Be Kind to Your Creative Self
June Thomas: This ad free podcast is part of your Slate Plus membership.
Karen Han: More. Hello and welcome to another episode of Working Overtime Working Biweekly Advice Focused Grogu to Working Mandalorian. I’m your host Karen Han.
June Thomas: I’m your other host June Thomas. And I’m going to pretend like I’m so hip. I absolutely get that.
Karen Han: Well, I’m sure you’ve seen Grogu before. You definitely know of baby, which I think is enough.
June Thomas: Yeah, exactly like I have. I have a vague sense I couldn’t pass an exam about it, but I you know, I know what world it belongs to and all of that. So. Sure, if.
Karen Han: I showed you a picture, you’d be like that. That’s him. So. Exactly. Which is enough. Yeah. Here’s the thing. Again, I know you can ace this quiz if you put your mind to it, and I think that relates pretty well to the topic I want to talk about today, which is something we’ve touched on a lot on this show, but maybe not totally tried diving into, and that is how to be kinder to ourselves. I think this principle comes up a lot. We’ve talked about feeling guilty about taking breaks, for instance, but in this particular case, I wanted to talk about being kind to oneself with specific regard to the feeling that you’re not accomplishing enough. I know I’ve had this feeling of What have you done?
June Thomas: Oh, Carrot, I definitely have. And it can be really tricky because I am very conscious that feeling bad about being insufficiently productive does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. In fact, it makes worse. Yeah, but knowing that doesn’t necessarily get me out of that particular, you know, mental a rubber cross. It’s totally maddening.
Karen Han: I totally agree.
Karen Han: Which brings me to my next question, which is, do you have anything in particular that you’ll do when that feeling gets to you? I don’t think this feeling has a cure all, really, but I think like the act of taking a walk to clear your head, there are at least some temporary fixes out there.
June Thomas: Yeah, I agree. I think the key in my experience is to put yourself in a situation that is just different on some fundamental level from your routine or usual situation. Taking a walk, taking a shower. I’ve even dreamed about going to a remote location and screaming, you know, because when you do those things, you’re outside, you’re in a cascade of water or, you know, you’re far from the madding crowd yelling at the sky.
Karen Han: Yeah, it’s hard sometimes to find like the smaller scale or like more immediately possible solutions. Yes. And I think this feeling is also particularly hard to avoid when you’re working on something that involves other people and is slowed down, so to speak, in that way, because you’re waiting on them to do something or when you’re working on something long term. For instance, when working on my book, there were definitely days where I would have written throughout the day, but then at the end feel like I hadn’t done anything because I hadn’t finished a chapter or something like that, which would in itself be a lot, given that the chapters in my book were expected to run around 5000 words. But I still felt that way, right? Have you encountered this in working on your book or do you have a healthier outlook on it?
June Thomas: Oh God, yeah. I always have a health, you know. No, I definitely have had that experience. And, you know, it’s so frustrating because, like, I’ve put in the hours, I’ve achieved deep focus and I feel good about the work that I’ve done, but I still can get down on myself because I, quote unquote, don’t have anything to show for it. And having something to show for it generally means a word count or page count that I’d kind of set for myself. And that is just wrong. And I think it’s really hard to kind of waste your time. You always have something to show for it, right? And even in the unlikely event that you spent all day working, you felt kind of productive, but actually what you had written wasn’t usable.
June Thomas: That actually also helped you because, you know, finding the wrong words or the wrong structure is a step to the right words and the right structure. So I think fundamentally it’s a goal problem. If what you need to do on a particular day or a particular stage of the process involves, for example, research or editing or figuring out structure rather than putting words on the page, then you have to find a goal for yourself that isn’t about word count.
Karen Han: You are totally on the money. Some progress is tangible, other kinds of progress aren’t. And you have to learn to kind of distinguish that. Yeah. We’re going to take a short break, but we’ll be right back with a little more advice on how to make yourself feel better about the work that you’ve done.
