Starting the Cleanup: Design Meets Reality
I had planned to spend this weekend fully reorganizing my office.
I imagined the whole transformation: papers sorted, books ordered, shelves reset, cables tamed, a room built to support deep work and long-arc thinking.
And then life intervened.
Work deadlines expanded. Family needs shifted. Energy dipped. The time I thought I had evaporated, and instead of a full reset, I ended up somewhere in between: a few piles sorted, a bit of space reclaimed, a sense of direction but not the finish line.
A younger version of me would have treated this as failure.
I don’t see it that way anymore.
Design Is Usually What Happens After the Plan Breaks
This weekend reminded me of something I have to relearn regularly: design is not the pursuit of perfect execution. It’s the practice of adjusting constraints in real time.
We often pretend that progress comes from pristine plans, uninterrupted hours, and ideal conditions. But the truth—especially for those of us redesigning bodies, careers, or identities—is that most meaningful change happens in the messier middle.
You start.
Life pushes back.
You adapt.
You build a system flexible enough to absorb reality without losing direction.
Cleaning my office became a small example of the larger work I’m doing with Tour de Ken. I didn’t complete the transformation this weekend, but I did something just as important: I began shaping the context that will shape me. Even if it was imperfect. Even if the full redesign has to wait a bit longer.
Context Shapes Behavior, Even When It’s Not Finished
Here’s the part that surprised me: even the partial cleanup changed the energy of the room.
A small cleared surface made space for thinking.
A rearranged shelf brought the Thinking Design materials closer.
A decluttered corner made me breathe differently.
Design often works like that. You don’t need the whole system to change at once. You need enough change to shift momentum, to make future effort easier.
I’ll finish it next weekend. That’s the plan. But even if the plan bends again, I’ll keep returning to it until the space matches the identity I’m building.
Because the truth is simple: A room doesn’t need to be finished to start redesigning you.
This Week: Incomplete Is Still Progress
I’m sharing this because I think more people need to hear it: you don't have to be perfect to be moving forward.
Training for the Tour Divide has taught me this. Writing a book has taught me this. Chronic pain has forced me to learn this. And now something as mundane as cleaning my office is reflecting it back at me.
When life interrupts your plans, it isn’t a sign to stop.
It’s a chance to practice design under actual conditions.
Next week, I’ll share the “after” shot—whatever form that takes. Maybe I’ll finish the room. Maybe I’ll get halfway again. Maybe I’ll discover a new constraint I didn’t know I had.
Either way, the process will continue.
And the environment will keep shifting with me.
Ken Wake is a designer-philosopher, entrepreneur, EIR and Professor at Georgetown University, and founder of Watershed LLC. He is training for the 2,745-mile Tour Divide before he turns 50.
