Do As I Say, Not As I Do
“In any practice, there will be tests. That’s why we call it a practice—so we’ll be ready to meet our challenges when the time comes.” ~ Ann Patchett
One day this week I forgot everything.
I had a to-do list swamped with items, manuscripts to read, newsletters (ahem) to write, emails to answer, my own novel to work on. (In truth, that very morning I’d made a very impressive list of things I needed to do on said novel.)
I forgot it all, and not on purpose.
I did everything but write or work. I went to Target with my daughter (but, hello, this can be forgiven, right? I haven’t been inside a store like that in a year!), I scrolled through websites looking for a shelf in a weird size for my closet, I ordered some indigo fabric scraps from the coolest store ever in Berkley, A VERB FOR KEEPING WARM, I scanned a new-to-me writer’s website and saved one of her podcasts to listen to. (Okay, true confessions—when I say “save,” I mean I kept the tab open on my computer. I never close anything down. At last count I had 42 tabs open. My daughter, the organizer, shudders in horror when I tell her this. And also, I never rarely listen to podcasts. So keeping the tab open is fruitless.)
All my activities that day were well and good-ish but not productive.
And productivity is our holy grail in our culture, second only to freedom. Sort of a weird dichotomy when you think about it. But anyway, I do have a problem with this whole productivity thing. I’m as guilty as the next person of reading every book I can get my hands on about it and trying yet another hack and trick to get more done. But, like a lot of others, I’m starting to realize how damaging that is. The pandemic has had its way with me, teaching me that a calmer life is not necessarily a bad thing.
But still—there was work to be done and I didn’t do it. If I’d realized I was overwhelmed and consciously taken a break to spend the day reading or wandering or knitting or stitching or gardening I’d have been able to come back to my practice with clarity and peace. The thing is, I like my work. I like it a lot, all of it—the actual writing and working with writers and reading their work and teaching and planning workshops.
My work does, however, take a lot of inner resources. Yours does, too. Engaging in a creative process requires regular refilling of the well. I do that on a daily basis in small ways, with meditation (back to it again) and the simple things that delight me like knitting and stitching. But sometimes I, and I’m guessing you, need to do more.
And I’m terrible at doing it. I had another conversation with my wise friend Patty, who I featured a couple weeks ago, and we talked about this—how it is so hard to intentionally take a full day or a half day off, but then we end up goofing around in a mind-sapping way. Doing things like mindlessly scrolling social media or news sites, going down silly rabbit holes.
The night of my day of procrastination forgetfulness, as I was dropping off to sleep, I remembered a couple of important emails that I’d forgotten to answer. And that got me started thinking about how behind I was because I’d just blown so much off. However, and this is a big however, I also knew that I would get back to it the next morning without a lot of fuss.
Why? Because over the years I have cultivated a consistent writing practice. And this is why we practice—for moments like this, when we are overwhelmed, so that our practice calls us back sooner rather than later.
So I’ll leave it at this: do as I say, not as I do. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or even just antsy and bored and can’t seem to settle into your writing, take some intentional time off. Just don’t wander away from your practice for too long. That’s a whole other conversation.
This post began life on my weekly newsletter, a Love Letter about writing and creativity I send out every Sunday. You can get it delivered right to your inbox here.