Whitespace and the hourglass of productivity

We’re to the end of the year and I thought I’d revisit this little “did I compose for (at least) 20 minutes today” tracker:

Some immediate takeaways:

• I absolutely nailed the 7th day of every month! Go number 7!

• The first day of each month was the day on which I was least likely to write—only three out of 11 months!

• My longest streak was 37 days (March 15th - April 18th)

• If you cross your eyes and squint, doesn’t the pattern of days look a little bit like a face? With the eyes around May 16th and 27th? The mouth gaping in late July and August? Shoulders widening back out in October and November?

• The middle of the year looks mighty sparse! In the month of July I wrote on a paltry five out of 31 days…! But look what was going on instead:

How did I feel about not writing music every day?

At the time, I know I felt badly. I’ve heard there are those who (say they) let absolutely nothing get in the way of sticking to their creative time—not injury, emergency, travel, friends, family. Channeling this, on one backpacking trip late in the season after a summer of struggling to string more than a handful of composing days together, I brought a scrap of staff paper to squeeze 20 minutes in at camp.

Definitely didn’t happen.

How do I feel about not getting much writing done during the summer now?

It’s December. In the pacific northwest we’ve now had two full months of dark and rain, dark and rain that encourages lots of inside time—with friends, loved ones, books, naps, food, and music. And between the months of October, November, and December, I’ve strung together enough days of writing to rival my streaks from the beginning of the year.

Like a sponge, I seem to have soaked up the energy of the sun and summer and now it is powering my music writing. I wrote a little bit about the unexpected (and frequent!) tenderness and joy that finds its way into my music—maybe this is where it comes from, bottled up, set aside in the cellar for when the sun sets at 4:27PM 13 days in a row at the bottom of the calendar.

So maybe this tracker chart needs to look different to reflect the realities of the seasons. If you just slightly rearrange the days per month, it falls into a familiar shape: