Coping 5: This
Coping is short posts on Fridays about coping methods for doing creative and focused things in an unfocused world. In Coping 5, a little bit of recursion as I explain why the very text you're reading is a form of coping.
A number of my colleagues and acquaintances have, since I started writing Not so obvious, expressed anything from gentle incredulity to awe at the regularity of my output. The specific question I've been asked is "how do you find time to write that much?" The answer, and the reason you're seeing it on a Friday, is that this is also a tool for coping, for staying upright and interested in a destabilizing world.
For me, "this" is getting to write the things I want, the way I want. Writing is something I've loved for as long as I've been able to do it. Building myself a platform that encourages regularity and discipline helps me structure an activity that makes me feel happy and accomplished. That's what makes me find time to write in the evening and on the weekend, and to blearily edit and publish something every Monday morning before my work week starts.
To be a little less glib, remembering to do the things you love, and building opportunities to do so is what "this" is and why this (all of this "writing productivity") exists.
