Invisible Productivity

100 Day Project Day 86

I read something somewhere recently about ADHDers making to do lists is more to do with the endorphin hit of the doing – list-making – than it is about getting anything on the list done. It was a humour post by an ADHD person, and of course I can’t remember who, and of course it doesn’t apply to every ADHD person, but I laughed because omg that’s me.

Productivity! Productivity! Productivity! That’s the lesson we get from late-stage capitalism practically from birth, and that’s particularly painful for people who are neurodivergent, especially with ADHD. This is even more so if we have lived long lives without knowing this is what is “wrong”* with us.

*nothing really wrong, just different neurotypes in an ableist, neurotypical world.

I’ve been musing a lot about productivity, and what it means for me and my art practise throughout this 100 Day Project. Some days I have The Perfect Art Day where I am productive, and work on several different things, and feel like a “good artist” or even a “good person”, and some days I barely drag a 10 minute scrawl out of myself, and almost feel like I am cheating.

Of course I am not cheating. No-one is really counting here, apart from me. If I did miss a day, my world would not end, and the art supplies would still be there tomorrow. And of course the “good person” shite is just that – shite. It’s ingrained in me from childhood, shock horror, and it’s long past due it went for a permanent holiday. I doubt it ever will, as my inner critic feasts on it.

It doesn’t matter if I produced ten pages of work, or once corner of a page of work, what matters is showing up. Even then, not showing up isn’t necessarily a lack of productivity.

I think about seeds that fall at the end of summer, that lie in the soil resting over winter, and then slowly start transforming, still hidden, into the next stage. Or a compost bin where you throw in the mix of gunky veg from the fridge, some old cardboard, and some garden clippings, and it looks bad, and you keep topping that up and turning it, and eventually you get a lovely, nutritious bunch of compost. The productivity was almost unobservable.

I try to remind myself of that on the days where I feel like there’s nothing happening with my creativity – that resting and composting and transforming are all forms of invisible productivity.

With a mind like mine, that never fucking shuts up, there’s always something going on, even if it isn’t being expressed by my hands.

And that’s OK.

My poppy girl painting rested over the weekend, sitting on my easel, or being moved out of the way and back again, just resting while somewhere in my consciousness I came to the point where I am happy with her, bar the last session of final touches. She’s done.

She’s done, and watercolour inks are now in my collection, which gives me something else to collect. Ha.

11×15″ Stonehenge paper

Eyes On Gaza,

Til the morn,

Suzanne