Dealing with procrastination; the downfall of the Animator

Why is procrastination such a heavy burden for creative people? 

There is several reasons;

• You set the standard to high without a way or the path of achieving it.
• You have created high quality of work and you are scared that nothing else is going to measure up.
• You are just scared of failure.
• You are scared that the commentators/critiques are there because you have failed.
• You set yourself such a tight deadline not even a supermodel could fit in and so therefore you didn't get it done.
• You want; an original idea, motivation or inspiration. Sorry darlings, the original ideas have already been thought and the motivation or inspiration have to be self driven journeys.
• Everything you have made this week/month/year you consider as junk.
• You always work on something "safe". Something that you know how to animate already.   

 I could go on but you see that the one thing that ties these things together are the FEAR, the way that you deal with how you will not be the same as anyone else and how you hide when you get to the point of  FAILURE. The only way that you could measure if something is a failure or a success is ONLY YOURSELF! 

 There is many times that you are not going to be able to measure yourself independently from your ego as an artist and distance yourself from your art. That's OK, it takes time to move from the idea that everything you create is precious and you will get another gold star or pat on the back because you have created it. The only way to improve is to override the fear of whether success or failure that you have intentionally written in your brain is going to be the outcome and create a large body of work.

 Don't stop doing, asking, question and thinking. If it is going to make you accountable get yourself deadlines for your own work and let go of tweaking it after you have finished. Use other people even if they are not animators to view your artwork when you feel to close to the product since your eye will get skewed and you will not take the brash leaps to correct what is glaringly wrong without people pointing out to you.

 A lot of animators have accounts on forums or post on a blog so make sure you even if you are scared, post/submit even the ones that you feel that you ruined and take comments with a grain of salt. I used to blue tack up the comments from other people and used to remind myself of how they wanted me to improve.

 Don't overdo, we animators tend to work very hard and do not take breaks! So after 6 hours or more staring at a moderately small screen, moving keys and straightening out the overshoots in graph editor you eyes are going to start feel strained and you are slowly pushing yourself on path to RSI or carpal tunnel. Take a break, get away from the computer! Learn some stretches for your hands and go and take in nature or look at what other people are doing. Get out of the office at lunch and spend time people watching even when you get home (Walt Stanchfield used to draw quick poses off what he saw on the TV, either while watching dramas or sports).
 


So happy mid week, keep on Animating!
Cassie