June Thomas: Hey, listeners, is there a particular creative struggle you’d like to hear us tackle? Let us know by emailing us at Working at Slate.com. Or even better. You can call us and leave a message at 3049339675.
June Thomas: That’s three or 4933. W. O. R. K.
Karen Han: So we were just talking about how to make progress feel more tangible. And I think one of the major things that comes up in terms of accomplishing this is making a to do list. You get to check things off on your list as you go, and that simple act lends you a sense of accomplishment, especially if you take the trouble to break the big tasks you have down into smaller parts. And I wanted to know June are you a to do list keeper and why or why not?
June Thomas: Karen I am 100% a to do list keeper. You know, I do like having that rush from reminding yourself what you’ve achieved as you just described. I think that’s really important. But also as David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done, famously put it, Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them. If you have any hope of achieving a focused state for writing or whatever your thing is, you have to be able to get unrelated thoughts out of your head so they don’t intrude when you’re trying to concentrate. And the way that I am able to do that is to write them down like it could be on a paper, it could be in an app, but just get that stuff out of your head. And then, of course, there’s kind of another part of this, which is you do have to consult your list and actually do the things. I actually think that getting them out of your head and doing them are really two different parts of the process. They’re almost unrelated for me. What about you?
Karen Han: I totally agree with what you said about in writing the thing you have to do down and then accomplishing it, and in a small way, like even finishing your to do list is like a little accomplishment. Like, Oh, like I’ve done this task that I have to do. That said, I am not really a to do list keeper, but that is not for thinking that it doesn’t work for me. It’s just that I’m very bad at reminding myself to do things like that, which is maybe the whole point of having a to do list to begin with. But I do have a follow up to do list question, which is, do you believe in putting personal to do things on there or do you believe in keeping it just work related? Because I know some people will put personal reminders on their to do lists like doing the laundry or even smaller self-care tasks, like going to go take a walk or drinking enough water.
June Thomas: I do. And mostly because the capture function, you know, the getting the ideas out of your head and into whatever system you use, it needs to be complete. So whatever it is that I’m focused on and again, it doesn’t have to be writing, it could be watching a movie or going out to dinner with friends. I don’t want to feel that there are random ideas or, you know, on captured tasks floating around in my head, like a swarm of butterflies getting in the way of the film or the conversation. And the way that I achieve that is just to write them down.
Karen Han: That’s nice that it also offers you some clarity, like throughout your day, not just in terms of what you have to do, but just kind of reassurance in a way. Again, I usually don’t keep it to do list myself, but I do like taking stock at the end of a given year or period of what I’ve gotten done, and that tends to make me feel a little better or feel kind of similarly. I think it’s sort of a reverse to do list in that respect. It’s a I’ve done this list.
Karen Han: Do you do anything like that, or does this kind of get wrapped up into the idea of New Year’s resolutions or something like that?
June Thomas: So I also love to look back at the end of the year. To me, it’s really fun, you know, to look at achievements of various kinds. You know, what you very nicely described as a reverse to do list. I mean, what books did I read? What podcast did I make? What did I learn? You know, it all sounds a little bit earnest, but like, that makes me feel good. I definitely emphasize the what went well side of things, of course. But I do also find it useful to at least note the things that didn’t go well and think about what I could do to address those situations. You know, do I have responsibilities that routinely bring me down? Do I keep stumbling on one particular task or area of my life or responsibilities? And if so, it’s really a good thing to ask yourself, do I really have to keep doing those things?
June Thomas: I mean, the answer might be yes, but I want to at least try to figure out if I can remove negative experiences from my life. And some of those things might become New Year resolutions. But resolutions feel more like they’re about habits rather than big life changes. So I tend to think of New Year’s resolutions as fun and all, but, you know, more just like a habit rather than anything bigger.
Karen Han: Yeah, that’s a really wonderful way of framing those ideas. We are going to take another little break, but we will be back with our final thoughts on not beating yourself up too hard after this.
