How Often Should You Work On Your Passion?

Productivity Bites 3

A couple of things to get straight here – we are talking about passion, right? It’s something you LOVE doing, not something akin to emptying the cat’s litter or doing your tax returns. OK.

Oh, and another thing. The word “work” is really inappropriate here. Since when has indulging in a passion been considered work? So if you do consider whatever you’re trying to get going on a chore or a pain, you may have misjudged your chosen calling.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, here’s the thing (and the answer to the question in the title: You don’t have to create stuff all the time. Not at all! Just a little something every day will do quite nicely. Let me explain.

Little By Little

Some people get hung up about this and think they should be forever in the process of producing some jaw-dropping wonder, thinking about what they are going to produce next or simply cleaning up after their latest creation. It’s great to be in action, but there’s no need to overdo it.

However, there is one thing I systematically suggest to people to absolutely skyrocket their output: produce something new every day. It absolutely doesn’t have to be anything huge or epoch-shaking.

For a writer, it could be a few lines of their novel or a poem or short article. A painter might add another layer or a detail to their current piece in progress. A gardener may plant a couple of plants or pull up a few weeds, and a knitter can slam out a few more rows of their latest sweater or winter scarf.

It actually matters very little what you do. The point is to do something, rather than nothing. Every day.

Watch ‘Em Stack Up

So why every day? Isn’t it a good thing to have days off every now and then, to keep the ideas fresh and not get burnt out and all that?

The problem with incorporating “days off” or “rest days” or “cheat days” or “consolidation days” or whatever other weird and wonderful term you might be particularly fond of is… they’re dangerously flexible.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m doing something “daily” with Sunday as “my rest day”, for example, suddenly, at the drop of a hat (or a croissant or an ice cream or a cookie…) any of the other six days – the current one, today, for example – will be happily and eagerly volunteering to be the famous “one day a week off”.

The Rot Sets In

So you “swap them”, promising yourself that come Sunday, you’ll treat it as a normal “on” day and all will be well with the world, your new diet, your exercise regime, your instrument practice or… [fill in the blank according to your personal daydream].

Only, come Sunday, well, it’s Sunday, after all, and it’s just this once, you know. But it’s never just “this once”. That’s the problem with rest days.

Day Off? How Ridiculous!

When, on the other hand, you don’t have days off, you never have this problem. You just work a little bit on your project every day and that’s all there is to it. It’s no longer a question of “if”, but “when”, and that’s incredibly liberating. Remember, this is something you claim you really want to do, right?!

So, you get to play around with your pet activity on a daily basis, no questions asked – wonderful.

And then some sort of strange magic starts to operate when you make of your passion a daily practice.

Wave That Magic Wand

You don’t notice it as you churn out stuff day after day, but pretty soon you can look at what you’ve produced in the last week or month, say, and be pretty impressed.

Right now, I’m sitting on a back catalogue of 1037 Paris pictures and related texts which has taken me – did you guess? – precisely 1037 days to amass. And I practically never think of anything but the day I’m actually on – today, in other words. It’s a wonderful way to work!

But My Stuff Is Different

The claim that what you’re working on is an exception, doesn’t fit the mould and that your lack of productivity should be accorded mitigating circumstances is a commonly proffered excuse, but I don’t buy it. If you’re a creative type with a passion, you can always do something, or you can’t do anything. Even if it’s just imagining future highlights in your head.

And here’s a bona fide pro technique for ya – produce a lot. A lot of crap, for sure, why not? It’s all good practice. Plenty of mediocre stuff too, clearly. And then, miraculously, there will be the moments of marvel, the flashes of brilliance too, as long as you’re actually chipping away at the chalkface!

Day In, Day Out

Does that sound dangerously restrictive to you, tethering your wild creative spirit to an almost 9-5 office routine? I get that, I really do. The hard fact of the matter is, though, that a little bit of discipline can carry us a long way. And as soon as we start working on our passion, we instantly forget the angst of getting going we were feeling a few seconds before. We’re working on our passion. We’re building a legacy to be proud of, practically in our sleep. That counts for something. Every day.

GET COACHED BY SAB!

🧩 Sab has been exploring the creative human experience in Paris for over 25 years. He writes words, makes pictures and encourages connectedness every day. He thinks that being creative on a regular basis is a wonderful way to lead a worthwhile, enriching and generous life. He’d love to help you make the most of your infinite potential too, creatively and authentically…

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