I chose “ease” as my word of the year precisely because recently, it hasn’t been easy. And I haven’t yet figured out how to write through it, preferring instead to emerge from my protective cocoon once everything feels more manageable again, painting in the meantime.
I took part in Oliver Burkeman‘s Designing Your System for Creativity workshop this past weekend. His book 4000 Weeks is one of the first I read last year, and it’s had a lasting impact on me and my thinking, frequently working its way into many conversations with friends and family.
So attending his workshops — I also took part in The Art of Imperfect Action in January — made sense.
The most significant realization I had was I find worthwhile only the things are literally unmanageable, and anything less is evasion. But this mindset results in inevitable failure: if some action is of value (ie. impossible) and I can’t do it, but also if I can do something and it’s not that valuable (ie. feasible), I am telling myself that I am incapable of accomplishing anything meaningful.
I’m trying to unlearn that there is no such thing as too small if the alternative is doing nothing at all.
Increasing ease — and reducing friction — has immense value, too, because it is the key to sustainability. So does consistency. (In the words of another favorite author, Brad Stulberg: “Do not focus on being consistently great; focus on being great at being consistent.”)
So I ask you and myself both: what is the minimum manageable thing that you can do every day that will still move you forward?
