD THE DESK
Proper placement of the desk relative to other furniture in the room is as important as placing the desk in an auspicious position within the room. Be sure to allow plenty of room around the desk. Crowding here will have a negative impact on your energy and the health of your business.
• You should be able to pull your desk chair out far enough to allow you to sit down and get up again easily, without bumping the chair against the wall be- hind you.
This desk is too close to the corner. Move it further from the wall(s).
Here access to the the desk is restrictred by the bookcase and large plants; move them further away for greater ease of movement—
in the office and in your business experience.
• You should be able to move around your desk comfortably. If you have to sidle sideways past other furniture in order to get to your desk, you may be restricted in your business as well.
ACTION STEP
Evaluate the chi flow in your office:
How many doors and windows does your space have?
Is there a good distribution of door(s)/windows on at least two sides of the room, or is all the movement in and out of the room happening on one side?
When you enter the room, where does your attention go?
What happens to your energy after you have been in that room for a half-hour or longer? Do you feel:
• alert and focused (appropriate amount of chi)
• draggy and uninspired (too little chi)
• stressed, distracted, and irritable (too much chi)
Have you allowed adequate space around your desk for ease of movement, or do you need to adjust the position of your desk and/or other furniture?
If the chi in your office feels unbalanced—insufficient or too strong —there are many ways you can use furnishings, accessories, and feng shui remedies or “cures” to adjust it. You’ll learn how to do this in the next chapter…