Project versus Practice

“Project-based learning” is a trendy catchphrase in educational circles these days. Entire school systems promote this philosophy, claiming that it better mirrors the “real world” than traditional education models. And it’s true: the concept of project-based organization is everywhere: choirs and orchestras are project-based, meaning instead of a set roster of musicians, the make-up of the group changes based on the needs of the project or program. Workplaces are designed around projects and teams. Architects or event planners must work from project to project, as do landscape designers or campaign managers. Writers have book projects; academics, research projects. There are construction projects and road projects. Committees and boards are formed around projects or specific needs. Around here, I have been deep in several home projects—the bathroom, the kitchen—this summer. You can start to see why education has adopted this model as a new standard for learning.

Certainly this makes sense for many jobs or situations. But it occurs to me that there is a difference between work that is project-based and work that is practice-based. Project-based work has an off and on switch. It is contained and defined; it has a beginning, middle and an end. Practice-based work is continuous. It is showing up every day, regardless of deadlines and to-do lists. It is the monk on the meditation cushion or the musician at their instrument. It is gardener on her knees weeding or the painter staring at his easel. It is the runner putting in his miles or the poet sitting down in front of a blank piece of paper.

In fact, much of life is based in the dailyness of practice. We must eat every day, bathe regularly, sleep every night. We sweep our floors, wash our dishes, brush our teeth. By their very nature, spiritual institutions are practice-based. Zazen happens in Zen Centers every day; services are offered in churches and synagogues every week. Of course, it is not one or the other exclusively. Religions have seasons and holidays, AKA “projects”. There are seasons in the garden and cycles in the life of every musician. The sun rises, the sun sets. Tides come in and out. The moon waxes and wanes.

Lately, however, I’ve been wondering about the tendency to treat these two work styles as an either/or proposition. After completing a bathroom “refresh” this summer, I spent my August teaching break working on a kitchen cabinet remodel. This meant countless trips to Lowe’s and too many of my brain cells being occupied with cabinet color and style, knobs and cutlery drawer designs. Just before I started the school-year lesson schedule, we paid a jillion dollars and signed a million pieces of paper for new kitchen cabinets. Then the waiting game began.

We were told it would take between 4-6 weeks for the cabinets to be built. Fine. We were told that the demolition of the old cabinets and the installation of the new cabinets would take one day (the contractor seemed particular proud of this. “I’ve never done a kitchen in one day,” he told me. Or said another way: “Do you know what I love about Miss Amy’s house? It is SO SMALL!”). This one-day miracle of construction suited us just fine, but it was dependent upon being able to save our sparkly black quartz countertops and bright green tile backsplash that we had put in about 10 years ago. So this was a “fine” with an asterisk. In order to accommodate the one-day wonder construction project, I was planning on taking two days off teaching, “just in case.” Besides the possibility that unforeseen delays could happen, there would be painting that also needed to be done before the kitchen could be put back together. Here’s what else I knew about my month: my best friend Lora was coming back from New Zealand for a week and I promised her some empty hours, if not a whole girl day together. I needed to schedule a number of one-offs: adult studio classes, a couple of meetings/rehearsals. Oh, and the first week of teaching I got a nasty cold and had to cancel a day of lessons, which set me back from the start.

This is a long-winded way of saying that I quickly found myself running into a certain amount of impatience and circular thinking while waiting to be given an installation date for my beautiful midnight-blue cabinets. It felt a little like my work life and scheduling ability were put on hold, a sort of pause button imposed on any future plans. Curiously, this was both frustrating and liberating all at once. On one hand, I would catch myself thinking, “Damn, I’m stuck and I can’t figure out X, Y or Z” and then the next moment I would think “Woo-hoo! I don’t have to do A, B or C because I can’t.” Which is much like the 7-year-old telling me with a certain amount of glee that they couldn’t practice the whole week because they lost their practice notebook.

In other words, too much project-based thinking is limiting. Because here’s the thing: with a bit of creativity there are plenty of practices to lean into here. There are lessons to be taught—today, tomorrow and probably the next day too. There is music that needs to be learned and ideas that needs to be coaxed into sentences and paragraphs. There is still a garden that needs to be watered every single scorchingly hot day. There are books to read and laps to swim and friends to meet for coffee. The old utensil drawers may be literally falling off their hinges, but we still need to feed ourselves. The laundry must get done. As much as I might like to whine and fuss, my month is hardly derailed just because I haven’t been given an installation date for an impending kitchen project. First world problems, as they say.

Perhaps some hybrid thinking might be in order? Which maybe is where the idea of “holding space” comes in. We hold space for practices, and then specific projects come in and out, shaping to fit the container they are given. For example, take practicing the piano: if we practice only when there is an upcoming performance or some other kind of deadline, then we are project-based. If we practice two hours a day regardless, then our work is practice-based. Sometimes that time at the piano might be very project-oriented—in a busy musical season my practice load goes from one project/program to another. But in-between deadlines, we still put in our practice time. We practice Bach. We return to technique drills. We transpose hymns or work on our tenor-clef reading skills. We still practice.

If 30-minutes of daily SSR is required for every 4th grader, then reading is the constant, not the assigned book project. When we put time in the garden every day, the spring cleanup rolls in organically or the fall seeding of greens in pots. If I hold space for regular writing time, then I’m not just sitting down at the computer when there is a deadline. While there is a very real kitchen project in my life these days, there will always be floors to sweep. Chop wood, carry water, goes the Zen teaching. Projects? Of course. But practice, always.