“losing track of time will involved in creative work is normal”

Of course – happens all the time. I’m used to it and plan for it, mostly because I like it – a lot. It’s as important to me as REM sleep and never a source of guilt.

That’s what I call “flow” and why I made the distinction. This thing isn’t flow. When I’m in flow, decisions come very easily and are a pleasure to wrassle with even when they don’t. It’s all very intuitive and fun and generally produces good stuff. And I feel very present when I’m in flow.

This “suspension” I’m feeling is a space where decisions don’t come with any clarity. There’s a lot of wrassling that’s not so fun. And it’s slow. And apparently I can’t do it and so much as chew gum at the same time. It’s a space in which I question direction and there’s no going forward without moving through the problem I’m trying to solve. It’s not so much distracting as preoccupying – thus the sense of not being present. (I could even argue the loss of presence is a desire to get some distance and perspective on the problem.)

It wouldn’t be a big deal except for needing/wanting to stay present for my clients and others in my life. I can’t exactly “check out” without consequence. So what I’m reaching for here is some way to create a kind of space for such moments (because they do come along from time to time – they are predictable in that way) that doesn’t result in isolation. Because a) I don’t like the consequences and b) the isolation doesn’t really help the problem solving.

What I’m wanting to learn is how to create suspension without isolation, a time-out *with* presence (which I can intuit as possible, if not clearly visualize just yet. Do know this much: the answer lies in communication).

Does knowing that clocks and calendars and measuring and disciplining time are relatively recent conventions help at all? Is there a way to think about how you organize your time, and your plan, that does not make as strict use of those modern disciplines? I know some of what we do has to fit with other people’s notions of time (and thus the discipline of clocks and calendars) but maybe all of it doesn’t.

I think Charlie Gilkey plays with this a bit in his planners.