Freelance Finance

The phrase “keep your nose to the grindstone” took on new meaning for me Friday, when Mire and I attended a woodworking class given by master craftsman, author, and self-employed worker Andy Rae. Though the class was about sharpening woodworking tools, I couldn’t help finding a double meaning in much of what Rae said.

I realized too that because many independent workers labor in solitude, they become unusually attuned to their surroundings and their craft. They know what works, what doesn’t, and why. Rae creates lovely pieces in solitude, and he’s spent a lot of time watching his hands and mind coax beauty from wood.

As he stood in front of a whirring grindstone, the apron-clad Rae imparted wisdom that applies not only to sharpening tools but to a host of other disciplines. He called it “the Zen of Grinding,” and they consisted of five pithy points. First, I’ll explain each of them in the context of woodworking, then I’ll try to apply them to world of freelance work.

1. Listen to your tools: When a chisel or plane is no longer sharp, it begins to make sloppy cuts in the wood. A good woodworker anticipates this, and sharpens them when the time comes.

In any field of work, we all need to listen to the tools we use to perform our jobs. Sometimes those tools are computers and software. For many of us, those tools are nothing more than our hearts and minds. In an office environment, others are always around giving you feedback. When you work by yourself, you need to create your own feedback loop. So when you feel yourself faltering, it does no good to keep plugging away. You’ll only churn out sloppy work. Stop what you’re doing, think about what’s happening, and figure out the best way to sharpen your tool. You may need to take time off, or do something else, before returning to work.

2. You can accomplish more with less work. Rae was saying that a woodworker who presses his tool too hard to the grindstone inevitably damages it. If you simply lay the tool gently across the face of the spinning stone, you can let the stone do the work. All you do is guide the tool and keep it flat against the stone.

Well, how many times have you beat your head against a project instead of relaxing and trusting in your inborn skill and talent to guide the job where it needs to go? The best workers are those who work joyfully, confidently, with the knowledge that they are headed in the right direction because they’ve been there so many times before.

3. Don’t talk to others; stay in the task. It’s never a good idea in the wood shop to let yourself be distracted. Doing so is good way to lose a finger.

For the rest of us, distraction comes in the form of email, instant messages, cell phone calls, voicemails and ceaseless Twitter. If you want to be productive, all those other interruptions must fade to the background. Stop talking to your neighbors, and stay in the task.

4. Measure slowly. When he’s finishing sharpening a tool on a grindstone, Rae uses a right-angle tool to make sure the edge is perfectly straight. Rather than clap the right-angle to the edge of a chisel quickly, he moves slowly, deliberately. The right-angle will reveal any imperfections he may have ground into the chisel or plane, but only if he takes his time to notice.

Before we send our work into the world, it helps to evaluate it carefully, slowly, deliberately. If we rush to post a blog entry, for instance, we’re liable to send it into the world with misspelled words, incorrect grammar, and embarrassing turns of phrase. Likewise, if we’re embarking on a new project, we can judge ourselves too harshly if we assess it quickly. If we take our time about it, we’re likely to be gentler. We’ll notice imperfections, sure, but we’ll also notice the genius in what we’ve wrought.

5. Offer up the tool to the stone. This is Rae’s reminder to be gentle when touching the cold steel to the whirring grindstone. If you slap it on, you might hurt the tool, the stone, or thee.

I liked his turn of phrase here: Offer it up! The stone is anything that moves fast and threatens to swallow us up. It’s the maelstrom of everyday life. The chaos of the workplace. The clutter of your desk. The flurry of projects, each with their own deadlines. Instead of girding for battle, hardening your heart, and thrusting yourself into the fray, adopt different turns of phrase. Offer yourself up to the grindstone. Say: “I can handle anything you toss my way. How can be of help here?”