(written in 2020)
As an artist and writer, it has taken me years to figure out how to structure my time valuably as opposed to productively, a word smacking of a late capitalistic value system where time is equated with money, and where one’s productivity and general busy-ness are considered virtues. But time is not money; it is way more valuable, mysterious, and esoteric than money could ever hope to be.
As an adult I’ve inwardly battled to allow myself the time needed to pursue my interests and desires in order to make things; even when no one pays me, even when no one cares. This is often the case for many artists. I’m always wondering if pleasure and a sense of inner satisfaction are enough to justify the time I spend on what I find interesting; on what I choose to understand better; on how creativity makes me feel good in my own body. I think so. But this conclusion does not come naturally to me, nor do I always remember I feel this way. I have to re-remember I get to treat my own curiosity and time valuably. I stress over whether or not I might someday impart this hard fought understanding to my kids, so that they will have agency in how they treat––as the poet Mary Oliver so quotably wrote––their “one wild and precious life.”
Over the years I have developed my own particular systems to help keep my goals and interests on track. I admit, I have a bit of a schedule fetish, but not in the typical ways you might imagine. While I own a planner, I often forget it exists, and mostly rely on sundry little notebooks I’ve deposited in various drawers or bags throughout my house so that when the urge strikes, I can handily grab one and fill it with aspirational lists. Once written, I almost never return to the list, not even for the satisfaction of checking off completed items. The magic for me is in the identification of what needs doing but not the actual doing. More than anything else, the structures I strive to reveal are philosophically based and rarely pragmatic.
I keep feeling like time during this quarantine has an irregular quality to it. More than anything, it seems to prize what social justice advocate Richard Rohr identifies as “under-doing and assured failure.” And yet, initially, when I realized my kids were going to be home for the long haul, I worried about how they would fill this rare abundance of time. Their schoolwork could be completed within a few hours, which left them the rest of the day to do “whatever.” For two modern kids used to days filled with school and extracurriculars, getting this “whatever” figured out was going to be key. It would require an ability to check in with themselves, and to take the time necessary to identify what they needed in the moment. Maybe they just needed to be worried or sad. Maybe they needed to do something creative. I hoped they hadn’t become so dependent on our society’s systems and schedules that they couldn’t figure out their own. This is when I decided the quarantine was the perfect time to reintroduce...The Grid (that’s right, capital T capital G).
What you need to know about The Grid right off is that it is a very basic method for analyzing how one’s time is used. And I’ll go ahead and tell you now that trying to get my kids to implement The Grid to track their daily routines was, of course, a spectacular failure. But I still love it and take pride in its development. The Grid first came about last spring after our kids told Nick and me they had no interest in attending any summer camps that year. “Well then what are you going to do? You can’t just bum around all summer,” I told them, envisioning a messy house littered with half and never-to-be finished projects, unread library books, and endless requests for screen time. But after some thought, Nick and I decided this was a good opportunity for them to battle their own boredom and so we agreed to no camp. So I came up with The Grid to help my kids track how they spent their time and hopefully see for themselves which activities felt meaningful and which felt depleting.
Here is the breakdown: The Grid itself is a large square divided into four equal sections. Each section represents a categorical way time is spent: Do, Learn, Make, and Consume. Objectively, none is more important than the others, all are equally integral to the whole.
Do. Do is productive and often involves something physical: a walk, a run, going to the gym, painting a wall, shopping, errands, visiting with a friend, etc. A Do can be necessary, like preparing food and earning money, but it can also be elective, like exercising or practicing a musical instrument. Busy work is a Do. While A Do can be creative, the end goal is not creativity itself. A Do uses skills and knowledge previously obtained and honed. My daughter, who is inspired by the mythological huntresses Artemis and Athena, loves to spend time shooting her bow and arrow into the hay bales we have set up in our backyard. My son whittled (with supervision) and dyed his own Harry Potter style wand which he now likes to play with on the trampoline, yelling out, “Expelliarmus!” mid-jump.
