MY JUDGEY LAPTOP & PRODUCTIVE HIDING
Last Tuesday, I blocked off some time for writing. My calendar was clear. No meetings. The boys were at school. Leah was out of the house, so there were no chances to distract myself with, "Can I talk to you for a second?"
Just me, a document, and a blank screen - which I am relatively sure was laughing at me.
So naturally… I checked my email. Not because anything was urgent. It wasn't. Email is doable. It feels good. People want to talk to me. I should listen to them. A question comes in, you answer it, and boom—tiny victory. The endorphin rush is real, and I FEEL productive.
At least that is the conversation going on in my head.
Meanwhile, the real work—the thinking work, the creating work, the "this might not be very good" work—sits there, quietly judging me. (My work is very judgey!)
For fourteen minutes, I was being a responsible, hard-working adult. The kind where if someone walked by, they'd say, "Wow, Scott is really on top of things today."
According to Scott Clary, this is called Productive Hiding. And I am very good at this.
And so are some of you!
As music teachers, we don't call it hiding. We call it being busy.
You've seen it. You've lived it. You've probably done it this week. You sit down to plan a rehearsal or fix a real issue in your ensemble—tone, balance, pacing, culture, whatever it is—and somehow you end up organizing your Google Drive, answering emails, or looking at the program's social page, wondering if you should post.
All of these things matter. They're part of the job. But they're also… convenient.
Because they're solvable.
There's a researcher named Tim Pychyl who has spent years studying procrastination, and his big idea is this: it's not about time management—it's about mood management. When we're faced with something uncertain or difficult, our brain nudges us toward something easier, something that gives us a quick win.
For me, answering an email feels better than staring at a blank page. Reorganizing your music library feels better than addressing why your ensemble isn't listening to each other. Fixing small things feels better than confronting big ones.
Here's the tricky part—it works for a few minutes.
You feel productive. You feel in control. You feel like you're getting things done. And technically, you are. But underneath it, there's that quiet voice that knows this isn't the thing you really should be doing.
I do this all the time.
I'll tell myself I'm being efficient—knocking out emails, tightening up details, staying ahead of things. Meanwhile, the work that actually moves the needle—the writing, the thinking, the honest reflection about my own work—gets pushed just far enough down the list that I can pretend I'll get to it later.
Later is a magical place. Everything gets done there.
The problem is, the important work doesn't go away. It just waits. And the longer it waits, the bigger it feels. The bigger it feels, the easier it is to avoid, and suddenly you're in this loop where you are incredibly busy and somehow not moving forward.
Sound familiar?
I think a lot of what we call "overwhelm" in education is really just very well-disguised hiding. Full calendars. Long to-do lists. Constant motion. It looks like productivity—and, in many ways, it is—but it also provides the perfect cover for avoiding the uncomfortable work.
That's the hard part. That's the part we tend to circle.
When you finally stop and face it—whether it's a rehearsal issue, a program culture question, or even your own growth—you lose the safety of quick wins. You're back in that space where there are no guarantees, no instant feedback, and no tidy resolution.
Yet, that's where the real progress lives.
I know this is true for me. So, for the next week, I am going to ask myself, Am I working? Or am I hiding?
No judgment. I'll just be honest and let my laptop sit there in judgment. Maybe I can fool it - after all, I am pretty good at productive hiding.
And I have a feeling I'm not the only one.
Have a great week.
Scott