I walk my dog every morning. Most mornings we walk pretty much the same route. So I decided to give myself a challenge. Find something unique along the path I tread daily and take a photo. Somedays there will be something genuinely new. Others, I will have to find a way to shoot the mundane with a new perspective.

I am the worst combination of two things. I’m a procrastinator and a maximalist. I can have a hard time getting going on tasks and projects. Worse still, I tend to accumulate stuff along the path to productivity. I keep trying to build the perfect environment for productivity and creativity. Until a couple of weeks ago I had a third screen installed on my computer. One for writing, one for media, and one for social media and reading. It was pretty dope. It was also completely ineffective.

When I walk my dog I usually listen to an audiobook. My listening is more of a meditation as I float in and out of listening while taking pictures and picking up poop. For a time, it was Walter Mosely novels, but as of late it’s been books on creativity and productivity. Creativity Quest by Questlove, The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, and now The Practice by Seth Godin.

Godin, if you aren’t familiar with his work, is extremely stripped down. His blog posts are shorter than some social media posts. But over the last decade, he has written over 2,000,000 words. Godin is the proverbial drip of water on the rock.

I took down my third monitor and instead added a second desk to my office that consists of nothing but an iPad and a couple of plants. It’s my writing station. When I’m at that desk I’ll either play instrumental music or something with lyrics in a language I don’t speak. For the record, that means anything other than english.

Godin is why I have moved into a stripped-down version of my old website. Shotbyspn.com was full of bloat. There was a blog, a portfolio, a shop where I tried to sell my photos, my resume, and links to all my socials. It was everything and nothing. I was trying to build a business instead of a practice. I stopped producing and instead focused on promoting a product that barely existed.

I don’t know if my work will ever be as brief as Godin’s. But, I’ll hit 2,000,000 words faster than him.