I just read a tweet from Michael Nobbs “Good advice from illustrator Laura Barnard “. Since I’m intentionally trying to focus more on art conversations and less on what I’m making for dinner, I thought “hey, I need to check this out”, so I clicked.
Laura doodled up a little note/message about her plan to skive all day – I’ve never heard of such a word and her sketch on the topic was so intriguing, of course I had to look it up.
According to wikipedia: “To skive is British slang for the practice of avoiding responsibilities because you want to do something more fun or just don’t want to do what you should be doing.”. The Urban dictionary expands to say one would pretend to do something, or they avoid doing what they are supposed to be doing, that they get paid to do. (that’s a lot of doing of nothing, don’t you think?)
The Free Dictionary and Websters said: To cut thin layers off (leather or rubber, for example); pare.
I’m going to stick with the British slang today, if you don’t mind.
Skiving sounds like what I do every day, on purpose! I love that I now have a label for my activities, other than “slacking” which sounds so negative. I’m an active skiver. Is that a correct title? Can I put “professional skiver” on my business cards? I am an expert. I’m good at it, and as Laura says, I can get away with it because for me, its research and development. Maybe I’ll write up a tutorial… sell an ebook: The Ins and Outs of Successful Skiving.
I know, really I appear to get a lot accomplished. Little do you realize I divert from my list more consistently than anything else I do. It’s almost like I have a list for the sole purpose of having something to avoid.On the up side, some of my best ideas have been “thunked up” while I have been “working”.
Something else to note here, the beauty of social networking. I don’t know Michael Nobbs nor do I know Laura Barnard. Twitter helped create this connection and this connection has now made me very happy – distracted and currently skiving like a mad woman on a mission, but happy.