Percolating or Procrastinating

In this Bloutcher:

• Percolating or Procrastinating?
• Announcements
• A Percolating Question

Percolating or Procrastinating?

My last bloutcher elicited an interesting set of responses. I wrote about a photo I had clipped from a New Yorker magazine because it grabbed my attention for reasons I could not explain. I pinned the photo on my studio wall and over the next several months allowed the photo to percolate in my awareness until I finally began to sketch it and then ultimately develop a painting inspired by the photo. I've had readers ask: When does percolating become procrastinating? One person mentioned that percolating can be deadly because rather than confront the thing and do something about it the whole thing simply dies.

So here are some thoughts.

Leonardo Da Vinci is said to have worked on the Mona Lisa for 26 years, carrying it with him on his various peripatetic journeys across borders, bridges and City States. Was he percolating or procrastinating?

Wilhem de Kooning, the great abstract expressionist, worked on his seminal painting Excavation for almost a year before throwing it in a garbage heap consigned to the city dump. It was rescued by a friend who talked de Kooning into re-engaging with the painting. From start to finish it took almost two years. Was he percolating or procrastinating?

So one way to look at it is that ultimately the measure of whether we are percolating or procrastinating is in the result--whether it takes one week or one decade. If something worthy emerges from the time + the engagement, then it is percolating. Creativity has its own natural life cycle. And percolating is an essential element of that life cycle.

Now I know that is not going to be a satisfactory answer for everyone, especially for those under the gun of a deadline. After all, deadlines introduce consequences. (Let's leave aside the question of what would the Mona Lisa or Excavation have been if they had been produced under a deadline.) I will acknowledge that deadlines change the dynamics. We may sacrifice the full maturation of the creative process by adhering to deadlines but, hey, that's a reality. We do the best we can with the time we have.

So here's a little secret I discovered. We actually know when we are procrastinating, when we have tipped from percolating into procrastinating. I have rarely found a person who is not aware of when s/he is procrastinating. The problem isn't recognizing it. It's what to do about it.

In the research my co-author Kathy Jordan and I did for our book, we found that the best way to preempt procrastination is to regularly engage in "preparation practices." These are activities which help us separate from the problem we are trying to solve and stimulate a state of mind which predisposes the brain to creative insight. In other words, preparation practices are a form of percolating that move you toward creative insight. Examples of preparation practices include meditation, yoga, going for a walk, riding your bike, even taking a shower. I suggested to one marketing executive that he write down the problem he was trying to solve in the form of a question. I then suggested he put it in his desk drawer and go to the museum for a while and enjoy the art work on the walls. After 45 minutes he rushed back to his office flooded with all kinds of ideas. Unknowingly he had engaged in a preparation activity.

Da Vinci recommended simply going away for a period of time. He meant separating yourself from the thing about which you may be procrastinating. Go some distance, he advised. That way "the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen."

On the other hand, de Kooning went on bike rides. That helped him "keep my eyes fresh."

Ultimately, though, we need to honor percolating. Not rush it. Percolating is a kind of pre-wisdom, a prelude to wisdom, wisdom in the wings that ultimately gets shaped into its appropriate mode of expression. A gift.





Announcements:

• If you are in the Minneapolis/St Paul area please join me at a joint meeting of the Minnesota Coaches Association and the Minnesota Career Development Association. I will be presenting a program entitled: Navigating Change at Midlife and Beyond; The Great Masters of Art Reveal the Secrets to a New Paradigm. To register go to: http://www.minnesotacoaches.org/ OR http://mcda.net/events/navigating-change-at-midlife-and-beyond/
• This is a season of change. And Thanksgiving is around the corner. So I had a thought. If you would like to give Becoming a Life Change Artist; 7 Creative Skills to Reinvent Yourself at Any Stage of Life as a gift to someone I am happy to write a personal note to the recipient on a handsome Thank You card that you can insert into the book. Just let me know the recipient's name and anything you want me to include. If you want to take advantage of this just send me an email at fred@fredmandell.com

A Percolating Question:

Which image below best captures how you are thinking about your life at the present time? And what does that say about where you are in the change process?



Percolating or Procrastinating?