Category: Work

ELBOWS KNEES AND HEADS

What the hell are we doing?

“Victor has found that projects pop up very late at night, so he is in the habit of waking every three hours or so to check his queue. When a task is there, he’ll stay awake as long as he can to work. Once, he stayed up 36 hours straight labeling elbows and knees and heads in photographs of crowds — he has no idea why.”

From ‘AI Is a Lot of Work,’ all about the for-real humans that make AI seemingly work.

“Work stripped of all its normal trappings: a schedule, colleagues, knowledge of what they were working on or whom they were working for. In fact, they rarely called it work at all — just “tasking.” They were taskers.”

We’re doomed.

GET AWAY

Without Twitter (I shut down my account in early June, 2023) , what do I do now?

Well, I go outside more, wash my dishes, organize, go on bike rides, and talk on the phone more.

In this video below Jon Wayne talks about getting away from always being in the thing you wanna make (in his case, BEATS), and getting out and doing things that lend itself back to making beats.

Living a rich, well rounded, cultural life adds to your art.

Marlee Grace wrote about having someone else manage her Instagram:

I found that as I didn’t have access to my Instagram my interest in sharpening my website and offering came into clearer focus. I opened up my books for creative advising, saw opportunities for new classes, and started organizing plans for a new website. My ecosystem is so much more than an algorithmic grid.

Now that I’ve stopped focusing on tending to an app that many people don’t even use, I now have more time to work on things that can generate income, or give me joy, or fuck, just make my kitchen look nice.

And it’s not just about monetizing my hobbies or some shit. If anything it’s about not working – more bike rides, more running in the woods, more calm, casual conversations with friends.

So when it is time to work, I’m my best, most fulfilled self.

LONELY CONTENT MACHINES

I like this quote from New Creative Era:

THE CREATIVE STATUS QUO HAS MADE US LONELY CONTENT MACHINES
PRESSURED TO POST WITH UNNATURAL QUANTITY AND FREQUENCY
TO PURSUE OUR LIVELIHOODS AND EXPRESS OUR WORK
WE PLAY SOMEONE ELSE’S GAME

I’ve been thinking about that first line a bit, as I sort of felt isolated as a writer, as someone trying to offer up ideas. I feel like it’s me vs everyone, stacking up against everyone else trying to offer solutions and ideas in a busy, hyper-competitive world of music and culture.

Makes me think back to my high school days. I hung around creative musical people all the time, for years. The result was creative musical projects. These days, I’m not so creative with music anymore.

I wrote this in 2018:

We can’t do the “real life” thing if we’re scrolling through an app for hours a day. That’s not “keeping up” or “staying informed,” that’s taking time away from our creative pursuits! And emailing friends! Calling people. Have coffee with friends.

We are lonely content machines, cooped up in our rooms and studios trying to make everything ourselves.

The real life hangs and interactions came to an end in 2020 because of the pandemic, and I think it’s gonna take a minute to get back to that.

BANDCAMP UNION WINS

Very glad to see this:

“Bandcamp United and Bandcamp management are committed to working together to continue to advance fair economic conditions for our workers and the artists who rely on us. We look forward to negotiating with an open mind and working in good faith to promote the best interests of all of our staff and the artist and label community we serve.”

More here.

YOU LIVE IN A THEME PARK

From Dan Wentzel, a quote from Gareth Klieber:

My hot take on “15 minute cities” is if you can get to the coffee shop within fifteen minutes, but the barrista who makes your drink can’t afford to live closer than a half-hour away, then you live in a theme park.

Ain’t that the truth?

THERE’S ALWAYS MORE WORK

My Sunday morning was going to include catching up on some work.

Then I read this:

“If you must work hard and be efficient, consciously pick that work. Constantly ask yourself why are you working so hard on this damn thing. If the answer is: “so I can get ahead“, remind yourself that it’s a treadmill and you’ll always stay at the same place, no matter how fast you run.”

The Anti-Productivity Manifesto

There’s no getting ahead, because there’s always more. (via Hacker News)

WE’RE TOO AVAILABLE

This from Codie Sanchez:

Each day the average person gets:
• 41 texts
• 100 emails
• 5 calls

If responding to each takes an average of 3 minutes…

That’s 7 hours a day.

Yeah yeah yeah, give or take the three minutes number, but still – each one of those things is a distraction from what you’re doing.

So while it might not take 3 minutes to answer one text, I bet having that phone in your hand leads to checking out Instagram, or scrolling through Google News for 10 minutes.

We’re all too available, too often, and much time is given to being distracted instead of doing work.

Partly why I’m so glad I’m a freelancer and have nearly zero meetings every week.

DO THINGS YOU ENJOY

Saw this on Farrah Storr’s newsletter, an interview with Emma Gannon:

What’s one thing you wished you’d never done?

A Ted Talk. I was nervous for three months in the lead up to it and then came crashing down afterwards post-adrenaline. I’ve come to terms with the fact  I don’t enjoy public speaking in that way. 

What I love about this is the permission to just not do something.

Hustle / freelance / self employment cutlure would have us do everything as a means to promote and market ourselves.

But using the example above, at what cost?

Three months of being nervous? Being distracted with the worry of the upcoming event? Then the crash afterwards, once it’s all over?

No thanks.

Don’t want to start a TikTok? DON’T.

Don’t want to post on Instagram anymore? DON’T.

Don’t want to start an email list? DON’T.

Do what works for you.