F the Lines

Hello, humans! Welcome back to the F the Lines podcast, the show where we talk about creativity, minimalism, and how to stay wildly functional in a distracted world.

I'm your host, Andrew Folts, and in this episode, I'm going to be talking with my creative partner in crime, Kathy Palokoff about productivity.

https://fthelines.com/blog/ep18-productivity-kathy-palokoff

December 2019—I was getting good at illustration and that was a problem. When I started my 365-day challenge, it took me about four hours to draw a comic, but two weeks in, I was cranking them out in half the time.

At that rate, it would take me fourteen years to log ten thousand hours of practice. I wouldn't be an “expert” until I was forty-three.

On the other hand, free time seemed to be good for me.

After five years of grinding as a freelancer, I was doing…nothing. I would post my comic around noon then spend the rest of the day going for walks, reading, taking naps, and listening to music.

It got to such a ridiculous point, that I considered starting a local challenge called #RestedinROC (aka Rochester, NY) where people would compete to see who could spend the most time relaxing.

I thought I had discovered the holy grail of creativity.

But here’s the thing…doing nothing is really fucking hard.

https://medium.com/@fthelines/perfect-day-how-to-follow-your-ambition-w-o-going-off-the-rails-35227297989f

Hello, humans! Welcome back to the F the Lines podcast, the show where we talk about creativity, focus, and how to stay wildly functional in a distracted world.

I'm your host slash friendly neighborhood extraterrestrial, Andrew Folts, and in this episode, I'm going to be talking with my creative partner in crime, Kathy Palokoff about names and lines. How do you find a good name for your company? What should you put in your Instagram bio. And how do you attract the right people with the words that come out of your mouth?

Hope you guys enjoy this one and I'll see you on the other side!

May 6, 2020—Now that the apocalypse is here, it kind of seems like a good time to embrace #PrepperLife, but does the fetal position really make you safe?

I have more books than shelves. There’s a little stack piling up at the foot of my bed. When I noticed it, I got this warm, fuzzy feeling.

Some people get that feeling when they open up their bank account and see a bunch of zeroes. Other people get it when they climb into their concrete bunker and tally up three months of food.

It’s the feeling of safety—the knowledge that you have more than you need and you’re good for a while if shit hit the fan tomorrow.

So I guess I’m a starving artist.

But it goes beyond that. Because the difference between bookshelves and bomb shelters is really the difference between confidence and fear.

Right now, I’m reading Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan, and the main argument is that everything went downhill when humans stopped foraging and started trying to stockpile food by farming and raising animals.

It’s ironic because we had everything we needed.

Our nomadic ancestors were happier, healthier, and more chill than us in almost every way. We didn’t choose agriculture because nature stopped providing—we just lost our faith in the present moment.

Ironically, the same pattern is playing out during the Coronavirus pandemic. Bread aisles aren’t empty because there’s a shortage of bread but because there’s an abundance of fear.

Instead of buying a gun, why not become a mentor?

Instead of starting an argument, why not donate to charity?

Instead of building a bomb shelter, why not build a bookcase?

You get what you prepare for. ✌️

Read the whole story on Medium: 

https://medium.com/@fthelines/167-bomb-shelters-vs-bookshelves-you-get-what-you-prepare-for-514c9bcc1134

November 14, 2019—I drew a couple of lines then scribbled them out and slumped down in my chair. The piece of paper in front of me was a war zone. Half-drawn heads, wobbly cups of coffee, and crooked guitars stared back like soldiers begging for a medic.

This was supposed to be the new me.

Yesterday, I had decided to start a 365-day challenge where I would draw comics for a whole year, but here I was on Day One and I couldn't come up with a single idea. Everything looked like garbage.

I scanned the room for inspiration and suddenly it occurred to me…

Oh…there's an anaconda on my desk!

I had wrapped this giant stuffed snake around my computer a couple of weeks ago and had completely forgotten it was there.

This time, when I picked up my pencil, everything just flowed. The thick lines and stark contrast of black on white felt like a goofy-yet-refined lovechild of The New Yorker and Captain Underpants. It was perfect.

Oh, boy! I thought. This is going to be easy!

Read the whole story on Medium.

✅ Day 158 of 365: Creativity Dumpster Fire

April 27, 2020—If you’re a creative person, your brain is your greatest strength, but it will also try to ruin your life and completely humiliate you. Yay!

#1: Validation Seeking

While your creative brain is too proud to beg for validation, it is not above manipulating other humans into “stumbling” on your work by “mistake.”

When unsuccessful, you may find yourself resorting to increasingly obvious tactics, such as leaving your laptop open on the dining room table, laughing out loud, or the classic “posting work to Facebook and then batch-liking your entire news feed in the hopes of digital reciprocity.”

Solution: Seek your own validation.

#2: Catastrophizing

Anxiety is just creativity flipped upside down and when your carousel of horrors gets spinning, you can start to lose touch with reality.

