‘The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pounds of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”. Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work-and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.’

From Art & Fear, by David Bayles & Ted Orland

You don’t just procrastinate. You enjoy the pressure of the upcoming deadline. You look forward to its mounting. If you were a user, this is your fix.

You are different from the other procrastinators, the ones who don’t because they think they can’t. That is not you. You know you can. And you are looking forward to show everyone how much you can in as little time as possible.

You have been doing so for years, by now: wait until everything inside you screams with tension, because then you can ride that flow, right up until the deadline, all white-hot attention, drooling with a bestial focus.

This is what your procrastination builds up to. Every time. And you are looking forward to that build-up, looking forward to riding that storm you and only you can create. You always do. You are here for it.

But here’s the thing: you know that this way, there is no room for improvement. Your draft.psd is your final.psd. What you get to do during these head-spinningly intense last few hours is all you actually can do in the time left. Because, working like this, you would never even begin if the danger of time being up was not the key component. Others might shake their heads at you if you ever told them about this, but you live for the danger of it all.

And, if you are like me, you noticed that doing things this way, you keep yourself from improving: producing the perfect pot, you know, is craftsmanship under pressure. That’s why it feels so frantic: you are basically fighting a war you literally can lose. It’s a lot like gambling. It is exactly like gambling.

But what you need, is the other thing: you need iterative mastery, which is not fueled by adrenaline, but by steady exposure and reflection instead.

Because, what you never share with others, is that you actually work for the immense relief you feel after you are done, the relief of completing something you will never have to do again.

And you and me, we’re in this together now. Thick as locusts.

We need to move from deadline-induced risk to the self-imposed mystery of challenging yourself, exchanging adrenaline from danger with dopamine from curiosity.

Pressure must be replaced with intrigue.

So that we can replace that relief with insight.

So that we can improve upon being more than just formidable craftsman. Just imagine: growing more powerful every day, like Fred Flintstone.

Quelle: Code & Canvas