What I’m Doing When I Don’t Have Much to Give

So, I'm still smack in the middle of that really weird liminal phase I talked about in one of my more recent updates here. I'd be lying if I sat here and tried to say it wasn't affecting my creative drive.

I'm not burnt out or anything nearly as serious as that. But I'm not exactly "pushing through" as if nothing's wrong, either. There's just too much going on for that right now.

I guess we can call it baseline, for lack of a better way to put it.

As I've mentioned, life has been really loud lately. We still have a major house cleanout in progress, my mom is still technically hospitalized while it happens, and a lot of energy that would normally go toward work or creativity is being siphoned off into logistics, decisions, and emotional background noise.

Don't even get me started on how it feels to a highly introverted neurodivergent person to have a bunch of strangers around all day, every day — making noise, moving stuff around, looking through your things, occasionally breaking something that you can only hope wasn't all that important.

Naturally, all of this has been super energy-consuming, and when that happens, something has to give. So what I’ve been doing instead of forcing the usual is stripping things down to the bare minimum.

What Baseline Actually Looks Like

Naturally, baseline doesn’t look impressive from the outside, but that’s kind of the point.

It’s not about momentum or growth or output charts that slope reassuringly upward, because who fucking cares right now. It’s more about identifying what matters enough to me to keep and letting everything else go temporarily, without chalking it all up to more personal failure.

For me right now, this looks a lot like:

• Showing up for work I’ve already committed to or otherwise really need to take
• Keeping a light creative pulse going for now instead of forcing anything major
• Maintaining routines that stabilize me, even if they’re abbreviated

That’s it. Just enough structure to keep things from unraveling. And oddly enough, that’s been fine. I'm not busting out masterpieces or anything, but I haven't dropped off the planet, either. That's good enough for me.

The Difference Between Simplifying and Quitting

I think people sometimes confuse simplification with retreat. If output slows or visibility drops, the assumption is that something’s wrong — that motivation has evaporated or you're somehow not as committed anymore.

But those are very different things.

Quitting feels like disengagement, but simplifying is about refining my focus instead, in an effort to help it go further. One is about leaving. The other is about narrowing the field so I can actually afford to stay.

There’s a big difference between abandoning something and deciding, “I’m going to keep the core intact and let the extras fall away for now.” It ultimately boils down to strategy, I suppose.

Why Baseline Is Harder Than It Looks

There’s really no existing language for baseline in most productivity frameworks, and with good reason. After all, you’re not “resting” in a way that sounds restorative and aspirational, but you’re also not “grinding” in a way that earns admiration. You’re just sort of treading water.

Which can feel oddly uncomfortable if you’re used to measuring your worth by visible output (which I'm truly trying to be better about). Baseline is about asking:

What’s the minimum I can do that still feels like I'm taking care of business?

Then stick to that. Do not pass go. Resist all pressure to force yourself to do more when you're already coasting through the day on fumes for whatever reason.

There’s Something Steady About This Mode

Time has taught me that stepping away from a well-established routine entirely is a mistake, even if it's temporary, because there's a good chance you'll never truly get back to it. But baseline keeps the thread unbroken.

Because the hardest part of difficult periods for me isn’t usually the intensity of what's actually trying to force my creativity into retreat. It’s the risk of quietly disengaging from the things that somehow keep me anchored the rest of the time.

Baseline is how I've been staying connected without draining myself dry.

Not gonna lie. I’m really not producing my best work right now (although I did bust out some commemorative David Bowie renders I was pretty proud of yesterday, as well as win a writing contest over on Vocal). I am producing enough to keep the train moving, thankfully.

Right now, I swear it doesn't feel like this cleanout and the related updates are ever going to be finished. Logically, I know they will be (one day, hopefully soon), but for now, baseline is doing its job. It’s holding things together while the rest of my life sorts itself out.

I suppose that's good enough for now.