Satisfaction and progress in open-ended work
In the middle of my sketching hours, I don’t want to be worrying about whether I’ll be ready for my classroom prototype next month. Within a given day, action-oriented “butt-in-chair”-style advice does help; meta-thought is just distracting. But go too long without error correction, and you’ll misspend hours in the chair. The rest of the day’s work becomes roughly deontological. I give myself permission to be satisfied with the day if I spent three focused hours sketching like I’d planned. From time to time, I flip back into execution mode. It feels like an old friend. We say hello, dance for a while, and part ways smiling, just as it always was. Open-ended mode is more enigmatic, reserved—yet occasionally it sparks some moment so singular it lights up the whole year. Those moments don’t happen without the days spent together between those moments. I’m slowly learning to make the most of our quiet strolls.