Yesterday I was very excited to start brainstorming an application to this artist residency at Marble House up in Vermont for 2 weeks in the summer. I applied once before and got rejected.
I’ve been doing Tik Tok with my dolls since December 8! Trying to do one after work most days so around 5 a week.
What I’ve discovered in doing the Tik Toks. First of all, Tik Tok are not only made by “young people” and teenagers; however, the highest compliment in terms of following is getting a teenager following me. I’ve also been told by certain people’s friends directly that they love my Tok Toks, so that’s meaningful. I may not have a ton of followers, but people are watching them; my views range from 83 to around 400, average being between 150 and 200.
Yesterday I posted a bunch of Tik Toks in a row about the idea of applying for the artist residency. 5 videos and the views got up to 345 in the 5th one. It is very hard to figure out why randomly people view something I made 83 times or 345. I know like with blogging, the more often you post, the better.
Since I’m again trying a day count for food to keep up what I’ve been doing but raise the mindful eating and decrease the bad snacking and night candy/sweets eating, I am thinking of trying to blog daily “morning pages”; however a SMART goal would be to post on the blog 3 times a week, and/or post my Tik Tok videos here 5 days a week and write when I can. A SMART goal is Specific, Measurable, Action Oriented, Realistic and Time Bound. I learned about them from a client who did them at their job. There is some other goal based strategy called the Pomodoro Technique, which I guess is a miniature of a SMART goal. WIth your goal, pick one task, set a 25 minute timer, take a 5 minute break. Every 4 pomodoros, take a 15-20 minute break.
I used to do this with writing and drawing, but it was 15 minutes daily. I found out about doing it in a more individualized way from the book, UnFuck Your Habitat, a way to clean your house that is the opposite of the Marie Condo method. She has you pick a task that you can complete or start, like clearing off a surface. Then you set a timer for 5, 10, 15 or more minutes and work on it. Then you have to set a break timer. I think she called it the 20/10, 20 minutes clean, 10 minutes off, but said you can do 5/10 or 45/15 or whatever. The point is what I’ve been touting to everyone including myself for years which is that the way to get tasks done is to set a timer and work on it. Exposure therapy. You pick the big thing you’re procrastinating and work on it 15-30 minutes a day with a timer. The idea is that procrastinating involves hiding from the Thing. If you have to look at it every day for 15 minutes, it loses its power over you. It definitely works because you focus on small successes. If you set a timer and do the task, where you get to doesn’t matter; what matters is putting in the time.
SMART goals broken into “pomodoros” really do work. I use it when I finally am forced to get my taxes done. It’s very useful for that because there are different things to do and I just make myself do something for 15-30 minutes.
Setting the timer is one of the most important things about this strategy because you hear the alarm go off and your brain is wired to that kind of thing. It’s the difference between seeing a notification and ignoring it vs. hearing an alarm go off telling you to get ready for bed. I think it’s some Pavlovian thing.
Anyway, I haven’t timed this post writing but yesterday you can see how inspired I was from the videos and last night before bed, my balloon got deflated and this negative voice took over and said, what a stupid idea, nobody takes your dolls seriously as art; they are childish and this idea for a residency is not worth following through with; it’s not real “important” art.
I will post the videos separately, starting with this one and then write more to get my ideas together. One idea I had is that since I can’t make a video about what my project is, I could write a short script of two dolls talking about the project.
6 Impossible Things For Breakfast 