An ode to non-productivity

When the Covid19 lock down began there was a lot of talk about how productive we may all become when we’re forced indoors. We’ll have time to think about all the projects we could be doing, and there were loads of people on Twitter referencing how productive Isaac Newton was during his plague years.

Lots of friends also said that I’d be massively productive too and my habit of writing lots as a second full time job would continue in quarantine. It sounds like I’m not the only one with this expectation placed upon them, as others have told me of the stress caused by the fact everyone expects them to be productive.

In truth there’s nothing stopping me from being productive as I’m financially largely unaffected by the current crisis and I don’t have any childcare responsibilities.

I started the lock down not sure what I would do, as covered in my previous blog post.

Now that we’re a few week in I can say I have not been very productive at all … and I’m loving it.

For once I’m not writing in response to something, whether that be exhibitions I’ve seen that need reviewing, those coming up that need previewing or doing a major roundup of exhibitions. I can now write about whatever I feel like — case in point this blog post.

Yes I do appreciate that a blog post may be classified as productivity, though my output in terms of number of articles has dipped dramatically.

While in the past I was hitting as many exhibitions as possible, it meant I often neglected the other arts. Not so over the last few weeks where I’ve watched ballet, classical music, dance, theatre and opera all from my sofa. Plus some art and artist talks, I have no plans to neglect my first love.

I’ve also taken the time to hit up my ‘coffee list’, that list we all have of people we intend to catch up with over coffee but it never materialises because life gets busy. Now thanks to Skype and Zoom I’ve been catching up with lots of people, including those abroad as distance matters not on a video call.

Sure, at some point I may feel like I need to get back to visiting exhibitions and reviewing them, but for now I’ve got a new routine and it’s working for me.

I’ve been given a bit of breathing space and I’m going to make the most of it, and so should you if you are able to. Productivity be damned.