Comments on: How do you work? How do you live?

By: Coop

Coop — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 02:44:30 +0000

I do Internet (which includes running elimae) throughout the day. The broader schedule is like this:

Get up between 8 and 9. (I got up before dawn for years and often drove to work as the sun was coming up. I don’t have to do that anymore.)

Breakfast
Morning walk (with some light weightlifting every other day)
Shower
Morning snack
Drawing
Lunch (including posting drawings to Flickr)
Writing/reading/afternoon snack
Afternoon walk (with some light weightlifting every other day) including visit with Jessie and Ed
Shower
Supper
Evening reading/TV/snack
Bedtime about midnight

(And if you’re wondering about my weight–I’m skinny: I eat small amounts)

By: Danny

Danny — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:33:19 +0000

Okay – uh’nuf. To quote India, “y’all’re making my teeth hurt” – and I’ve been off sugar for 3 whole days, now.

Pleez – where are the spikes?

By: Sheila Ryan

Sheila Ryan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:22:30 +0000

A rhythm divine.

By: India

India — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:21:37 +0000

Clearly, the secret steps missing in my life are “pet the cat” and “kiss Danny on the forehead.” Those two things would make every day better.

By: Rick Neece

Rick Neece — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 23:18:29 +0000

I've already said more than enough about my schedule. But, Mary Jeys and India, I did work "from-the-home" for a couple years. And I hear ya. I floundered until I found a rhythm my own.

By: Sheila Ryan

Sheila Ryan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:31:14 +0000

Cooper gets stuff done. Let’s ask Cooper.

Cooper? Oh, Coo-o-ooper!

I think he’s busy getting something done.

By: Sheila Ryan

Sheila Ryan — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:29:16 +0000

Oh, those time zones. I like to blame the time zones. See, if friends were not anywhere from a couple of hours behind me or from 6-8 hours ahead of me, I would not be distracted continually and would be much more productive.

It’s the time zones. Really. It is.

By: India

India — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:23:08 +0000

Yeah, that 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. slot is crucial. The distractions tend to stop rolling in as quickly (having friends in other time zones is a problem, though—if I stay up late enough, Elisabeth, Jorunn, and Eirik start tweeting), and half the things I ought to be doing can’t or shouldn’t be done in the middle of the night (e.g., I try not to respond to work-related e-mails at 2:45 a.m., because the time stamp will make me look as crazy as I actually am). So sometimes during that period I can actually trick myself into getting some work done.

On Wednesday night (aka Thursday morning), the trick that worked was to set a timer and say, “Okay, I’m only going to work on this for thirty-five minutes. Then I have to switch to this other thing.” At the end of 70 minutes, I switched back to the first project, which I’d been reluctant to stop, and then I stayed up until 11 a.m. doing that, by which time I could e-mail a file to the client without seeming like a nutjob. Then I stayed up a few more hours, napped for an hour, and went out for drinks and barbecue with friends. A banner day: one whole business day’s worth of work, albeit actually performed between the hours of midnight and noon.

By: Mary Jeys

Mary Jeys — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:10:31 +0000

This is a good question, India. Since I find myself driving my own days lately, I’ve been trying to find a better way to motivate than to wait for that urgent email to pop into my mailbox in order to start doing something (around 1pm.) B

Because I see myself as engaged in some form of cultural production, I’m also working hard to see “watching the Goonies/John Adams/Rio Bravo” at 1pm before going to the studio as “work.” Maybe it’s a lie, but there’s really something soothing about planning projects while watching something as familiar as Goonies. I identify with Matt Mullenweg that in the 1-5am zone I’m most productive. It’s like I can finally turn off all the other alarm bells “I need milk! … Have to get that bottle of Granache I saw on sale… I should really fix the sink today…” all of those tasks are moot at 2am and I can cruise on until 5 or 6am like that. Just finally getting stuff done. That’s IF I have shit to get done.

My recent problem is that I’m working on a project so large and mysterious in scope, I’m not actually making anything. I’m just planning. Oy, that’s a bitch. I find my bouncy ball a great help in planning. And there’s no rhyme or reason to when or how a fitting idea comes to me. Sometimes it’s making origami, or watching Arrested Development on Hulu. Or talking about the project outloud over a few beers at 1am. The innate chaos of the world and lack of structure for inspiration is my problem.

Lately, I’ve just been trying to lean back on the reins and stop freaking out that I “should” be doing something. Instead, I’m probably doing what I should be doing- I just have a funny time table when I don’t have a boss breathing down my neck. I don’t know- it’s all a work-in-progress at this point.

By: India

India — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:02:38 +0000

Oops—three o’clock! Time to make breakfast.