Hey there, you’re listening to Getting Work To Work on this fine day in late September 2025. I’m your host, Chris Martin, and I’m glad you’re here. What’s going on? Oh, not much? Head in the sand or just ignoring willfully the dumpster fire that is consuming everything everywhere? I pay attention, then I do my best to get to work. I had a good start to my day. I dropped my wife off at school and then headed to my favorite local coffee shop, got some snacks, and read a chapter in Art Work: On the Creative Life by Sally Mann.

While it’s fun to people watch at the coffee shop, it’s even more fun to bust out a hardcover book in the midst of a sea of laptops and retirees. What kind of person does that? Isn’t it more appropriate to give the air of importance while typing away feverishly on your laptop? Nah, because I too had work to do. Yes, I consider reading work.

This book has been on my radar for a couple of weeks. In my recent conversation with Stacy Bass, she mentioned she was looking forward to diving into the book. Austin Kleon also interviewed Sally recently as part of his typewriter interview series. I ordered it from my favorite local independent bookstore, Copper Bell Bookshop, in Ridgefield, Washington. While it took a little longer to get than if I had ordered it from Amazon, they don’t need my money. Copper Bell does, so I ordered and waited. The anticipation of getting and reading the book continued to build—I love that feeling—and then when it was time to pick it up! Yes! New book time!

Editorial Note: Chris doesn’t need more books, but he definitely needs more books.

Art Work hits a home run in the freakin’ prologue, in the very first paragraph! Here’s a taste:

“This is a book about how to get shit done. Or, more particularly, how I got it done. Or didn’t. And I guess that’s a big part of an artist’s life—getting other shit done besides the shit you’re supposed to be doing—the art, that is.” – Sally Mann

I love this framing of the duality of our work: the art—the stuff we’re supposed to do—and everything else. It gets me thinking of the backwards nature of modern life, where the label of “what we’re supposed to do” is affixed to everything but our art. Things like admin, networking, content creation, marketing, management. All important things, but would they be necessary (or even possible) if we didn’t have the art and continually challenge ourselves to make the art better?

Now, before I lose you using labels like art and artist, I don’t consider myself an artist, and maybe you don’t either. My art is my work, specifically projects like this podcast. So, with that in mind, I use the label creative entrepreneur. It’s a decent catch-all label for having multiple creative pursuits and several revenue generating services. I run a business of one, but it’s still a business. I’m an entrepreneur because the risk is on me. Even as I write this, I could replace entrepreneur with artist and it would still fit. Artists are entrepreneurs, but not all entrepreneurs are artists, you get the point. One term is societally praised while the other is reviled. I’ll let you decide which is what, but my point is this: labels don’t matter. What matters is doing the freakin’ work of your craft. Or, inline with Sally’s thoughts, getting shit done.

As I’ve shared in previous episodes, I’ve been struggling with writing my monologues. Underneath it all, something has shifted. The work is still sitting down at the desk, writing down my thoughts, recording, editing, and publishing a new episode. But what was once a quick process, has slowed down. I’ve been more distracted, but there’s also a new depth and complexity presenting itself in my thoughts. Sometimes, I get lost in that change. I stare at the sky while the dog eats and shoots leaves. I wonder what I’m going to write. But I’m not doing the work.

So, I sit down and the puppy wants in my lap. He sits in my lap and wants down, only to scratch to be let back up. I’ve got work to do puppy. I can give up and go sit on the couch so he can have a lap to sleep in, or I can do something different. I can get creative. So, I get his car seat and put it on a chair next to me. I pick him up, plop him in. He eventually gets used to it, puts his face on the edge of his seat nearest my arm and starts snoring. Good boy. Now I can dig deep into what I’m trying to say.

Type, delete, shameful surf of social media, type, delete, snore, type, type, scratch, type, type… YES! This is the work. This has always been the work of creativity. You have to go to your workspace and work. Alone (or with furry companions). Over and over again. And you’ll get so sick of it, you’ll long for something different, something new. You might go to social media or a coffee shop in search of a new rush of dopamine, another high, but over time, you learn (or you don’t) that the work is also getting used to the monotony of creativity, the loneliness.

I’m not complaining though, this is the work I signed up for, it’s just taken awhile for me to realize what my work was, the dual nature of it. As I look at my weekly task list in front of me, I see the work for clients and I see the work for myself. Earlier in my career, I couldn’t see how both could exist simultaneously, so I tried to pick one or the other. The highs and lows of trying to be one thing and changing my mind as to what that one thing was…exhausting. That’s probably why I burnt out multiple times along the way.

But the truth is that I gotta do the work: the work of the creative entrepreneur and business owner, and the work of the artist. Paying attention to the flow of that work is equally important. Some days, I’m in artist mode, writing, interviewing, editing. Other days, I’m in client mode, editing and producing. They both offer sustenance to one another. It’s just being aware of which one I need to focused on.

Hence, the need to sit in my workspace and listen to myself. To listen to the snores and the heartbeats of my creativity. That is also the work. But if everything is work, you want to know what isn’t work? Productivity. Efficiency. Time management. There’s just the work. Somedays it flows like a river through the Grand Canyon. Other days, the river is dried up waiting for the future promise of a flash flood. So, plan your journey, and go for a walk. You might get far or nowhere at all, but you’re no longer where you once were, and that’s the important thing.

• “Lightkeeper of Love & Loss” with Stacy Bass (GWTW852)
• Sally Mann
• Art Work: On the Creative Life by Sally Mann
• Austin Kleon’s Typewriter interview with Sally Mann
• Copper Bell Bookshop
• Episode photo is Old rusty gear mechanism, closeup from Envato Elements