I am a terrible procrastinator. I’ve been trying for some time to change that. Among the things I did was to read widely on the internet about time management, yadda yadda efficiency and that sort of thing. Most of it seems completely generic, unsubstantiated, and in most cases pulled directly from the author’s head on to paper. In a practical manner of speaking, they are worthless. There is the occasional gem or two of useful advice, but for the most part, they seem to be written by self-proclaimed experts and “specialists” capitalising on people’s insecurities.
A particularly well-received author spoke of the importance of scheduling “creative time” for “creating”. I get the feeling that his creative time was spent on thinking up funny advice like this. Can creativity be scheduled so conveniently? When inspiration (or deadlines) strikes, adrenaline courses through you and will tide you over typical physical limits. In the midst of an epiphany, you won’t feel sleepy. Conversely, when you are faced with a writer’s, or equivalent, block, no amount of redbull is going to keep you awake, and no amount of careful scheduling is going to save your sorry ass. I don’t know about that author, but personally I can never get inspiration to strike just when it is time for me to “create” and to wear off just as “creative time” is supposed to end. Perhaps he knows something I don’t, something that I will only know if i pay $99 and join his merry band of followers.
For the record, he’s not wrong – it is entirely possible to just sit down and start drawing, doodling, writing, painting, composing something, but it seems extremely farcical and presumptous to assume that the resulting piece of work is going to be of any quality.
On that tangent, I wonder how many people involved in the arts – (music, literature, design etc) lead highly ordered and organised lives with perfect, sparkling daily schedules. Or if this has any effect on the quality of their work. I have the impression that for most of the talented individuals, their whole life is one block of “creative time”, 24/7, and everything else is an afterthought. Saying that, I don’t know where architecture fits in all this – most will not admit it is “merely” art, and similarly most will not admit it is “merely” science. Being stuck somewhere in between is the worst place to be, is all I’m saying. It’s as if you have to be all emo and moody a la Beethoven, but as precise and accurate as an engineer. I guess it’s not a surprise that me, at least, fail terribly at being both.
Anyway, to finish up, one is a bestselling author, or so he claims, and I am a struggling student. I know whose advice I’d take.