Learn. The end goal of Learn is to take on new information. It’s worth highlighting that in order for a Learn to be fruitful, a rigorous lack of self-judgment becomes crucial. This is because in the realm of Learn, any value derived comes from the information’s newness. For example, I spent a lot of time last summer researching illuminated manuscripts and reading female-written medieval memoirs. Never mind that I have no idea what I am going to do with this information. That is beside the point. The point is the brain’s adjustments, the synapses formed, the new neural connections. If the Learn is of a hateful, conspiratorial nature, only serving as a way to further entrench oneself within previously conceived ideas of how the world works, then it is valueless and not, in fact, a true Learn. This is because the purpose of Learn is to cultivate expansion and growth. Empathy and flexibility, two badly needed and highly underrated intelligences, are the goals. Spiritual malnutrition can’t fester when learning is meaningful.
Make. A Make involves the creation of something which did not previously exist. My daughter loves to paint and draw. This is her go-to Make. My son loves to fold origami and world-building for his Dungeons & Dragons games. Make often involves the arts, but isn’t relegated to them, nor is the goal to have a finished, physical product. Professional athletes create their bodies. Songs can be written that will only ever exist in the mind. Making a fort out of blankets and pillows counts too, even if the fort has to eventually be disassembled, folded (nicely!) and restacked in the hall closet. Nick’s favorite Make is the wooden pipes he carves and then shapes by hand until they are done and smokeable (one of his favorite Consumes). I’ve noticed the longer he works from home the more elongated and Gandalfian his pipes have become. Make’s ultimate goal is to practice, but perhaps never master, how to explore our interests and curiosities through effort and craft. In its highest function, a Make is unique, but not always pretty.
Consume. I saved this definition for last because, in a lot of ways, Consume requires an interaction or participation with a Make; usually not our own. If it is the product of someone else’s Make--food, entertainment, technology, etc.--the chances are high that this Consume can occur in the absence of one’s own Do, Learn, or Make. To Consume is to absorb information or an experience. In this way, social media is mostly a Consume. You might be learning new things about the friends, family, influencers, and celebrities you follow on social media, but the ultimate goal of this interaction is neither a Learn nor a Make, and often little is accomplished. Some Consumes leave you feeling inspired and open-hearted while other Consumes simply remove you from reality for a time, which is its own balm, until it's not.
Once I understood the essence of each of the grid’s four categories, I tried to honestly evaluate the amount of time I spent in each area on a daily basis. I was less interested in a typical day and more curious as to how a day was spent where I felt generally good and satisfied in my use of time. My results showed that I am a natural when it comes to Do and Consume. Learn often requires either a self pep-talk, a deadline, or a mysterious and unaccountable surge of productivity. Make is my weakest area, but it's also the area I value most, and from which I derive the most self-satisfaction. In a highly consumable world, Makes have become the easiest of these categories to avoid. I remember when my children were in preschool, enrolled in a local Montessori that Nick and I chose because it had a good atmosphere, but also because it was close and the price was right. What I came to appreciate, though, was the way the Montessori structure allowed the children to take their creativity so very seriously. Montessori’s founder, Dr. Maria Montessori, said of her educational method: “Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and strength, use it to create.” An important sentiment considering how easy our culture has made it to not create.
Another way I used the grid was to measure time spent within each category on days where I didn’t feel good about my accomplishments or lack thereof. Going longer than one day without a Make often left me feeling anxious. More than two consecutive days without a Make began distorting my anxiety into feelings of worthlessness. Mostly what I Make is of the written variety, and during periods when I can’t be bothered to get any writing done—either because I’m feeling uninspired or because I believe I have nothing to contribute to the world—tend to be the times I project my frustration outwards, usually onto unprepared family members. This is when I am most prone to giving out unsolicited advice in order to “fix” the people around me, which in its own backwards way, seems easier than “fixing” myself. In a very chicken or egg way, sustained periods without a Make either lead to depression or describe it.
Do has a similar effect on me as Make, although I don’t value and need Do as much. Do feels more like maintenance. Exercising every day so my body feels strong and my muscles feel warm and worked. Grocery shopping and running errands so my family can eat etc. Planting and managing a garden is always a favorite Do.
