Creative Productivity

How becoming a 'day artist' might be the answer to living a creative life

Photo by Shelby Miller on Unsplash

Welcome to a narrative of their Own, an essay newsletter discussing the lives and literature of women.

If you enjoy reading essays on literature as well as monthly reviews of great books and recommended reading, please consider a free or paid subscription.

This week, I’m taking a slight detour from my usual musings on literature and literary women and instead sharing an essay with you on a book I’ve just finished reading, all about creative productivity- or perhaps more specifically- anti-productivity.

I know, I know…it isn’t exactly literature, as such. But bear with me, because I think it comes back to the ways in which women have created over time and how we can bring some of those perhaps softer skills into play within our own creative lives.

Photo by Catherine Hughes on Unsplash

There are a plethora of books and articles out there about increasing productivity and decreasing distraction, but often I find they are written by a certain type of male writer. The type who have a morning routine that involves jumping into an ice bath at 5am, or drinking green smoothies on the way to the gym.

That isn’t me. Surprise! 😂

There are also many of the more ‘creative’ lifestyle books- conversely, often written by female creatives- which allow for a softer approach to the creative life and keeping life in balance. What I think Australian journalist Madeleine Dore has done in her book I Didn’t Do The Thing Today is marry these two concepts together, coming up with a wholly original take on the minefield that is the productivity hack.

What drew me to the book as I was browsing in my local indie bookshop last week (other than the funky cover) was the subtitle: Letting Go Of Productivity Guilt. Most women I know struggle with guilt in all shapes and sizes: young women often worry about doing enough to climb the career ladder and what that really means for them; mother’s worry about leaving their children in childcare to pursue their creative dreams; and we all worry way too much about what other people think of us in the process.

The funky cover of I Didn’t Do The Thing Today by Madeleine Dore

I am sure that male creatives struggle similarly with keeping the plates spinning too; I just have the hunch (from both personal experience and from speaking to many other women) that we seem better at punishing ourselves for not keeping up with it all.

Tending to our creative lives, in whatever form it takes, can often be the elixir that brings us alive and makes our days shine brighter and feel warmer. But it can also often be the first thing to get slashed from the merry-go-round of to-do’s that we fill our days (and therefore our lives) with.

Madeleine Dore explains how, following her graduation around a decade ago, she wondered how to start pursuing a career in journalism at the same time as building the creative life she longed for. She turned to others that she admired, hoping to learn from their experiences the valuable insights that would lead to the kind of creative, productive life she yearned for.

In 2014, Dore began a project called Extraordinary Routines, starting with speaking to friends, then friends of friends, and rippling out to eventually interviewing people she admired. This became a popular blog of the same name as well as leading to the podcast Routines and Ruts.

What Dore found was that there was no secret to the ideal creative routine, or productivity ‘hacks’ that would work for everyone. Instead, she developed a creativity-led approach she refers to as becoming a ‘day artist.’ Though she is keen to point out that you don’t need to work in a creative industry to work creatively, she takes on board the many conversations she has had over the years with artists and creatives from many spheres, and suggests that the day artist is ‘the light-hearted counterpart to the strict optimiser of days.’¹

Working as a day artist allows for a more open-ended to-do list, meaning that we don’t need to feel guilty or ashamed if we don’t work on our creative projects or the things we feel are important to us every single day. We can instead begin to see our whole lives and the ways in which we fill them as part and parcel of living creatively.

If this sounds too simplistic, Dore goes on to split her chapters into sections on the common issues we all face in our modern lives, that sometimes appear to be working against us trying to work on the things that matter to us the most. Whilst she doesn’t offer concrete solutions to getting everything done, she instead causes us to pause and reconsider the ways in which we are thinking about our lives, offering more creative ways of thinking and being. I found that these related to many of my own creative struggles.

Here are some of my key takeaways from the book, and which I have been attempting to implement in my own writing life, in case they resonate with your own.

Rethinking ‘wasted’ time

Instead of seeing the ways we spend time, in the place of working on the things we say are important to us, as wasted blocks of time, Dore suggests it can be helpful to ask yourself whether the multitudes of tasks you set yourself up to complete each day (or week) are actually necessary. This is to determine not only if you can let some of those tasks go, but also to ascertain whether you are in fact filling your time with these other things because you are actually afraid to work on the creative pursuit you find difficult.

I felt called out by this suggestion! I know I often find myself falling into the trap of filling my time with tasks that could have waited (or been removed altogether) because starting work on that writing project I’ve been saying is a priority for me is just too daunting. Instead, I tackle mundane tasks which provide me with an easy tick-list of productivity, whereas starting the thing, as Dore refers to it- in my case writing an essay, or researching for a book- would mean the risk of failure. Imposter syndrome well and truly raises its head at times like this.

I’ve also found myself saying things like: Well, if I don’t have a full morning to write, then there’s no point starting…. Again, this is just an excuse to put a block on what I want to be working on. As Dore points out, there will never be the perfect conditions to start something; we just have to take the snatches of time we have and work with that.

