I used to play guitar a lot, it was my favorite hobby for a while. Every time I felt like playing, I just grabbed the guitar and played for as long as I wanted.
I didn’t treat it like a waste of time at all. In fact, compared to playing video games, it was much more productive. This year though I’ve touched it maybe 2 times. All because I convinced myself that as a “professional artist”, I’m not supposed to be wasting time on things that don’t bring me closer to my goals.
I thought this would lead me to be super productive, but I just replaced this gap with social media and YouTube. I didn’t choose to do this, it just happened.
Don’t just cut things out
When I convinced myself to stop playing guitar, I had good intentions. But intentions aren’t enough. The vacuum that is left after something significant disappears has to fill up with something.
That’s why when school ended I didn’t magically start drawing more like I hoped I would. I actually started drawing less than back when I had lessons every day. I still had the free time, I was just allocating it poorly.
The many shapes of creativity
Before I became an artist, I was really into video games. They took up almost all my free time. I started expressing my creativity by recording videos and streaming. Then I quit streaming and got into music production. I kept switching back and forth between art and music, I couldn’t decide what exactly I wanted to do. But eventually I settled on making art.
So I went from recording Minecraft videos on my mum’s PC to now drawing furry art commissions. Even though all of these activities may seem very random, they all were different ways to embody creativity.
Now I feel like I’m going through something similar again. I suddenly got really interested in graffiti, and the first instinct was to stop doing it immediately because that’s not what I had planned for my future. On a second look, I realized that I’m not drawing much recently anyways. So I’m letting myself explore it for now.
How to apply this
When you’re quitting something to be more productive in another area of your life, look at what actually replaces it. If you indeed started working more and you feel better, then this is great. But if you didn’t get more productive and your screen time increased, chances are that you’ve cut the wrong thing.
