The Frustration of Incremental Progress

A good life is a long-term project

There is a pain in my lower back which maybe was always there, but definitely is worse since removing layers of tile and linoleum from our remodel project at the deli. It’s the most tangible reminder of how much I dislike an incremental project.

I don’t mind physical work but my natural habitat doesn’t involve power tools, especially using them for hours at a time, on my hands and knees. The remodel was a task to conquer ✔️so we could get on to the next phase of the project, and I wanted to conquer it in one fell swoop. If we were there to remove the tile in one room, I wanted to get it done before we left for the day. 

When the work is something I will do over and over ad infinitum, like laundry or yard work, I don’t stress about doing it a little at a time. I know how weeds are. They regroup themselves and return. It’s never ending. It does feel good to have it all finished, but like the bottom of the laundry basket I saw a few days ago, I don’t expect to see weed-free flower beds very often or for very long. I will weed again, wash again, repeat.

For a project which has a clear beginning and ending, though, I do not like when I have to stop. I want to continue until I see completion.

I’ve been noticing this lately with writing. It has to happen in layers, and I hate that. Especially when I'm “on a roll” or “in the flow”—it seems dumb to stop because of some quotidian task that needs my attention, like buying groceries or making dinner or getting up to walk around because my body needs to move from the sitting position.

Equally annoying is having all the time set aside but just being stuck, devoid of ideas or direction.

I expect that I will always be writing. It’s not that I want to finish a writing project so that I can be done with writing. I didn’t have children so that I could hurry up and be done parenting. 

Maybe that’s a better way for me to look at it: parenting happens every day, for the long haul, and you never finish but it changes. Can writing be that way? (I’m counseling myself here, thank you for bearing witness to my working things out.)

“Do you consider your writing a hobby?” Tim innocently asks me. I am offended but I don’t have a good answer. I think about the word—hobby—and all that comes to mind is men playing golf, avoiding their family and spending countless hours on the green with the guys. Is that sexist of me? Why do I consider a hobby, or the sport of golf for that matter, as something belittling? Why am I offended by my husband’s question?

He asks me the question in the dark, at the end of a frustrating day of interruptions to my plans to write, in the quiet minutes before sleep. I must give off some disgruntled vibe because after a few seconds of silence he tries to qualify the question and ease my irritation. He is the biggest champion of my writing and I generally choose him as the first editor to my longer writing projects, because he knows me best and I trust him most. He isn’t trying to belittle me or my writing. His question is in context of my bigger frustrations with schedules and interruptions and the unexpectedness of life.

The question is unresolved. We talk about ministry, money, and the gift of who we’re all made to be. I can’t classify writing as pure hobby but I don’t think it’s pure ministry, either, and it’s not even close to being about money (but shout-out to the six of you who are paid subscribers, who allow me to say I have some sort of obligation to keep pushing words into the world!). 

The Summer, Caspar David Friedrich

What is my writing? That’s a good question to have unanswered, to leave for continual examination. Because on the days when it goes great it feels like a ministry in my own life, which is worth the effort and a great place to begin ministering in the lives of other people. 

But on the other days, when the writing is all trash or other responsibilities crash all my best laid plans—other responsibilities that are usually about ministry or money, serving other people or working our actual businesses—I have to hold things in perspective. On those days writing feels like something for the margins; no margins, no writing.

This was the heart of Tim’s question, I think. How do I hold my writing in balance, in perspective with the other work I do? This is the man who bought me a new laptop many years ago and wrote me a letter, telling me to prioritize my writing over the dishes and laundry and clean floors. I have that letter framed, but in the dark at the end of a discouraging day, I had forgotten it.

I am navigating midlife with the same basic questions I’ve always had, about time and faithfulness and consistency. 

In my early twenties I was a new wife, new mom, new Christian, and new to the idea of managing a household. Having a schedule and a routine became a second religion to me, and interruptions to those things were unpardonable sins. I was responsible for my own time but it was hard to learn that a tight schedule is a recipe for disaster, especially when small children (honestly, any people of any age) are involved, and margin has to be scheduled in but held loosely. Have I learned this yet? 

This is an argument you’ve surely heard before, as it applies to the self-employed and the work-at-home: making your own schedule sounds great in theory but is hard in reality. No one was giving me a task list, a job description, a time to clock-in and clock-out. If the house was clean, the bills paid, and the people fed, and I was still a functioning person who didn’t spend my evenings crying in the bathroom, that was a job well done. Three out of four meant I would try harder tomorrow.

But life is addition and not subtraction, so the lists grew, the expectations grew.  All the things had to fit in, and I had to be consistent to be faithful. Being consistent is the hardest part of parenting, writing, exercising, being human. We think we can produce everyday, like a machine. But we are not machines.

Some of you are young parents or early in your chosen careers. Some of you are retirees. Some are in between—with me, in the middle, disgruntled that you’re still figuring things out. Deep down I think all of us know life will always be busy and full of interruptions, no matter how much we plan against it. 

Man, I hate that.

A good life is a long-term project, and I suppose taking things incrementally means we’ll stop and start many times. I don’t like that, but it’s a truth I want to learn to balance with the goodness of God’s always-presence, and the beauty of interruptions that are better than the things I would have chosen.

Related things

“The frequency illusion (also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon) is a cognitive bias in which a person notices a specific concept, word, or product more frequently after recently becoming aware of it.” ¹

My cognitive bias has taken me places lately: 

🎧 “Do You Need a Routine?” from the podcast No Stupid Questions

My favorite piece of wisdom from this episode is to “Answer the question for your best friend, not for yourself.”

👓 Thinking about a writing routine for this season of life:

I read an article² about a lawyer who wrote her first novel, a NYT bestseller, during lockdown, using the hour she would normally have been using to commute to work. When the lockdown forced her to work from home, it also opened up an hour in her schedule. 

This is one part of incrementalism that I wish I could buy into, this idea that hours are slots in the day and events can be subbed in and out of different slots. Remove “commute”✔️. Insert “writing”✔️. 

Does it work that way for you?

🎧 The Thread of Patience from the Word by Word podcast

Bryan compares writing to giving blood—you can only do a little bit at a time. Again: truths I dislike are still truths nonetheless.

🎧 The Wisdom of the Water Tower on the Daily Creative Podcast

All about working in increments and managing your energy as well as your time.

📖And then this post from 2016, reminding me I haven’t changed a whole lot.

I think it will always be hard for me to find balance and prioritize. There are seasons when a good schedule can really help me, and others when I have to look outside myself and my own schedule for direction towards the most important things.

For now, I’m going to work on this: choosing to believe that small, faithful, incremental progress will add up over time. I think this is called patience, and maybe I could use a bit more of it. 

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion

2. I didn’t save it and can’t find it. Let me know if you recognize this interview!