What you work on is for nobody else but yourself

This was an interesting concept: we are often so caught up in wanting others to like and appreciate what we do that we forget that the person we need to worry about pleasing with our creativity is ourselves.

Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash

Dore suggests that if we feel we have done a good job in whatever work we are committed to, regardless of what others’ think of it, that has to be enough. If we want to write an essay about something that moved us, it is none of our business if it resonates with others or not. Chances are though, if you put your heart and soul into writing it, it will resonate with others, anyway, because our passions and enthusiasm are infectious. It just shouldn’t be the main driver for your work.

Be micro ambitious

I loved this term! My husband and I have this theory that you can put ‘micro’ in front of anything these days and it sounds more fun!

This idea is all about savouring the small steps on the way to the big goals, rather than constantly whipping yourself to achieve, often based on somebody else’s idea of success. Being micro ambitious allows us to notice opportunities because we are not fixated on the outcomes.

Again, I’ve found this concept so helpful in finally beginning work on a new project. I was daunted, I realised, by the idea of working on a whole book, but by slowing down and taking “micro steps”, I realised I can just enjoy the process. For me, this has looked like a weekly visit to my university library, taking down a book I want to research, making notes, taking a nice walk through the park on the way home, and thinking about the ideas this might garner for my work.

In short, I am learning to embrace the early stages of a new project by feeling my way in incremental steps, knowing that even if the outcome doesn’t result in a book, I will have enjoyed the way I’m spending my days regardless.

Photo by Arif Riyanto on Unsplash

Having a weekly, not a daily, to-do list

This has been a game-changer for me! Instead of berating myself for not getting the thing done today, I’ve started making a list of the things I find essential to fit into my week rather than day. For me, these look like: Reading, Writing, Walking and Yoga. If I can do a bit of each of these every day: great. If not, as long as I have ended the week having done all of them at some point, I know I am living in congruence with the things that matter to me.

Distractions

This was one of the best chapters for me. I don’t need to iterate how we all struggle with the many distractions inherent in our daily lives, and even Dore’s upbeat examples aren’t going to be a panacea for our pace of life in the digital age.

One of the things I found most useful here was Dore’s suggestion that we ask ourselves to pay attention to what we pay attention to. She suggests asking questions around this, such as whether we like what we see. I have found this a useful tool in beginning to unpack the distractions that keep me from writing.

Another angle that resonated with me was the ways in which we deliberately distract ourselves with ‘fake’ productivity, for example, seeking out a perfect writing desk, notebook, place to write…and so on. This, Dore says, can rob us of the time we need to actually do the thing we want to do. This is something I am very aware of doing and am trying to abstain from. She also suggests a list of things to try to claw back your attention, such as physically removing what breaks our attention, and only allowing ourselves to focus on one thing at a time.

Perfection

Finally, I found Dore’s chapter on perfection illuminating. I honestly didn’t think I needed to read it, and was intending to skim over this one, when something caught my eye that stopped me.

Pointing out that we are all full of contradictions, Dore advises:

“Yet in the pursuit of perfection, we try to iron out our weaknesses, not realising we might not be who we are without them—they are equal parts of who we are.”

She goes on to suggest that the imperfections we perceive in ourselves are the very things that draw other people to us and to our work, asking that if we can recognise the charm in the imperfections of others, why can’t we allow ourselves to be imperfectly charming also?

“When we open up about our mistakes and failures, we give other people permission to do the same.”

Although I don’t see myself as a perfectionist, I realised that I do often hold myself to some pretty harsh standards. Countless times I have found myself apologising to others for my ‘weaknesses’, and chastising myself for succumbing to them. I often wonder why everyone else seems to be getting it right, whilst I feel like I’m just getting it wrong.

Finding Dore’s message towards the end of these contemplation’s on living a creative life was interesting and thought-provoking. It helped me to see that it is these very ‘imperfections’ and curiosities that have ignited the many women who litter the pages of my newsletter each week, and that these are the very things that draw us to their work.

Everything comes full circle, and I realised through this book that the flaws and mistakes- the imperfections- are the cracks where we see ourselves reflected in the work of these other, earlier women. In their stories, we find understanding for our own struggles. That each one of them likely set out wondering how to fit in their creativity around work, children, wars, relationships, or societal constraints. That most of them likely compared themselves unfavorably to others and wondered how they could start their books, projects, paintings, or writing careers.

This is helping to give me perspective on how we can all navigate living a more creative life if we try, one “micro” step at a time 😀

---

I usually write about all things women literature related. Occasionally, I also do a deep-dive into the reading and writing life with essays like this one. If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy my essays on Intentional Reading, What Kind Of Reader Are You? and Writing Rituals.

Thank you for reading 🙂

1. Madeleine Dore, I Didn’t Do The Thing Today, Murdoch Books: Australia, 2022).