SEAN WARD’S MONDAY MEDITATION

Picture this: you’re at home, you’re all comfy, you’ve just seen a couple Simpsons or Seinfeld re-runs, the Wii or X-box beckons, and you’ve got a stack of DVDs you’re excited to watch. There is nothing in the world that’s going to make you feel like being productive. There are days when you just don’t feel like doing anything. Taking time to recharge the batteries is absolutely essential, but how do you tell the difference between well-deserved down time and wasting time?

What’s your big excuse for procrastinating and wasting time? We’ve all got one. Mine is that I’m an artist so I am entitled to as much leisure as will inspire me. I’d like to think that I’ve learned how to cut the B.S. but even now I will find myself playing video games or surfing Facebook for longer than I should. When I catch myself, I’ll explode with the determination to turn the day around. I burst out of my chair, turn everything off, and get on the computer or at the art board and see what I can crank out before the day is done. Developing that skill has taken many years as it used to take days to catch myself in that trance and snap out of it, and that was after I had eliminated the distraction of a job or a girlfriend. While I was an employee, it could go on for weeks.

LIVE ON THE HIGH WIRE

Going one day without chipping away at something is OK, but I don’t like to go more than that, even on weekends. That becomes “especially on weekends” if I’m on another gig that takes attention away through the week. Remember that the whole point here is to sneak time in wherever you can.

Like I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve always found it helpful to start out with a committed date of delivery. If you’ve got all the time in the world to work on something, you’ll take all the time in the world to finish it. For example, just last week I put up a new video. I had a visitor from New York City who was a ballerina and we were going to go out and shoot dancing footage all over the neighborhood. By the time we got ready, got a cameraman, and got outside, we were running out of light and couldn’t continue with that vision. If I didn’t have the pressure of a new video by Wednesday committed, it would have been too easy to call the whole thing off and say that I’ll finish it later. It likely would never have been finished. But because I had the date committed, I was on the hook for a delivery so I had to get on the ball and think of a new direction for the video. It wasn’t the best or most inspired video I’ve ever done, but it turned into a fun little thing and I quite like it.

SOMETHING IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN NOTHING

And here we hit upon the real trick of motivation. Lack of motivation equals fear. Quite often, you might be afraid to make a move not out of laziness but out of protection of your vision. As long as you’re in the idea stage, there is always the possibility that your novel will be an all-time classic. As long as you never release anything, your follow-up to your last hit will forever hold the promise of blowing that one out of the water. We get stuck when we’re too afraid to commit to one direction.

GET MOTIVATED AND INSPIRED AT WILL

Your natural state is pure creativity. You can probably recall various instances when you were just on fire, with the creativity flowing through you. When I was drawing comic books, those moments made me feel like I wasn’t creating the stories, I was reporting them. That’s the state you want to be in as much of the time as possible. You can put yourself in that state at will to the degree that you are fearless in expressing your vision.

Develop the habit of noticing how often you work on your project. That’s not the same as how often you’re busy or even how often you’re creative if you are working in your field. I’m talking specifically about how often and how much time you put into that passion project that’s been gnawing at you. The importance of that an-hour-a-day rule that I mentioned previously cannot be stressed enough because when you’re in the groove, you’ll never have to wonder where it is.

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