Keep Your Eye Off the Ball [and on the end result]

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I was in Florida on vacation and learned to play “Golf Croquet” which is a super strategic and more intricate version of backyard croquet.

The interesting thing about Golf Croquet is how impossibly narrow the wickets are. You need a precise and direct shot to get the ball through. We were lucky enough to be given a clinic with a Golf Croquet pro who taught us some tricks and tips to get us on our way.

One piece of advice that worked surprisingly well was to keep your head down through the duration of the shot.

What I didn’t realize is that in moving your head up to watch your shot you inadvertantly move your shoulders and body causing the ball to veer off from your intended path. If you keep your head down the shot will go exactly where you are aiming.

What a perfect metaphor for intention and visualization! Figure out your intention, visualize where you want it to go and then take your action. Don’t worry about how you are going to get from here to there, just trust [in yourself, your ability, the forces that will guide you] that you will get where you want to go.

Top 10 Ways I Procrastinate [and how to avoid them.]

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None of these actions are inherently ‘wrong’ but when used as an escape method they can quickly kill my productivity. I’m also listing the strategies I use to work through these blocks. I’m not perfect and on the days that Resistance is at his/her/its fiercest I can easily fall prey to all of these. My goal is to do my best and to remain flexible.

1. Read Celebrity Blogs. Celebrity blogs are fun and it is definately interesting to experience Pop Culture in this way. Arguably, since I do a lot of my cartoon work about modern culture I almost *need* to read these blogs but probably not as much as I do. Watching Lindsay Lohan take another drunken digger exiting a nightclub does nothing for my creative flow.

Strategy: I use the blogs as a treat–a reward for committing to my work for a certain amount of time.

 

2. “Research.” Oh yes, I absolutely need to do research for almost everything I work on but I can also get lost in looking around. One link leads to another and next thing I know I am looking at the world’s worst Photoshop jobs, Plastic surgery horrors or yet another round of sidewalk chalk drawings. Many an hour has been lost in the bermuda triangle that is Google Images.

Strategy: I do my research *after* I’ve laid out the broad strokes. Once I get things rolling I then go in and supplement. When I’m working on a cartoon–I might need to research images to see all the details of a grocery store shelf but not when I’m in the initial concept phase. First I get it down on paper, work out the gag and then research the details.

 

3. Get a Snack. Yes, working at home is great but it also has it’s challenges, one of them being the refrigerator. It is all too easy to get frustrated or stuck and wander out of the studio into the kitchen for some quick tastebud gratification.

Strategy: I’ve managed to work through this by keeping snack foods out of the house, by eating several small meals throughout the day and by recognizing when I’m actually hungry or when I’m trying to run away from the project. If I need to get up and get something I make a pot of Yerba Mate or Green Tea.

 

4. Call a Friend. I love my friends and I love chatting. I like to kid myself and say that I’m ‘mulit-tasking’ but truthfully I cannot focus on my work and listen to the ‘small voice inside’ while I’m yapping.

Strategy: I call my friends when I’m in more of the auto-pilot stage of production–coloring, scanning, cropping. These things do not take as much mental focus and I connect with friends and have fun while I’m doing it.

 

5. Check my Email. Yes, I love email. I need email. Most of my business interactions are through email. Email is good. Email is not so good when I check it a hundred times a day. Years ago I thought I was smart enough to turn off the little alarm that elicits a Pavlovian response every time a new message comes in. Now, if I’m not careful I can end up spending hours checking and rechecking and even worse, I can be in the middle of working get an email that needs an action on my part and completely lose my focus.

Strategy: Timothy Ferris in the “Four Hour Workweek” suggests checking email only once a week. While that is a bit extreme for me, I do find that it helps to check email first thing, at noon and then again in the afternoon instead of every 5 minutes.

 

6. Check my IRA. Sure, I need to be aware of my financial status but probably not when I’m in the middle of working and definately not when the news is all hopped up on the latest financial tragedies.

Strategy: Don’t check it! Especially on days when the market is down.

 

7. Do Laundry, Wash Dishes, Mop Floor. Of course I need to do household chores [I can't even get things done when the house is a mess] but not during working hours. Again, it’s great to work at home because I can throw a load of laundry in while I’m waiting for a large image to scan but at the same time I need to be aware that studio time is sacred.

Strategy: Official studio hours for me are from 10-3. That’s working time. I might end up working more than those hours [and frequently do] but I must reserve those hours as sacred space and allow myself to do my chores outside of that time.

 

8. Organize Sock Drawer. This is similar to #7 and again, an organized sock drawer is a good thing, so is an organized life but not during working hours. Rainy days, weekends, snow storms, all good times for organizing. Right when I’m about to finish a book? Bad timing.

Strategy: I’ll say it again: official studio hours for me are from 10-3.

 

9. Leave. Sure it’s tempting to go out and sit on the beach instead of working. Sometimes these breaks are completely necessary–when ideas don’t come it really can help to have a “nothing” day to recharge your creative energy. I’m all for vacations and R&R but need to be careful that I am recharging and not resisting.

Strategy: I try and stick to my studio hours and schedule in fun things to keep myself sane. If I give myself personal deadlines and weekly goals I seem to do better at keeping honest and getting things done even with the fun breaks in between.

