TRY BEING SCRAPPY AND RESOURCEFUL, INSTEAD OF ORDERLY AND PLANNED
TRY BEING SCRAPPY AND RESOURCEFUL INSTEAD OF ORDERLY AND PLANNED [T-H-I-N-K]
There’s a funny little principle called Parkinson’s Law: work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion. I think this is especially true for creative work.
If you give yourself two months to plan a co-worker’s birthday, you’ll have endless meetings about preferences, dates, and logistics. But if the party were only two days away? You’d send a few quick texts, assign duties, and voilà—the party would still happen, almost the same as if you had months to prepare.
The same holds true in art.
If you say it will take five months to complete a painting, it will. If you give yourself twenty-one days, you’ll finish in twenty-one. Time expands or contracts depending on what you allow.
And here’s the real secret: creative electricity lives in the scrappy, condensed timelines.
Think about it—
Edvard Munch painted The Scream in less than a day.
Mary Shelley drafted Frankenstein in under a week.
Jack Kerouac wrote On the Road in under three weeks.
Prince wrote and recorded Purple Rain in a single rehearsal session.
Maurice Koechlin sketched The Eiffel Tower in an afternoon.
These weren’t labored over for years. They were born in flashes of urgency, audacity, and instinct.
Instead of perfectionism and over-planning, what if you gave yourself a shorter window and just got to work?
Napoleon Bonaparte—ironically one of art’s great patrons—once said:
“Audacity. Audacity. Always audacity.”
Maybe it’s time to bring that same rallying cry into your art practice.
THE IMPORTANCE OF GETTING LOST [k-n-o-w]
“The person who doesn’t make mistakes is unlikely to make anything — if we don’t get lost, we’ll never find a new route.” ~Paul Arden
[g-r-o-w]
I use the Pomodoro technique when I’m working in the studio or on my art business. For every 30 minutes, I set a timer for 25 minutes. Then I take a break for 5 minutes - this means I’m not on my phone, instead I’m outside listening to the birds, looking up at the sky to find shapes in the clouds, stretching, or simply feeling the sun on my shoulders.
Research shows that most people’s deep focus lasts about 20–40 minutes before it starts to fade. Pomodoro sessions (25 minutes of work + 5-minute break) align with this rhythm, letting you lean into focus without fighting your brain’s limits.
The other benefit is that if I don’t feel like working, this technique “tricks” me into agreeing to 25 minutes of work - which then makes it easier to keep going for another 25 minutes after the break.