A room arranged entirely for visitors may leave its owner feeling hosted.

There is a way of setting up a home so completely for other people that you no longer have a place in it. Everything is arranged for the guest’s comfort, the good chair is kept for company, and the person who lives there ends up as staff in their own front room. Hospitality is a fine impulse; a home built solely out of it stops offering anything back.

Find one spot in your home that is arranged for you alone and treat it as settled. It can be small, so long as you would not rearrange it because somebody is coming.