Friends of mine have this adorable dog. He’s living his best old man years out these days, tail wagging, stiffly sitting and standing back up, eating and pooping and smelling and rolling. You know – dog things.
Years ago, concerned that their then-pup interacted poorly with other dogs, my friends took him to a trainer. They expected to get guidance on how to change him. Instead, the trainer gently broke the news to them: this is your dog. Here’s how you can adapt your behavior to better support his nature.
My friends say it, wide-eyed: we went to the dog trainer expecting to fix our pet. But the dog trainer trained us instead.
I used to internally berate myself at about 1:30-2pm every afternoon in the office. At this time of day, nearly all days, I’d struggle with low energy. I can’t imagine why: a 40+ hour workweek with my ass mostly parked on a chair, eyes gazing into a screen, pushing myself to consistently produce between certain fixed hours every day, and then some.
Sound familiar? Yes, our collective, artificial structure defining most white-collar work is absurd. Still, in those moments in the afternoon, I felt shame, guilt, and frustration with myself for not feeling like I was doing more.
Fast forward to now, and I run the risk of recreating this artificial structure to support painting. You know why? It’s because it’s what I know, and that’s the easiest default.
But, like my friend’s dog, I’m slowly learning that my brain is what it is. It’s my job to notice it, support it, and come up with clever ways to work with it instead of against it. Fighting the tide, after all, takes an inordinate amount of energy. Why not channel that energy toward what I actually want to do – ie, paint?
Here are some examples:
- Creative tasks are best in the mornings. This applies to painting, writing, designing, brainstorming, etc. For me personally, my battery is most full for the day right after I’ve had coffee. That’s when I need to perform my heaviest lift which is, again, often painting because it takes such a high concentration of energy. For others, this time may very well be midnight! (When I’m long-gone asleep).
- Rote tasks are best in the afternoons. Editing, researching, accounting, refining, updating, and inventorying – these are all great tasks for mid to late afternoon, when my energy tends to flag. I wish I could go back in time and tell my full-time-office self that it’s okay to create in the morning, and save slower/more mindless tasks for the afternoon. I was too stuck in my shame that I couldn’t just be better (dammit) to accept and work with it.
- I have finite energy and it needs to be prioritized. This is a tough one for me, because as you may know I am a slightly compulsive exerciser. Exercise is awesome because to a large extent, it gives me energy. But it also spends it – the mornings I do a big workout, I simply have less to give to painting later. Part of it is that my prime-time morning is taken up by the activity, and part of it is the actual energy expenditure. I have to think about what I want to accomplish on any given day: if it’s a big, heavy lift in part of a painting I’m working on, I may simply skip or delay the workout (until afternoon when I’m lower energy) in favor of putting more of myself into the project, and therefore likely less of myself into physical activity.
- Take breaks. No – like, actual breaks, and actually take them. This goes back to my full-time-office job shame self: when I feel task-fatigue coming on, including in painting, I am tempted to just call it a day completely. It’s a way of giving up on myself. But what I’ve noticed is that typically I don’t need to fully end what I’m doing – I just need this thing called a break. Maybe it’s a nice social media scroll for a time period (that I do my best to set for myself), or a phone call with a friend, a trip to the gym, or lunch. Whatever it is, I need to actually fully stop what I’m doing in order to rest that part of myself. Later, I can always return – and often do.
- Make notes for later when inspiration strikes. If I’m not actively working, but, say, on a run or walk, I may get a really REALLY good idea. I can capture the energy without lifting myself or 180-ing from what I’m doing entirely by making a note to myself in the future. If it’s art-related, I’ll often text my art phone from my personal phone! (The idea for this post was one of those).
- Music is for flow; podcasts are for refining. I love podcasts. No – I looove podcasts, but I’m learning they’re not always appropriate for the phase I’m in while painting. Especially in early phases of a painting, where flow is super important, podcasts can divert some of my energy into analyzing what I’m hearing vs inhabiting the emerging pattern in front of me and thinking about how to paint/adapt as I go. So, these days I play music for the beginning phases of a piece, and later on as I’m starting to refine what’s already on canvas, I treat myself to podcasts.
- The to-do list doesn’t end. Accept it. Again, it’s a waste of energy to berate myself for not getting all the things I set out to do, done. How about congratulating myself for making the progress I did, and owning that I have a big appetite for doing? Tomorrow will be there, and I’ll inevitably both make progress on and add to my list. And so it goes, into perpetuity.
Here’s a pic of my latest painting, a 3’x4′ commission that’s helping me affirm many of the lessons above. One example: I haven’t listened to one podcast yet while working on it, because it’s so giant that each of the sections requires its own enormous focus and flow!
What aha’s have you had about your energy or work style? Any tips/tricks that work well for you! Please share in the comments, I’m all ears!