Confession: I talk to myself all the time.

Not just the banal, absent-minded things I might announce to the world, like “time for a snack,” or the occasional curse word when I hurt myself. I’m talking about full-on, dictating whole paragraphs into the voice recorder on my phone. Often, I do this while walking down the street, hoping that others will assume I’m doing the more acceptable thing of talking to a fellow human.

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Productivity is a trap, you know.

It can be very satisfying to knock out task after routine, mundane task. Answer an email, then archive it so it disappears from your inbox. Load the dishwasher and start the cycle. Proofread the document.

It’s a little scarier to do things that don’t have clear beginnings and endings. Some of these things aren’t tasks at all.

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When working with a group of inexperienced singers, I use a favorite trick to instantly elicit a rich, powerful tone, no matter how weak and lackluster their voices sounded before.

It’s simple: I ask them all to try to sing as ugly as possible.

With that, the ensemble is transformed. Freed from the constraint of trying to sound pretty, every singer drops their inhibitions and actually sings. The result is immediately, undeniably superior to what they were doing before.

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I was dutiful and conscientious in school, once I figured out how to be. Homework started in fourth grade, which resulted in a backpack full of crumpled, blank math worksheets by June. I don’t remember a lot of homework in fifth or sixth grade, but I hit my stride in seventh and did whatever was asked of me from there on out.

I’m not sure I could do that now. I still work hard, but my willingness to jump when someone says, “Jump!” has disappeared. Instead of asking, “How high?” I’d be like, “What for?” There better be a good reason.

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I was an okay math student in high school — on the accelerated track, but got a little lost somewhere in trigonometry.

If only I had known about the shower.

When I revisited algebra and geometry in adulthood, it was fun. It wasn’t for fun, since I had professional reasons for doing it, but it felt like a hobby. And I found myself treating a difficult problem or proof like a puzzle to solve instead of an unwanted chore.

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