I love a Learn, but I never know what subjects will catch my attention. For example, in addition to my unaccountable interest in Hildegard and Julian of Norwich last summer, it also felt incredibly important to me to be able to identify and name locally growing wildflowers and pine trees and their corresponding pinecones. Currently, I’m reading and listening to a lot of podcasts about economics and markets. I can’t predict when or where these urges will strike me and I’ve found it is best to get out of my own way rather than question my motives. I go ahead and deep-dive into these sometimes bizarre semi-obsessions, because frankly, it just feels good. There was a period in my life where I felt it was pragmatic to block out any explorations lacking monetary value, social clout, or––at a minimum––some kind of utilitarian function. In retrospect, this attitude is depraved and sad. Now I just let myself explore whatever weird shit I want. The value is inherent and it is real.
Last, and least, is Consume. My low opinion of Consume is only the result of my continuing battle to understand when and what to inject into my mind and body. Being an informed consumer in 2020 is no small task. I am constantly trying to figure out: who I’m giving my money to––whether it is local and small or corporate and dystopic; the quality of what I consume, endlessly attempting to dodge junk material, junk food, and junk news. Other questions: is my purchase harming my body or the environment? Does the content of the information I am taking in make me feel angry and isolated from humanity or does it facilitate empathy and courage? Does it target a particular group of people, an ominous “other”? All of this is to ask, does my Consume leave me with a better understanding of myself or do I feel alienated?
One of my biggest Consume concerns for my children is how technology makes it easier than ever for us to check out of reality. Video games, streaming services, social media, and internet rabbit holes are not inherently bad in themselves. I’m regularly amazed and grateful for how many movie options we have, because we are enjoying a lot of movie watching right now. But these benefits have to be balanced with an awareness of how much manpower and money are spent so that these technologies are consumed compulsively. My pre-shelter in place strategy to counter the lure of the digital world and its can’t-get-enough content was to limit screen time. Currently, however, Nick and I find ourselves less and less interested in micromanaging our kids’ screen usage. Especially since, or maybe because, no one is grumpy or complaining they are bored nor are they abusing our disinterest in policing how much time they spend taking online Which Harry Potter Character Are You? quizzes or flower leg painting Tic Toc tutorials. Perhaps an inner compass is developing. Or maybe it was always there.
Worth noting is the fact that a Do, Learn, or Make can become a Consume when performed unconsciously. At some point, the obtainable social or individual value of a Do, Learn, or Make will climax, and once this occurs, any benefits gained subtly begin to shift into a consumptive mode. Do, Learn, and Make seamlessly transform into the robotic motions of a Consume when compulsivity is involved: the wonkish reader who hides from life through her books; the health-crazed running enthusiast who, because of his caloric intake obsession, has avoided doughnuts since the aughts. Any seemingly innocuous Do, Learn, and Make has the greatest potential to turn into an Unconscious Consume when choosing what is safe and known supplants healthy curiosity and a willingness to try something new. The best way to avoid an Unconscious Consume is by stretching one’s self out of their comfort zone.
***
As I said, The Grid itself was not the spectacular, life-changing success I had hoped it would be. Last summer, when I sat my kids down to explain The Grid’s concept, they grasped what I was saying immediately, as though it were obvious or, worse, boring. Afterwards, it occurred to me that not everyone gets off on charts like I do, and maybe there is something weird, and dare I say unnatural, about making your children graph their time use.
Still, at the beginning of the quarantine, instead of trying to revive the actual charting of time use, I decided to just utilize the language. “What’s your Do going to be today?” I asked. When my son tried to reread the same Magnus Chase book I swear he’s already read eight times this year, I suggested to him that re-reading that book had become a Consume rather than a Learn, since newness was no longer the essence of the experience.
Yet even the language failed me. When I ask these questions, I can sense my children barely containing their sighs and eyerolls. I suppose the whole point of The Grid was to help my kids, my most important creations, to let go of the old, imposed structures that have been given to them in order to create their own. They tolerate me though, perhaps understanding in some unnameable way that I’m just trying to give them the tools they’ll someday need to help usher in new, sustainable ways of being in the world. That they treat their empathy like the intelligence that it is. That they think radically and imaginatively and creatively. That they embrace newness, digging deep inside of themselves at the end of each day, searching for what is real. Because this (*gestures outward widely) is happening. It’s all real.
And for myself, I can only keep asking at the day’s end, if I am irritable and discontent, with nothing obvious to blame, did I treat my time like the gift that it is? Did I treat others like the gifts that they are? Did I treat this unfathomable world like it is irreplaceable?