This past weekend, I read Life in the Studio by Frances Palmer. Palmer is a ceramic artist from Connecticut. This book offered a look into her methods of working. It was also a visual delight, featuring loads of beautiful photographs of her pots as well as flowers.
One section is titled: "On Working Row by Row". In it, Palmer reflects:
When I was about eight years old, my mother taught me how to knit. . . .In my twenties, I got orders from friends for knitted pieces, and since I was working full-time, I started to carry knitting with me everywhere. At any opportunity, I'd knit a row or two, to advance the project. . . .If one considers the span of the day and the list of what needs to be accomplished, it is easier to break the items into components. A row is a row is a row is a realistic way to approach tasks one by one. People have told me that they wished they could have done such and such, but they never had enough time. The truth is, there is never enough time, yet I find that these moments provide the best opportunities to maximize the minutes of the day.
This is the same philosophy I have in my own life. I don't have any huge blacks of times to work on projects, and if I waited for them to do something, I'd never get anything done. So, I read a few minutes here or there, I work on books a paragraph or two at a time, I do 5 minutes of Duolingo a day to stretch my brain and work on learning Spanish, I take a few minutes each day to post something on social media, I quilt at night while we watch some television, etc. All those little bits add up, and in the end, I have something to show for that time. Never underestimate the value of a few minutes taken daily to work at something you want to do.
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