June Thomas: Listeners. I just want to remind you that if you’re enjoying working overtime, please subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And if you listen on Apple Podcasts, we’d love you to rate or review the show. It really does help new listeners to find us. And if Overcast is your app of choice as it is for me, please hit the star to recommend the episode to others.
Karen Han: Okay. So I think there’s also a broader question that we can talk about that’s related to this topic of kind of being kind to yourself about your accomplishments, which is how we set parameters for our own success, which I think you sort of touched on this earlier, because ultimately we’re feeling bad about this stuff because we haven’t met whatever standard that we’ve set.
June Thomas: Right. Yeah, totally. It’s it’s just really easy to have your goals be about the final stage of a project. I’m going to my pitch. Greenlit is all about where my book comes out, but there are so many steps along the way and so many of the people involved and so many potential random events that could get in the way that just make that inadvisable and kind of self-defeating.
June Thomas: At the same time, I also think it’s important to keep yourself on track. You know, if you have a deadline that is, oh, I don’t know, let’s just randomly, randomly say January 31st, January 21st would not be a good time to be wondering if you’re going to meet it. So breaking things down to a series of milestones so that you can have the reassurance that you’re on track or if you’re not so you can figure out how to fix that will really help you again, like feel good about yourself. And then there’s one more part to this that, you know, kind of goes back to something I said a while ago, and I think it’s really hard for people to hear this.
Karen Han: Mm hmm.
June Thomas: Or, you know, to face which it has been for me anyway, is that I think it is also good for us as humans who deserve happiness to be constantly asking ourselves, is this what I really want to be doing? And, you know, if you decide that it’s not, then you have to make a plan to change unless you’re in a very fortunate situation. You can’t just, you know, do a hard stop and just say, okay, I’m going to figure it out. Mm hmm.
June Thomas: What’s next later? Like, no, let’s be realistic. It doesn’t work quite like that. But if you’re not enjoying things that are consuming a lot of your time, at least start considering some other options.
Karen Han: Yeah. There’s ultimately nobody who’s in charge of that ship besides you. Yes. Sometimes unexpected things happen like we’ve all experienced being laid off, but at the same time, like, hopefully you’ll have the ability to make some sort of plan. And with that said, I think it’s also just useful to remember that a lot of things aren’t within your control, but that you can do your best with the things that are. For instance, the process of pitching anything really is so laborious and a rejection can be just as much about your writing as it can be about other factors that are totally separate from you. Yeah. Less market for original content. They already have someone writing that they’re not being interested in science fiction or something. The list really just goes on and you can only do your best with what you have power over, which is yourself. And within that little space, it’s important to remember that even the smallest amount of progress is still progress.
June Thomas: Absolutely. You know, if having a goal, what can you do sitting down doing it? Like that’s the greatest thing. And yeah, yeah, just celebrate what you’re able to achieve. Celebrate what you’re able to make and invent and create for yourself. That’s really cool. And just don’t lose track of how cool that is because you’re focused on some huge goal that, as you so accurately say, can. There are so many things that I can get in the middle of that that have nothing to do with you. So you’ve got to celebrate your own, your own fun, you know, have fun doing things. Don’t lose sight of that.
Karen Han: Yeah, those are some real words of wisdom and I think a really nice way to wrap up the time that we have for this episode. Thank you all so much for listening. And if you liked the show, don’t forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Karen Han: And if you have questions you’d like us to address, we would love to hear from you. You can send us an email at working at Slate.com or give us a ring at 3049330 arc.
June Thomas: And if you’d like to support what we do, sign up for Slate Plus at Slate.com slash working. Plus you’ll get bonus content, including exclusive episodes of Slow Burn and Big Mood Little Mood, extra segments of shows like Working The Coach. You got fast waves and you’ll be supporting the work that we do right here. On working.
Karen Han: Big. Thanks to Kevin Bendis and to our series. Producer Cameron Drews will be back on Sunday with a brand new episode of Working, and in two weeks we’ll have another working overtime. Until then, get back to work.
June Thomas: So.
