While time flies in your work day, what happens when you start spending a sizeable amount of the rest of your hours at it too? How big of a loss is the outside world... really? This is the final part, in a three-part article exploring some of my thoughts, experiences (and coping strategies) related to the dynamics involved in loving what you do.

Paying attention.

When I notice myself getting super immersed in the work, I feel surprised, and stoked, but also a little wary. Because that scanning-bliss moment was kind of like me and ‘the work’ having a good time together even though we were just doing the dishes. (Sweet, but a little freaky.) Or maybe even cutting each other’s hair with a pudding bowl. (Handy, but "let's never speak of this to anyone", y'know?) And while I do want to harness it (and did), catching this feeling also lets me know I probably need to make sure I have penciled in time for other things in the near future. If not, it means I’m likely to get too involved in what I'm doing, focus on it to the exclusion of other elements of my life, and end up resenting it later through a situation of my own making. I don’t want my work to be all that I do, or all that I am, even if I do enjoy it. I want it to be one of many modes of expression for my varied ideas, visions and experiences.

Photo: From the 1999 comedy, "Office Space".

While time flies in your work day, what happens when you start spending a sizeable amount of the rest of your hours at it too? How big of a loss is the outside world... really? This is the second part, in a three-part article exploring some of my thoughts, experiences (and coping strategies) related to the dynamics involved in loving what you do.

Trying things the other way round.

When you create and invent, or build and grow, or analyse and theorise all day for a living it’s also important to find a balance with activities that fall outside these acts, or even oppose them. To simply absorb, listen and observe, instead of produce. To create, imagine and mentally meander without purpose or direction, or at least without expectation. The places you end up from there, are where the little genius-gremlin-thing writer Elizabeth Gilbert described in her excellent TED talk, probably refuels on pixie dust, even if he delivers the goods back at the desk you show up to each day. The resultant synergy between those other inputs and your professional output, is where the magic leading to inspired concepts happens.

Getting outside your head completely.

It's not just about varying input from within your world either - by say, checking out others’ work in your field or keeping up with news. It’s about varying whole modes of experience-input altogether. Sometimes the most stimulating experiences for your professional life, can actually be the ones where you shut down the usual connections you use in the brain every day, and get into the flow of something utterly different. For me, it’s snowboarding or surfing. I don’t usually come up with ideas for work on the hill or in the ocean, but instead, I find I am at last able to stop coming up with them - and just be both physically and mentally in the right-bloody-now for a while.

Photo: Mount Ruapehu last winter. Copyright © 2008 OWR Studio

Photo: From the cover of "Obsession", a compilation album of rare 1967-74

South American, Indian, and Turkish psychedelic songs.

The other day I realised how lucky I am. I really love what I do. Even the stink bits, apparently. I guess it’s hard once you begin doing your own thing professionally, not to become utterly wrapped up in it at certain points. But while time flies in your work day, what happens when you start spending a sizeable amount of the rest of your hours at it too? How big of a loss is the outside world... really?

Feeling lucky, punk?

See, I recently caught myself in an almost embarrassing moment of scanning-and-resizing bliss - genuinely enjoying one of the more banal and repetitive aspects of my job. My delight in the act of doing something towards the final vision could not it seemed, be dulled by the pedestrian nature of the task at hand, nor the fact that I was doing it back on Xmas Morning. I was just muddling away and loving it. It's not a bad thing in itself for getting things done and all, but I know what this kind of euphoria usually means for the rest of my life. And it might be time to consider it before old patterns emerge. There’s another side to the elation - a severe and abrupt come down called burn-out. Is this love-phase merely the honeymoon period which comes with the thrill of recently starting a new venture, or the beginning of a new obsessive phase of work? And either way - could it be harnessed as something healthily sustainable for the long term? Only time, and the results of my focus will tell in the end, but it got me thinking about the kind of romantic relationship that can develop with one’s work, and when (or if) we should be worried! Does being in love with your work hold its own dangers, and how can we make the most of it, while not getting lost up our own creative um, cul-de-sac?