Despite your best efforts to calm the fuck down, your creative brain pulls you toward Facebook, where you message anyone who is even vaguely qualified to diagnose your problem. You instantly regret hitting “send” and start brainstorming ways to assure your friends you are not completely crazy.

Solution: Write down three DIY solutions before asking for help.

#3: Creative ADHD

Mmmm. There’s nothing your creative brain loves more than starting new projects. In fact, you collect them like Pokemon cards.

Hand-coded WordPress plugins, clever logo redesigns, advertising campaigns for imaginary clients, trap beats, 4-minute mile training plans, tiny house schematics…it’s all very impressive. Except that you never finish any of it and no one trusts a single word out of your mouth other than “hello.”

Read the whole story on Medium: https://medium.com/@fthelines/157-the-seven-ways-your-creative-brain-will-totally-embarrass-you-c1298dc278ac

March 25, 2020—The more things you own, the more taxing your workspace is on your brain, and the less energy you have leftover to spend on creativity.

I can’t see my stuff, but it’s there. I can’t see it because my subconscious brain is always hard at work organizing reality into nice, neat packages…

And I mean, thank god for this, right? Can you imagine trying to parse each individual lettuce leaf while walking through the produce section?

We’d all be braindead by 10 am.

But the thing is, perceptual grouping isn’t magic. Every time your brain has to simplify a bunch of stuff it takes energy. And while you can’t do much about the produce section, you can simplify your workspace.

Take a look around your room and try counting everything you see. Impossible, right? There’s way too much stuff!

If you want to get hardcore minimalist about it you can set a limit on the number of things allowed in your space, but what I like to do is just…

For example, this morning I found a random block of wood just sitting under my drafting table. I knew it was there, but my brain just kept grouping it as table and wood, so I never did anything about it.

It seems like such a small thing, but now that I look at the table I get this feeling of relaxation, like Ahhh…just…table.

Join the convo on Medium. (:

April 21, 2020—The more creative I get, the more horrible and persistent my demons become. But last night, I found a secret weapon. It’s my mom.

When I close my eyes at night, I see horrible things. It’s a side-effect of creativity. The more I push my limits, the better my work gets—and the worse my demons become. They’re not so much terrifying as grotesque.

Body parts all mixed up. Turtles swimming out of UFOs. Men with gears in their eyes. Inflatable babies operated by women wearing snorkels. Thieves who sing “darling, your head’s not small.” Deer sleeping in hotel beds.

Last night I watched a Stormtrooper fuck a carrot.

How?! How does that even work?

In one of his comedy specials, Doug Stanhope calls this “the carousel of horrors.” The idea is that creativity becomes anxiety when it has a blank canvas (aka closing your eyes).

Most nights, my strategy has been to tire myself out with a good book and ride out the storm before falling asleep, but yesterday I discovered something that works even better…my mom.

Whenever I go on a creative tangent, her brain switches off. She’s “listening” but not hearing what I say.

Me: “So, I had this idea for a productivity system that uses magnetic paper!”

Last night, I accidentally used the same tone of voice with my demons and it was like putting the TV on mute—they were present but silent.

Demons: “Graahh! Prisms, boulders, being eaten alive by spider squid!

Sometimes mother does know best (even when it comes to spider squid).

Last summer, my body started to fall apart and I had to wade through a pile of ergonomic bullshit. This story is about what works.

July 2019—Sleep is the most boring thing in the world until you can’t get any. And then suddenly it becomes very interesting. So interesting, in fact, that you start to feel like Jack Nicholson in The Shining.

That was my general state of mind after two months of dealing with back pain last summer. It was so bad that I could barely sleep for more than an hour at a time, let alone get actual work done.

I would wake up with this horrible piercing sensation in my spine and literally couldn’t breathe because the smallest movements made it even worse.

Mentally, I was chained to a typewriter, but instead of “no play,” I was looping endlessly over fatigue, as it ate away at my sanity.

Read the whole story on Medium.

When Coronavirus hit, I was already stressing about knee and hip arthritis, but ditching the gym taught me how to get an even better workout at home. 

Summer 2010—My brother was staring at me like there was a tyrannosaurus rex sitting at the dinner table and no one else had noticed. “So, ah…have you been working out or something?”

It was a fair question because, in my first year of college, I had transformed from a wispy 145-lb distance runner into a 170-lb sirloin steak. More specifically, I had discovered the campus gym.

My first workout, I bounced from station to station like Jordan Peele soaking in the “splendors” of a continental breakfast. Ahhh…the mighty bench press! And now the lat pulldown machine. Dipping bars? Don’t mind if I do!

It was all new and exciting, but the real magic happened when I sat down to do some leg presses. Weirdly, I couldn’t seem to max myself out. Week after week, I pressed 180, then 360, then 450, and finally 500 pounds.

Read the whole story on Medium.