my real job

I've written before about how many hours I have to spend on the computer with work-related stuff, and how it makes me feel like I'm wasting time, and I get resentful. Not only do I sometimes resent computer time, I also resent lots of other tasks, like packing and shipping, glazing, popping and cleaning molds, and sweeping the floor. A lot of the time I find myself gritting my teeth and mumbling, "Where is my dang intern/assistant/slave when I need them? Why am I doing this job?"

Since interns come and go, my assistants are usually busy with a million other tasks I assign them, and I have yet to source any clay slaves, I've realized that my resentful attitude about daily tasks is not helpful to me. In my quest to improve my attitude around my work, I've started thinking of all of these mundane duties as not annoying little things that get in between me and my real job--making pottery-- but as an integral and important part of my work. Everything I do that is related to my work is my job, my real job.

Since I usually only count making pottery as working, and the rest of it is just stuff that I do, I always think I'm not working enough. This is a self-defeating mind set because I always attempt to do more than I possibly can, then I blame myself for being a slacker when I get behind "schedule," which is pretty much every day. Really, what is happening is that I think I can walk into the studio and just make stuff, not taking into consideration that I have to perform a bunch of other tasks to get there. It's like the bee who gets mad that he can't deliver the honey before he gathers the nectar. That's a dumb bee. For me, and probably for you too, it's time to start thinking like a smart bee.