Learning new programs, or: how not to procrastinate

The duck and I are proud procrastinators. In most cases. Today, I want to tell you about two times we were not so proud of our procrastination skills. Actually, since both involve software, let’s make it one. I feel much better already. That’s it from us for today. Have a great week-
is what I wanted to leave it at. But I can feel the duck’s glare on my back. So, I guess I’ll do what I do well: write a few too many words on a moderately mundane topic. Cool! Let’s go!
First, let me reiterate that in addition to being powerful procrastinators, the duck and I strive toward positively perfect parsimony. In terms of software, this means we like to go free and open-source whenever we can. If we haven’t used the paid alternative (in years), we’re great at working with the potential limitations. If we switch directly and have trouble adjusting, the prospect of a (newly introduced) subscription fee is usually reason enough to keep trying.
That’s not what happened with Procreate and DaVinci Resolve, the two programs singular case of too much procrastination I mentioned earlier. They’re (almost) free!*

Here’s the duck appreciating (well, judging) my progress on our last movie still duckification on Procrastinate– no, that’s what we did – Procreate, our new favorite doodling aid besides Gimp. Even though Procreate has been popular among artists for years, the duck and I only discovered this intuitive illustration app a few months ago. We consider ourselves digital doodlers rather than actual artists and we are lazy. So, we’re okay with being especially late to clamber up on the bandwagon (I have a past of being chronically late, after all). However, we’re not okay with how long it took us to actually try Procreate, given its comparatively minuscule one-time purchase fee of around 10 Euros (if you already own an iPad). Just looking at videos of it in use, the duck and I knew we’d love how this app combines the simplicity of drawing on a sheet of paper with the possibilities of a well-equipped art studio. We do prefer computers over smartphones of all sizes. So, dealing with the iPad’s operating system when importing or exporting files can annoy us (it definitely did when we used Procreate to create the overlays for our latest video). But that didn’t even cross our minds when we postponed buying this app. We simply procrastinated because we could, as we did with:

DaVinci (we should have) Resolve(d to use this sooner)

I’ve mentioned that we’d been having trouble with our old editing process. The duck and I are chronically late to the game. So of course, it took us a few years to learn about the existence of DaVinci Resolve. Again, that’s okay. Not okay is that it took us about a year to install it and another one – after receiving passionate accounts and firm recommendations – to open it for the first time. Once we had gotten over this most embarrassing case of long-term procrastination, the duck and I felt so little frustration using DaVinci Resolve to edit our first video that we once again questioned our procrastination skills and simultaneously agreed it was okay to procrastinate a little after finishing the rough cut in record time (for slow people like ourselves). It probably took us less than an hour to find the solution to the one error message we encountered, which was unheard of in our limited editing experience. So, I am again dumbfounded at our questionable procrastination decisions.
Seriously. Taking so long to start using those programs we knew would enhance our creative process (if that’s what you want to call the fleeting moments of selective inspiration the duck and I experience once in a blue moon) made us miss out on a lot of fun creating something instead of lazing around. Is this, perhaps, another instance of “FOMO for lazy people“? Probably.
So, that’s how the duck and I have lost some of our procrastination pride in the past few months. We vow to do better and try hard to not put off learning and doing things we know will enrich our lazy lives. At the same time, we want to regain some of our apathy acceptance. I think the duck feels much better already. That’s it from us for today. Have a great week-
Okay, one last thing: All that waffling aside, if there are any programs/activities/hobbies you’ve been meaning to look into, please don’t do what the duck and I did. Try them. You might end up not liking them. But at least you have banished them from the back of your mind, leaving more space for the crucial things in life: cookies, pretzels, ice cream, and sleeping a lot (or are those subjective to the duck and me?).

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*Procreate doesn’t have in-app purchases. So, unless you buy things like brushes (if you don’t want to/can’t create the ones you’re looking for yourself) to import, you only pay for the app once. DaVinci Resolve is free to use and offers everything amateur editors like the duck and me need. There’s also a paid version with a reasonable (compared to similar programs) one-time purchase fee for anyone who needs specific features not included in the free version.