I’ve had a number of days lately where I’ve found myself with hours to fill and very few ways to fill them.
Sometimes it’s a matter of where I am and what I’m able to do. Other times, I have the freedom to do something but not necessarily the energy. Either way, I’ve found myself searching for small things to occupy my mind.
Having time doesn’t always mean having the freedom to use it how you’d like. And having to continually come up with ways to occupy yourself can be surprisingly exhausting.
So I’ve been drawing on some of the habits I’ve developed over years of making art, writing, and finding things to be curious about.
I’ve read about subjects that interest me and taken more notes than I probably needed. Partly to occupy myself, partly because I enjoy the feeling of a pen moving across the page. I’ve doodled in the margins, journaled in a Google document, and drafted blog posts in another.
I’ve taken short walks, stopped to visit a friendly outdoor cat, and photographed textures and bits of nature that caught my attention. Those walks gave me something to look for and something to bring back with me.
I retrieved some of my cute pens, the ones with little figures on top, from an old box in the trunk of my car. I started thinking about photographing them doing things. Tiny characters, possible scenes. An idea small enough to fit on a desk, even if I couldn’t do much with it at the time.
I’ve occasionally played a little game with ChatGPT. I’ve researched health conditions and other subjects that interest me. I’ve thought about lunch, about projects I want to finish, about things I’d like to try when I have the opportunity.
And through all of this, I’ve jotted down art ideas as they’ve arrived.
A few sentences here. A photograph there. A doodle beside notes I probably didn’t need to take.
None of these are particularly unusual activities for me. Over the years, making art has taught me to look closely, collect observations, make associations, and follow an idea before I know what it might become.
I’ve learned to find possibilities in ordinary objects and to record small things that catch my attention. Sometimes an observation becomes the starting point for a photograph. Sometimes it sits in a notebook for years. Sometimes nothing comes of it at all.
But the habit of noticing has become a familiar way of engaging my brain.
And lately, when I’ve found myself with limited options, I’ve reached for those habits again and again.
That doesn’t mean the time has been easy to fill.
Having to find one thing after another to occupy myself is still exhausting. Even something I enjoy can become tiring when I need it to fill another stretch of the day. There are times when I’d much rather be doing something else, or when I wish I had the energy to do more than think about the things I want to make.
But these little activities give my brain something to focus on.
A texture to examine. A scene to imagine. A question to investigate. A thought to work through in writing.
And while I may still be tired, frustrated, or wishing I could spend my time differently, I occasionally come away with an idea I want to remember.
There’s something I value in having developed these habits over the years. They don’t necessarily make difficult or uneventful days any easier, but they give me somewhere to direct my attention.
I can start with a pen, a patch of texture, an ordinary object, or a few words on a page.
I don’t have to know where the idea is going. I just need something interesting enough to stay with for a while.
Have you ever found yourself with time you couldn’t spend the way you wanted? What habits or interests did you draw on to keep your brain occupied?
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