The need to codify, quantify, measure and weigh the worth of ones daily actions is probably the worst invention ever. It's an unnerving feeling to finish a days work and when somebody asked you what you did, you point to whatever it is you've been working on and they reply, "yeah but did you do anything good."
Ass.
Not that i particularly experience that, mostly because the only person who seems my daily exploits are Kasey and she understands that painting isn't always A->B. Sometimes it takes six hours of doing colour studies because your thinking of changing your palette and all you have to show for it is two pages of brightly coloured blotches. Not exciting, but still valuable. But I can't really say that it's "productive".
Perhaps its because of it's connection with the word "produce". That is to say, "to bring into existence". Being a painter it is sometimes days even weeks before you fully bring a painting into existence. But for those 8 days between paintings you think to yourself "why haven't I been productive, what haven't I produced anything yet?"
Perhaps this is a holdover from my days in management. Senior executives are always looking for a rise in productivity; they want to see people producing more. You constantly have to justify to them that your time is being well spent and it is producing something. Progress isn't enough.
In fact, come to think of it, I don't think that the word "progress" was in any of the management training material I was given. Perhaps one can think of it like a ship. Those in the bottom of the boat row. That what they do, number of strokes per minute. They are not supposed to care where they are going, their job is simply to row. I doubt anyone handling the oars would be given information on navigation.
Still I think its foolish. Such a mindset work very well for ships in the open ocean but its a poor system for artistic endeavor (much less for attaining job satisfaction). I've set myself time quotas, but that hasn't relieved any of the strain. I'm spending roughly 54-6 hours a day working but it still feels like I'm slacking off.
This finding a rhythm thing is harder than it looks.
-F
