What is it to be productive?
I used to be infatuated with productivity. It was a toxic relationship that led to burnout and me not [doing art] [reading] [enjoying living] for several years. In grade school, we spent so much time on analysis that I lost a love of reading (only rekindled in the last 2-3 years). After graduating college with an art degree, I found it extremely stressful and disheartening to try to force my art to be marketable (it was way more deeply personal and specific then than it is now). I then found myself obsessed with task management apps, more so than doing tasks. And at some point, I was calendaring almost every hour of every day for the next three months at a time, and the amount of social time I was scheduling was highly unsustainable for me. I'm still working on my relationship with productivity, but at least I'm no longer infatuated with it.
Without the infatuation, I actually feel like I'm more productive. And yet productivity doesn't rule my life the way it did previously. It took reframing “productivity” as not a task that needed completing but simply something that was done. In the present, simply enjoying the present is being productive. I can stare at a wall all day, binge-watch a TV show, or complete a 40-hour painting, and all of that is being productive.
Even when I feel I haven't been productive, that's still okay and acceptable behavior. It’s not a waste of time. I don't beat myself up for that anymore. Being unproductive can be very productive. Restfulness offers a lot to the creative process.
With that said, when someone asks what I did over winter break, I'll still likely respond, “I didn't do very much at all.” But now I'll follow up quickly with “and it was great!” and maybe an acknowledgement of my own creative labor “and actually I made a bunch of art!”
BUT I DRAW THE LINE AT PLAYING STARDEW VALLEY. That game fully represents my unhealthy relationship with productivity. I'll likely revisit it when I'm retired, if that happens.
Anyway, here are some Tulip pieces I did just today, and I'm proud of myself for creating these little art “treats.”
Like all my small wooden tags, these will eventually be available at Atrium 916 in Old Sacramento, aka The Waterfront. You can see that I'm still developing the narrative between my Tulip and Try to Smile series. Eventually I will introduce Clowns.
✌️🤡🐰🌷