I don’t like being introspective — one of the advantages of the observation journal is that I worked that out quickly and was able to sidestep it thereafter. However, the journal is sometimes useful for unpicking specific problems. [Edit: there’s now a follow-up post to this — Things that might make her do the thing]
For example: My intense avoidance of packaging and posting things. I can make myself slightly feverish, now, just by starting to think about preparing art to send to a show.

The important approach on this page was to:
- follow each high-level answer down through several levels (what types of stress, and which physical parts, and what’s causing that…)
- highlight key elements as I went (otherwise these pages are unintelligible when I revisit them.

The most useful question to ask for this type of page turned out to be: has [the problem] ever worked out okay, and why/how. In this case, the tricks for getting me to package and post things effectively/at all have been:
- Clearing space
- Dedicating time
- Recruiting a second pair of hands (or passing it over to someone else entirely — there are people out there who apparently LOVE and are GOOD AT putting rectangles into other rectangles, and I need you all to know you are important and valued)
- Having a tested technique AND checking if there are better approaches out there
- Information/checklists
Two days later I started to investigate something else I was avoiding, but when I put down the key questions I thought they were (a) self-answering and (b) funnier left unanswered.

The moral of the story is: stress can be repurposed for entertainment. And sometimes laughing at myself is what is needed to get a project moving.

UPDATE: I addressed these points further — and completed the template page! — on this post: Things that might make her do the thing.
This was absolutely darling and made me love you more. I, too, love a good DELEGATION as the answer to all the I DON’T WANNA problems. When it can be got. <3 My big problem is calling doctor's offices. Cold-calling anyone really, but doctor's offices and doing my taxes.
I have been doing my taxes this year for SO LONG, Claire!
Love you too!
Great post as usual. I enjoy visiting your blog just to look at your spreads, almost like the joy I get from reading random journal entries from the fifties. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you so much! And I am glad — I hope there are intriguing snippets of days in there.
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