Self-Limiting : Time and Productivity

 I was reading one of my favorite artist's blog, Lisa Congdon and she posted about how she was going to Hudson, NY for an art retreat . She's always working on her business, so it was a bit of a break. In her post she mentioned one thing that hit pretty hard- time and the anxiety that comes with the freedom of it. Having so much free time that she was anxious about what to do with it or where to start. During the school year I feel stressed but well managed, because I always had deadlines and I was able to get things done productively. However, I feel like with the 3 month freedom of summer vacation, my quality of art almost went down. I felt like I had all the time in the world, but in reality I didn't. "Oh, I can just lounge around on instagram and make my own stuff later," or "I can do my summer reading project tomorrow..." and then it never gets done because I didn't set deadlines for myself. At the beginning of summer I wanted to have set up my Etsy shop ( which I am still working on) but the main thing I wanted to do was get my photography framed and sell some at the local coffee shop. But where am I now? On my computer stressing out about school tomorrow, not selling art at a coffee shop. I had all the time on my hands ; the only thing stopping me was myself. It's really sad when I look back on it- that was my biggest summer goal, but I never really got around to it just because of what was in my head and my outlook on the situation. It's an odd feeling, because you can't go back. Because I can't go back, I'm going to take what I learned from this situation to take my time by the ropes and use it wisely. You always hear about "Whatever would you would have wished you done when you're lying on your deathbed, you should do". And it's true. I'm going to take what I learned from this small-scale of that situation, and learn from it now. Please, don't wait to do what you want to do. I'm going to try to go to get like 3 frames done and maybe, just maybe get stuff prepped to do the coffee shop selling this week, but I have school starting soon. Well, as the amazing Casey Neistat says, "Work Harder, Do more." There's nothing holding you back. I'm going to leave this on a happy note, and not wallow in what I cannot change (past) but move forward and  do what I can do in this moment given to me.