On a Change in Environment

I am a wilful procrastinator; regular productivity eludes me, and I have made no real attempts to seek it out. There is this blog, though, which I find a promising proof of concept. Not for the writing particularly, although it is interesting to watch it develop, but more for the commitment I have made to consistent work. Despite that progress, my work is far from a sure thing. I have no regular time at which I write, nor a regular process, really. Each individual time differs, and I am left only with the lukewarm comfort that the work will be done – asking myself when and how gets me nowhere.

That has to change. Or, at least, come under some semblance of control. This week I will begin work on a writing project on a scale far larger than any I’ve encountered before. There are stakes and I have a responsibility to produce the work. A lot of things have come together for me to have even received this work, much less generate the circumstances in which I will be writing it. The lone rogue factor is me. The work will only be done if I do it. I know that sounds needlessly simplistic, but that’s how I think about it.

There was a critical step in moving me closer to this workhorse mode, and that was a change in scenery. Not only a return to India for a while, but a dedicated space outside of the apartment where I could work. The critical reason for this is that my brain is wont to make (needlessly simplistic) associations, and what that has materialised as in this instance is a strong connection between this apartment that serves as home, and my comfort. This isn’t to say I don’t find comfort in writing, but that I have so little experience of actually sitting down to do work in this environment that, in staying here, I am conveniently adding yet another hurdle between myself and productivity.

So, I can count my lucky stars to even be fortunate enough to say this, but I have found a secondary location to work while I’m here in Mumbai. This simple action of severing the tether between me and assumed comfort puts me one more valuable step closer to productivity.

I’m been using that word quite a lot. Productivity. It’s a nice one, logical and neat in its description of a work ideal – but broadly meaningless, I find. I think it’s time for me to stop limiting myself and the view I hold of my work to the crude associations I have in my head. A lot of work needs to be done for my project, but it’s not one homogenous goal to which I should aspire, I don’t think, it’s instead the culmination of smaller crucial pieces. Pieces that, unfortunately, can be easily ignored and pushed to the side of my mind when considering it through the larger lens of being productive. I have a lot of things to do. But, one sentence, one word, one pixel at a time, I will do them.