I'm a Professional Piddler

aka "Multi-hyphenate Appalachian Professional"

Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash

I went to a reading by Appalachian author Robert Gipe several weeks ago, when he referred to himself as an "Appalachian Professional." Knowing he wears many hats in his Kentucky and writing/creative community, I thought, "How perfect. That covers it."

In a time when folks get to choose their pronouns for identification, the American culture is still stuck in a mindset where your "job" defines who you are. Stuck in the concept that a person can remain with one company, or one skill, or one focus for an entire career -- or stuck in the concept that a person has to find their special niche.

There's also a new phrase describing a person with multiple paths braided together, a "multihyphenate." I suppose this is the master multi-tasker, the genius juggler, the person who wears multiple hats, all the time.

That's sorta me, except I think multi-tasking causes a drop in quality, I don't juggle well, and I get frustrated and creatively constipated if wearing too many hats at once.

I'm a professional piddler. I do this for a little bit, then that for a little bit. Like a butterfly, I flit from one project to another without much rhyme or reason understanding (hoping?) that I eventually will have pollinated an entire field of various flowers.

Sounds lovely doesn't it? What it really means is that we live in the midst of perpetual ongoing and mostly unfinished projects.

But if you keep piddling, you make progress.

I have organized two of my five workspaces. My crafting desk (typewriters, paper, glue, scissors, stamps, inkpads, etc.), and my button/badge table (and all materials required). Four of nine typewriters have new ribbons and are back in the creative game.

I have cleared the shared office space where Frank and I attempt to maintain some order of our business, farm, and home accountings. He's a piler, I'm a filer... We're still working out the details, and the printer died so I have a new one to install... So I got de-railed there.

All my shipping supplies have arrived, but I have not yet set up the shipping station, sidetracked by my search for our digital scales, and where I stored them eight years ago so they would be safe... I found them, three days later.

The product photo mini-studio has not yet been set up, but I have found and gathered all that equipment into a pile near its eventual location.

My writing desk -- has been dusted. This means it was cleared at some point, but in the process of clearing other spaces, has been re-cluttered. And the video/recording corner? Oy. That space has collected all the things I don't know what to do with yet.

I also dusted the commercial paper cutter, the commercial bookbinder, and the high-speed laser printer (weighs a ton, ink cartridges are quite costly) -- and upon finding their covers again, covered them back up. No need to get sidetracked any further. The paper-cutting/lamination/pressing space is already (still) an unorganized cluster...

But as I piddle, I can see progress. And the day after I organized my creative space, I spent a day there just - creating. And Frank's piles have been filed. And the studio has been dusted, top to bottom, cobwebbed, and vacuumed with attachments. And this is just indoor accomplishment. I could run another entire adventure in outdoor piddling as well.

Piddling is productive. I think it gets a bad rap. Defined as “to waste time doing something that is not important or useful,” by a culture that has raised us to work and spend, I think it’s time to revisit how we define this profession. It may appear chaotic and random, but it is actually a collection of baby steps toward multiple goals. It's not multi-tasking as much as multi-managing.

I’m coming out of the closet as an intentionally piddling person. I may have multiple unfinished projects in perpetuity, but I am making steady progress toward multiple goals.

It’s time for piddling to get its due respect. Piddling is only time wasted if the tasks don’t meet some judgment of important or useful. Dusting may be mundane, but I value a dust-free home. Filing may be boring, but the organization is important. If you’ve done something (even if only a little of this or that), then you’ve done something. Piddlers have never gotten full credit for doing more than nothing…

Yes, from here on out, I will identify as a professional piddler.

Otherwise known as a "Mutihyphenate Appalachian Professional."