Time Lapse
- The Archivist
- Jun 18
- 5 min read
When the bulk of your work ethic follows a specific routine and a multi-week+ project holds the majority of your attention, it's easy for the days to begin blending together. Without a way to keep track of your progress, it might feel like you're not chipping away at it as much as you'd like. Some people use planners, but planners aren't a catchall.
Have you ever watched a time lapse video of a flower sprouting, blossoming, reproducing, and then dying? Or videos of artists speed painting from start to finish a digital portrait or landscape into which they're pouring life through color? Or a series of photos taken of someone over the course of a year or decade to see how much they age?
Time lapses have to be one of the most fascinating mediums of watching events unfold. Viewed through a creative lens, using them to track the progress of a project almost seems like a no brainer, but "time lapse" = "progress tracker" probably isn't the first thought that comes to mind for most. Or maybe it is, and I'm just late to the party!
It certainly didn't occur to me until I was already writing this post. I was just going to pick apart the method I've been using to track Teyr'loch Delter Pach because of how much my own progress over the past week has surprised me. Recording word count changes or scenes written in a planner would not have captured the true essence of the performance's expansion, but a time lapse does.
Of course, I'm not talking about a recording of a few hours or a picture captured every day, but I did originally adopt the idea of creating a new copy from a logo designer whose videos I watched on Skillshare several, several months ago. He said something along the lines of, "Whenever you change something [for your logo], create a new copy of it. Always create a new copy to work from." For whatever reason, those words of advice lodged themselves into the deepest recesses of my brain, and now I understand why.
Writing is a difficult beast to track. While you could record your screen through a program like OBS to measure your progress, I doubt it would be as satisfying to watch as an artist going from empty canvas to sketch to lineart to color to finished. I don't know about you, but as soon as I know I'm being recorded or someone's looking over my shoulder, I freeze. To think, stage fright before an audience of one, and that one is me!
So, if a time lapse video won't do, and recording how many words/chapters/etc... were written in a planner won't do, what will?
As you can see, almost every week since January I've created a new parent text file within which to nest older versions of Teyr'loch Delter Pach. I don't remember what exactly compelled me to start doing so, but I'm fairly certain my line of thinking was actually me lamenting how I can't view earlier versions of my Scrivener file like I can in Google Docs if I delete text I later decide I want to keep.
Wednesday comes. I make a new parent text file and name it with the date for the following Wednesday as a "due date" to compare it with the previous date. I'll copy all the text from the previous week into the new one and work within the new file until the next due date hits. Then, I'll repeat the process.
I get to see how the performance evolved over the course of the week and revel in shock at how much I actually accomplished versus feeling like I didn't chisel away at it nearly as much as I was hoping.
Below is an example of what I'm trying to illustrate.
I still have some editing to do for the scene so it reads better, but you can definitely see how much has been added just to this one snapshot since last week.
Why Snapshots/Time Lapses Work
It's easy for people to get stuck inside their own heads. If you're managing your own business, if you're someone who's good at parsing details but not so much the big picture, or if you're someone who generally likes to create, but you aren't measuring your progress as you go, the days can start to blend together into a nonstop tapestry of work, work, work. You might wonder if it's worth it. You might groan at how much farther you have to go.
I'm definitely that type of person.
"I'm not working fast enough."
"I didn't get nearly as much done today as I was hoping."
Me after a day: "Scene Y is giving me issues, and I don't know how to overcome this block." (Funny thing is, usually within the next day or so, I'll find a way past it.)
"I should be doing more."
Etc, etc...
If you don't have some kind of snapshot, how can you expect yourself to view the work you put in objectively? More likely, your subjective lens will color your outlook concerning how well everything is proceeding, and that can spell trouble. I probably mentioned it in a previous post, but I spiral from discouragement to depression if my perceived reality does not match my work standards, which only leads to a lose-lose situation for me. It's difficult, however, to argue with data.
Hence my surprise by how much I had accomplished when I looked between today's document and the previous week's. Because of that snapshot, my motivation remains elevated, my forward momentum uninterrupted. Like holy cannoli with guacamole, I'm 50% of the way through rewriting the rough draft of the performance according to my outline, and here I thought I was lagging behind. Let's go!
Chances are, you're doing better than you think, but the only way you'll truly know so is if you incorporate your own means of tracking.
Don't let it all just blend together. That advice is for me just as much as it is for anyone else who needs it.
Other Notable Accomplishments:
Cold showers, not because I wanted to! but because our water heater is borked. Thankfully, we should be getting that checked out today.
Starting to see some definition in my biceps, which is nice, though it's still mostly in my shoulders.
Scenes for Teyr'loch Delter Pach are ~50% completed.
Questions for Contemplation & Discussion:
What other ways of tracking progress have you either utilized or seen others use? I know my partner has gotten excited seeing the graph view of Obsidian expand while he's working on his campaign notes.
If you're struggling with how you feel about a project, are you tracking the progress you're making on it? If not, is it because you're not sure how, you don't feel the need, or for some other reason?
Take a project you're working on or want to start. Track it in a meaningful way if you aren't already (not just word count or hours worked or scenes written, as an example) that really shows how it's evolving over time. Let me know how it goes. Doesn't matter if it's today, tomorrow, or a year from now. I'll be curious to know regardless.
This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Mura
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