One Monday morning at 6AM a coworker on a TV pilot, who had himself acted on a major TV show for many years, yelled out on stage “Come on Friday”. We all smiled at his exuberance and went to work. Throughout that day I thought about how we approach time and the old saying of “watching the clock”. Most people, I assume, have places they would rather be than at work. I know that I look at my watch many times a day: ‘How long until coffee’, ‘How long until lunch’, ‘When are we going home?’ We want the work day, and the work week to go quickly, but we want the weekend, and our time off or vacation to last. I don’t think you can have it both ways. If you rush through your day and your work week you will rush through your life. The movie Click showed this through dark comedy. Adam Sandler found a remote control with which he could fast forward through the parts of his life that he didn’t enjoy, such as a major project at work. He realized at the end that he had missed out on most of his life and didn’t have any of the memories he should or could have enjoyed. The key then is to learn how to enjoy the moment, even if we don’t overly enjoy our present activities.
Mindfulness is described as the state of living in the moment, a state that can help us recognize what we enjoy about our life. People strive to achieve this state in many ways, whether through going on a silent retreat, or working out at the gym. Forcing ourselves to focus on our present activity allows us to recognize what we can enjoy in that activity. Some of these things might be an appreciation of our breath, and how it rejuvenates our body, or the awareness that we can expand our mental or physical limits at any time. Concentration on an activity can be used as a tool to train our brain and our body. I like to ride my mountain bike in the hills. One technique I use to conquer the toughest steep stretches is to focus on short sections. I pick a spot on the road or trail ahead of me maybe ten to thirty feet away. Once I reach that spot I pick another, and pedal to that. I have noticed that this focused attention frees my creative brain to roam, and often my best ideas pop into my head at that time.
Some projects on my job require so much attention that I do not notice the passage of time. I will look up and it is almost lunch time or the end of the day. Other assignments are so typical that I cannot help watching the clock, waiting for a break. When I get one of those jobs I look for ways to make a game out of it. The most basic task in my field is building flats, which are walls made of a 1×3 wood frame covered with a 1/4 inch plywood which we call luan. The basic stock size is 8 feet wide by 10 feet tall. One day at Universal I built 8×10’s by myself all day. To entertain myself I counted the number of steps I took for each approach to building: vertical, horizontal and hybrid. That day I discovered the most efficient way to build a flat, in terms of the numbers of footsteps taken, and I believe I can still build a flat quicker and more efficiently than anyone else in the business. More importantly, using my system activates my mind in a way that blocks out the mundane experience of flat building and frees my brain to explore new creative ideas.