After reading yesterday’s highlighted story about the UCB improv comedy school in Manhattan, I saw a link to another fun article about the independent comedy scene in New York.
The piece primarily focuses on up-and-comer Kumail Nanjiani, and included a section that jumped out at me:
Meanwhile, Mr. Nanjiani keeps up the pace, trying to perform every night, twice a night if he can — 25 nights a month in a typical month, in as many as 20 different clubs. Then there’s the writing. “I give myself a lot of rules,” Mr. Nanjiani said. “I write stand-up in the morning, give myself a half hour for lunch, and then write TV stuff in the afternoon. Also, I’m never allowed to play more than three games of a video game at once. There are actually tons of rules about video games.”
Anybody who’s ever been faced with a blank page is probably nodding vigorously. Its amazing how ingenious we can become at doing anything but writing. Deep down, we are all maestros of procrasterbation.
For Nanjiani it’s video games; for me its endless blog surfing and online chat with my friends. After many months of incredibly meager writing output, I gradually evolved a complicated system of rules that governs how much dicking around I’m allowed to do on the Internet. Even when I’m not 100% faithful to the routine, it helps me feel more productive simply for showing me how on (or off) task I am.
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