 

10. Listen to the Voices that Say You Can’t. Yup, there they go again and it comes from all sides. Sometimes it’s my inner self doubt that starts to question the project, the quality, the validity. Other times the voices come from other well-meaning people [usually blocked themselves] that kindly remind me how hard it is to make a living as a painter or that Van Gogh didn’t make a dime until he was dead. If I listen to any of these voices, inside or out, I’m screwed.

Strategy: Get out of my own way. Remember that I’m just the messenger here. There are images and words and ideas that need to come out and it’s my responsibility to put them on the page, not to question them or second guess them. 

 

 

 

Why You Can’t Get Any Work Done

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Do you ever feel like you have the greatest intentions to create something and you can’t seem to finish it? Maybe you can’t even start it. The studio is waiting but you seem to have a million excuses why you can’t get it done.

There is a reason people spend hours trolling celebrity gossip sites, being addicted to their cell phones, check their email incessantly or gleefully accept any and all invitations to leave the studio instead of doing the work. It’s called “Resistance.”

I just read  “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield and was truly blown away. He got right in my face and set me straight. It’s “Resistance” that can stop us dead in our tracks and it can be fierce.

Resistance is the force that wants to stop us from our creative endeavors which include anything from making art to sticking to a fitness plan to helping other people or anything that will better us as a person on a visceral level.

The more important the project to our soul the stronger the resistance.

I’ve felt this many times but didn’t realize so many other artists were feeling the same thing. I thought I was distracted or lazy or too busy.

Steven Pressfield  has an insightful parable of how forceful resistance can be:

“You know, Hitler wanted to be an artist. At 18 he took his inheritance, seven hundred kronen, and moved to Vienna to live and study. …Ever see one of his paintings? Neither have I. Resistance beat him. Call it an overstatement but I’ll say it anyway: it was easier for Hitler to start WWII than it was for him to face a blank canvas.”

His advice is to do the work and when Resistance rears it’s ugly head [and it will] to fight it to the death and keep on going.

Resistance feeds on fear [fear of failure, fear of success, fear of sounding like an idiot etc.] and can show up in a variety of ways. You have to be more persistent than the Resistance itself.

Every Thursday I run at 6am with friends. Even in the winter. Why would I want to get out of my toasty bed into the dark cold air? I’m warm, I’m comfortable, I’m sleeping.

It’s 26 degrees out and pitch black dark.

The only way for me to battle the Resistance voice that tells me to keep sleeping is to put my feet on the ground, get into my running clothes and get out the door.

Once I meet up with my friends and we all start moving down the road, breathing the crisp cool air and chatting I remember why I’m there. By this time I’m warm and happy and before I know it I’m sitting around the table at the bagel store with everyone drinking coffee and laughing.

If I had listened to Resistance I would have missed out on my workout, the sense of accomplishment and the boost to my creativity. I cannot begin to tell you how many creative problems were solved in my mind during a run, a ride or on the yoga mat.

In the studio when I’m feeling Resistance it helps me to doodle. Moving the pen across the paper gets things flowing and soon I am ready to start working. Very much in the same way that I need to warm up for exercise.  Sometimes cleaning up my studio helps clear out Resistance, creating a clean slate for new ideas.

Being an artist can be hard, lonely, and isolated at times. It’s also amazingly gratifying, rewarding and something that I know I must do.

For me, not doing the work is far more painful that “putting on my combat boots,” [as Pressfield says] battling Resistance and doing what is most important.

 

Just Start. How to Avoid Procrastinating.

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The only way to start doing something is to start.

Sounds simple right? Just start doing what you’ve been putting off and then suddenly you are in the flow and you can check that thing right off of your list.

So you grab your cup of coffee or tea and you are ready to get started when suddenly you find yourself getting distracted. You might wander off to read a favorite blog, or check your email or Facebook or look at the weather or call a friend [usually a friend that has very long stories.] You might have the overwhelming need to get up and throw in a pile of laundry.

As the distractions go on, time gets short and suddenly the day is over. You didn’t get to do what you wanted to do and oh well, I guess you can do it tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that.

Or maybe you shelve the whole idea entirely because you feel so bad about not following through.

I’ve noticed that when I am procrastinating the most, it’s out of fear. Just this moment I got a flash of that fear and wanted so badly to get up from the computer to get a snack.

What am I afraid of?

In writing this blog [that I have wanted to write for years] so many negative voices come up. These voices say things like “what do you know?”, “whatever you write might sound stupid”, “who really cares what you want to say”, “what if you screw up your grammar?!”
Someone I used to work with called these little voices “Gremlins.”

Don’t listen.

We all have deep rooted fears around creativity. As satisfying as it can be, it can also be scary. You are putting a deep part of your self on the line for others to accept or reject. Putting yourself out there takes a lot of courage.

Forward momentum can start with baby steps. Maybe that means just writing down a title. Or researching the topic or writing the outline or gathering your paints.

Once you’ve started, stay with it. Commit to finishing just one small step, one tiny part of the process. When the Gremlins come up, stay where you are and keep going. Nothing irritates Gremlins more than forward progress.

Eventually, the ball will keep rolling and you’ll forget about the call, the snack or the lies that the Gremlins tell you.