Monday memo #50
Procrastinate.
The Monday memo is food for thought to fuel your week.
Hi everyone,
Typically we don’t think of procrastination as a good thing. It feels lazy to put off work that needs to be done. But if you dive into work right away, you lock yourself into a frame of reference with regard to what the work is about. The advantage of acting quickly is that you get a head start. But the advantage of delay is that you give yourself more time to think about options.
When I was a news artist, I was faced with tight deadlines. The news doesn’t wait. Usually I would get an assignment in the morning that would need to be completed by the end of the day. When time is short, my first instinct was to dive in and get started right away. But I then realized that news had a way of changing over the course of the day, as new information rolled in.
I formulated a habit of waiting, and I learned that the longer I delayed starting, the better the work would turn out. I developed a rule that however much time remained, I would spend half that time thinking creatively about the problem before starting. So if I had six hours I would spend three hours sketching and thinking. Then if I had three hours left, I would still leave myself an hour and a half for thinking. At some point, of course, I would have to start making the art. But the longer I waited, the better the result would turn out to be.
When you put off a task, you free up your time for divergent thinking. You consider more options. You look at a wider range of ideas, which increases the chances that you will do something unique.
For this to work, you have to have some framing of a challenge to begin with. Setting an intention primes your brain and gives your unconscious something to ruminate on.
Exercise.
So here’s your exercise for the week. Think about a project you want to work on. Give it some thought. Make some notes and maybe a sketch or two. Then set it aside for awhile. Give your mind some time to explore a range of options. Give your ideas some time to percolate and mature. Then go back to it with fresh eyes.
See what happens.
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