Want to get shit done? Throw out your notebook and open your iCal.
On a given week, I do a daily comic strip, regular New Yorker and MAD Magazine cartoons, I do stand-up comedy shows all over the city, perform and voice act in TV commercials and volunteer as the President of the National Cartoonists Society. If it sounds like a lot of work, it is. I do get a lot of questions as to how I fit it all in.
Every morning I take the dog out for a walk for an hour or so. No earbuds, no phone, just a book under my arm, a pencil in my hand and a poop bag in my pocket.
Some of the best creative ideas I’ve ever had have come to me in these first hours after waking, watching my small dog coerce a golden retriever thrice his size into wrestling him. (he always loses.)
My point is, I walk home with endless marginalia scribbled in the book, along with the flyleaf covered in other ideas that might be good for ‘when I get…
The secret lies in one little button on every product page to take you from “Buy Now” to “Bye now!”
I looked back at my credit card bill for June and scratched my head at more than a few line items I didn’t remember. There was an awful lot of very specific online retail spending, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember why I’d ordered it.
In the same way that social media is gamed for attention, online retailers are gamed for conversion. They want you to buy as quickly and easily as possible: a frictionless process of a few clicks. …
Delete your Facebook: Start a Mailchimp, Substack or Medium account.
TL;DR: I switched out Social Media for direct subscription-based inbox distribution of my work and it has yielded way more than social ever did. + it won’t ever be shadow-banned by a buggy algorithm that doesn’t understand satire.
I joined Twitter about 9 months after it started. It was 2006, and I was working out of my Perth studio when I got an email invite to join the new app from a friend working at a startup in San Francisco. It all sounded very exciting.
I’d heard about the website from a podcast I’d been listening to called This Week…
A very interesting correlation across 400 years of the greatest writers, artists, poets, composers and other creative minds.
Routine, in an intelligent man, is a sign of ambition.
— W.H. Auden, 1958
I just finished reading and re-reading two books about productive creative workers that had the same correlation in them:
- Mason Currey’s fantastic book Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. I couldn’t put it down. I highly recommend it for any artist struggling to establish a daily routine in whatever your new normal looks like.
- Alex Soojung-Kim Pang’s brilliant book, Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less which pairs perfectly with #1.
I went through Mason’s book and highlighted something I found as a very interesting correlation across 400 years of the greatest writers, artists…
Earlier this year I was approached to work on a project Sam Harris was making with Ricky Gervais. It was a big surprise and a huge privilege.
On the back of the mini-episodes Sam had been releasing on his podcast with Ricky, dissecting philosophical quandaries and cracking wise, I was told they were keen to develop something bigger together: A limited audiobook series, downloadable as one binge-worthy show named Absolutely Mental.
After a few rounds of development and refinement, we arrived at the visual style above. I’m really happy with where we landed. …
By Jason Chatfield
There are very few cartoons of mine that I have ever fought for, insisting the joke was worthy of publication. More often than not, a rejected cartoon just isn’t a good fit, isn’t well-enough executed, has been done in some form or another (and probably already purchased), or just doesn’t work for the publication’s tone.
But…. as listeners of my podcast will know, there is one single joke I have been insisting needs to find a home for over 3 years, and that is this week’s cartoon in Airmail.
It all started with a silly little idea…
As often happens, I was out in New…
Life in the epicentre of a global pandemic.
I have a vivid memory of riding my bike around Manhattan one afternoon and not seeing anyone for ten blocks. I was coming home from getting an antibody test (positive) to see if I was still immune. This was before any sign of a vaccine becoming available in the near future.
It was the first time in a month I’d left my apartment to do anything other than take my dog downstairs for a pee. The boarded-up storefronts, empty streets and eerie atmosphere soaked into my brain, heavy. It felt like the start of a horror film.
There is change coming no matter how much control you think you have over your time. Learn to enjoy it.
One of Seth Godin’s posts last week tweaked something in my brain (as it often does) and reminded me of an important, constant truth: Nothing is forever, change is the only constant.
Walking away from something that we’re used to, even if it’s unjust or inefficient or ineffective–it usually takes far too long. Fear, momentum and the status quo combine to keep us stuck…
…Sunk costs are real, but we must ignore them. Culture changes, our standards evolve, opportunities arise.
Better is possible… if we care enough to walk away from what was and brave enough to build something new.
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