When I find it hard to focus…

Hello friends,

I hope you‘re doing well. I haven’t written in a while, and I don‘t have much art to show right now, but I wanted to sit down for a little chat about the topic of focus. At the moment, my brain LOVES latching onto projects that aren’t really that important or urgent, and they become all-consuming. Last week, I made the decision to eventually take a Japanese profiency test (N2, ideally) sometime next year, and I just HAD to immediately rework and improve all my kanji flashcards, which took me the entire week, 6 hours every day, 2200 cards. I could have taken my time, but noooo. I had to rush through it and get it out of the way. Those cards even haunted my dreams! Besides repeating all the kanji, I started reading novels in Japanese again, after abandoning it for a while. It‘s slow-going, but fun. But where were we? Ah yes, focus.

Work-wise, I’ve been preparing for an upcoming convention: ordering prints, planning my booth, the usual: Leipzig Book Fair (LBM/MCC). 27-30 March, booth A307.

Generally, if given the option, I gladly choose administrative things over painting. I‘d rather do taxes than sit down to make art. Weird, right? I‘m just experiencing a lot of anxiety and pressure to create at the moment. I avoid hard things with uncertain outcomes, and I talk myself out of ideas one minute to the next, because they suddenly appear stupid, or unlike ideas at all. Luckily, I have gone through this before and I‘ve learnt a thing or two about myself to get me unstuck. These work for me, and my particular brain and life circumstances, but I‘m curious to see what you do. Please, share your own insights, I‘m curious.

• Work at a place with strangers. I usually walk to a café or one of the many libraries in the city. The walk there already calms my nerves, puts my worries into perspective, gives me glimpses of solutions, and once I arrive, I already feel a bit lighter. Plus, since I‘ve come all this way, I might as well get some work done. I like the subtle buzz of busyness and the background noises: shuffling paper, clicking keyboards, clattering coffee cups (though I always bring my noise-cancelling headphones and lofi music, just in case). I’ve tried co-working with friends, but I end up being distracted, and just chat the entire time. It‘s like I can only generate social energy or work energy, not both. I can definitely focus better when I‘m with people, but they need to mind their own business, haha.

• Change locations throughout the day. When my concentration issues are particularly bad, I will hop around a lot. I‘ll go to a café in the morning, come back home, work a bit there, have lunch, walk to a library or another café, and do another work session there. I know that sounds exhausting, but the walks in between recharge my energy, the changed locations keep my brain engaged, and at the end of the day, I usually amass 10k steps. The day feels much longer and more eventful, and I accomplish most of what I wanted to do. Win win win.

• Now is now, later is later. I usually worry so much about the whole project ahead of me, that I lose sight of the now. My mind is already occupied with step 20, when I haven’t even started on step 1 yet. The question is not „Can I paint this illustration?“, the question is „Can I open up Pinterest, save a handful of inspiration photos to determine the general mood and environment of the scene?“. Doable. Even kind of fun. „Now, can I elaborate on that idea, and come up with a few story prompts or character ideas?“ Sure, why not. And slowly, step by step, I just go through and put the thing together. It may take time, it may be a slow process, but I know that it will eventually lead me somewhere. There‘s really no use in worrying about something that‘s way ahead in the future. What matters is in front of me right now, and it‘s usually small-ish and not so scary.

• Ease into hard tasks. A productivity hack I‘ve heard often is „start with the hardest task“. Sounds great in theory, getting that big scary thing out of the way first thing in the morning. But for me, that‘s the perfect recipe for procrastination and anxiety; I almost feel a physical repulsion at the thought. I‘ve tried it, forced myself to do this for a few days, and got incredibly stressed and burnt out in just that short amount of time. What works much better for me is to start with something quick, easy, and ideally fun. I usually have lots of little things on my to-do list, and they‘re perfect to get the ball rolling: „Check if the application for convention x is open yet“, „update my task list on Notion“, „write down a few painting ideas“, „transfer photos from my phone to PC“—things like that. After that, I could move on to emails (a little harder), then to social media posts (dreaded), and eventually I feel accomplished and confident enough to tackle a painting (incredibly difficult, but fulfilling).

• Deliberate de-focus and timers. These days, especially while working from home, I force myself to take breaks to avoid burning out. My tendency is to just keep going until I run out of steam (usually after 1,5h), I get cranky and hungry, so I need to interrupt myself before that happens. I use a variation of the pomodoro technique: 45 minutes focused work, 8 minute break, and repeat. I’ve arrived at these numbers through trial and error, but the most important element is this: During breaks, I deliberately de-focus. No phone, no podcast, no videos, no music, no entertainment. Instead, I do mundane tasks and little chores around the house (make the bed, load the washing machine, clear the kitchen counter, make tea or a snack). Just give that brain a break, it needs it! If I feel mentally strong enough, I also extend this de-focus to other things outside of work, such as cooking dinner, walking, putting on make-up in the morning—all in silence. I know this sounds like torture to most people, but when my brain is running in overdrive, I believe the last thing I should do is feed it more stuff to process. It also gets easier, the more you do it!

• Trust the initial spark. The wonderful Taryn Knight has phrased this point so nicely, so I‘m going to share her quote: „[O]ur perception of our work isn't always trustworthy. It's a fickle thing, warped by outside influences, lack of confidence, our mental health. Finishing projects requires discipline, creative stamina-something to help us push through the work if/when the initial spark of inspiration fades. I often interpret this "loss of spark" as a sign that the idea isn't any good and therefore not the most productive thing I could possibly be doing (I feel this is especially prevalent in an ADHD artist's life, where ideas rapidly come and go). In order to push back against doubt and overthinking, we have to trust in the initial "spark" and continue to believe in its existence, to have faith that the feeling was real and that it still matters when it's not as strong.“

I’m not perfect, and I struggle all the time. This list is mostly a reminder to myself to fall back on the things I know work for me when times are rough. There are so many more things I could mention, but these are the ones that help me the most. Have you tried any of these?

Take care. <3