Dear Reader,

 

7 Days of Un/Productivity is an auto-biography. Story of my life. Both sides of the page represent the highly productive and functional side of me while the other exhibits the disorganised and lazy self. I think it has a very literal and straight to the point narrative. It’s a reversible 8-page zine about motivation, time, and work ethic. 

 

I was inspired by my weekly planner pad. It’s like a sticky note pad but it’s a wide, 5mm grid ruled pad and has seven columns corresponding by the day of the week. I realized I typically plan my days per week, detailing my To-Dos and tasks per day of the week and evenly distributing work. So I sketched the story boards and first sketches of 7 Days of Un/Productivity on that weekly planner, corresponding to the seven days of the week to the narrative of a seven day journey to completing a project. It follows the necessary steps in planning a project, including consultation and the perseverance that goes into work. I find myself in deep focus when I’m doing certain projects. At times it feels as if my mind was on auto-pilot and I knew the next course of action and direction I needed to take. However, I find it unrealistic to depict a highly productive (and somehow stable) individual without highlighting the struggles of motivation. I created a foil to 7 Days of Productivity, appropriately titled 7 Days of Unproductivity. I find this half of the book to be the reality of motivation for a majority of people, including myself. I personally resonate with pages “Delaying” and “Guilt” the most. 7 Days of Unproductivity is self explanatory in nature. It’s irresponsible, denial, pathetic and a sin of sloth. It’s also the truth. We procrastinate to avoid and we avoid to make time for something we’d rather enjoy. Productivity and unproductivity are opposites, but can’t exist without each other. You just need to flip the page to see it.

 

As a student for most of my life, my day to day activities have always been dictated by schedules and organizing time. We categorize time into centuries, decades, years, months, weeks, days, and seconds. Or more personally in my case, wake-up, breakfast, go to school, extracurriculars, dinner, homework, and sleep. Or in a broader perspective, term one, mid-semesters, term two, final exams, December break, term three, mid-semester, term four, final exams, moving up, and summer break. Time is an inevitable, constant part of our lives. Without a doubt, time management, deadlines, and schedules give us the power to have control over this complex and curious idea of time. However, time makes us regret and reminisce over mistakes and past actions or even fear the unknown and what lies ahead. It solely relies on decisions of the present and nothing more to keep going. Sometimes, time feels somewhat inconsistent and unfair, as if it's moving too fast or too slow. The passage of time is both an enemy and a friend.

 

While creating “7 Days of Un/Productivity”, it reminded me why I love art. Honestly, it’s been awhile since I’ve done an illustration with these characters and this style. The subject of productivity has always been a defining issue throughout my life and I’m grateful I got to return to drawing with this very personal 8-page zine. For a long time I’ve made a conscious decision to put my pen down and focused on different aspects of my life. Sometimes other tasks have a higher priority than illustrating. As much as I can work productively on a project, I tend to neglect other responsibilities and tasks. Sometimes when I work hard on a project, I’m burned out to begin or continue another. I’m unable to keep up with the demands and responsibilities expected of me. We could blame the high social expectation society has on a student in the modern day and the level of competition adults instil on children from a young age, but that's a discussion for another day. I, as an individual, can burn out. Sometimes I bite more than I can chew or be fed more than I can chew. Nevertheless, such work ethic isn’t desired in any line of work, but it’s also completely unrealistic to provide perfect results in everything we do. In many cases my responsibilities force me to work as a perfect machine with creativity and the heart of a human. From personal experience, this problem in the nature of productivity isn’t isolated in the world of creativity and art. From the highly academic to athletes to the creatives at any age and time, anyone can burn out like a hot fuse on overcurrent.

 

The irony is “7 Days of Un/Productivity” is a form of procrastination. More accurately it would correspond to “Delaying” if I had to assign it a page. It’s literally productive procrastination. I could’ve done my essays, finished a novel, or did my art assignment (and to my art teacher, I apologize once again). In my defense, creating this silly, pointless 8-page zine made me happy. It was a work of art I wanted to make, talking about a topic I was passionate about and I got to realize those ideas into a final outcome. I could’ve made these series of illustrations into a digital comic strip, but I put in the effort to turn it into a printable and reversible 8-page zine just because I love print media and the tangible feel of a physical book. Physical books and print media was the primary method of mass distribution before the internet, the origin of publication. An 8-page zine is an incredibly simple invention but it has its own charm to it in my eyes. I personally printed out copies for myself and my closest friend to enjoy. Not to mention, reversing this zine is REALLY FUN. So to anyone reading this letter and could somehow see my passion flowing from the straightforward and simple nature of this text, I hope “7 Days of Un/Productivity” meant something to you as much as it meant to me.