A few years ago:
The prolific writer and artist Austin Kleon gave me some advice.
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I didn’t know it at the time but he was telling me exactly how to sustain my writing career. In a profession plagued by burnout, he was giving me the antidote for weariness and fatigue, a prescription for creative longevity:
“If you get into that productivity trap, Ed—” he said, “there’s always going to be more work to do…”
I nodded and waited for him to say more.
A few months ago:
I read a book that changed how I work: Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman.
Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman
Burkeman highlights Robert Boice, a psychology professor who studies the various habits and routines of writers. His research uncovered something counterintuitive, and revelatory:
Writers who made writing a smaller, shorter part of their day were decidedly more productive and successful than their toiling contemporaries.
And the prevailing technique among these “lazy” writers?
They worked against a sensible timer: anywhere from ten minutes to no more than a few hours.
When the timer went off, the session was over. No exceptions.
This is the salient, simple-not-easy thing: they always stopped.
Austin Kleon called this approach time-based work:
“You can always make more,” he told me. “I think that’s why I’m a time-based worker. I try to go at my work like a banker. I just have hours. I show up to the office and whatever gets done gets done.”
I nodded some more.
“I’ve always been a time-based worker,” he said. “You know, like, did I sit here for three hours and try? I don’t have a word count when I sit down to write. It’s all about sitting down and trying to make something happen in that time period — and letting those hours stack up.”
Writer and artist, Austin Kleon
Robert Boice called it radical incrementalism:
Don’t race to the finish line day after day. This is impatience masquerading as zeal — and it’s precisely how creative people burn out.
Instead, follow the clock. And if this means leaving your work amid a “flow” state, with the wind at your back, so be it. Cut it off.
Professor and researcher, Robert Boice
It feels counterproductive, yes, even wasteful, like you’re squandering the energy and enthusiasm you could’ve used to create something good, or simply gratifying. It feels uncomfortable, even painful, like a loss — and perhaps it is…
But it’s not a needless loss:
“Stopping helps strengthen the muscle of patience that will permit you to return to the project again and again,” explains Burkeman, “and thus to sustain your productivity over an entire career.”
In other words, your immediate, short-term sacrifice will pay dividends in the long-term, in the years and decades to come.
It will help you cultivate the mindset — and the pace — necessary to sustain a long, successful creative career.
