The Artist's Way, Week Four

Recovering A Sense Of Integrity

A week without media. That’s what week 4 of The Artist’s Way calls for.

Really, it’s called the ‘reading deprivation’ tool, and Julia Cameron tells someone completing the course to go without reading for the entirety of week 4. But The Artist’s Way was written in 1992, long before the internet had become what it is today, and before it’d had a profound impact on the way we consume media.

In 1992, the reading deprivation tool was supposed to rid us of distraction for a week. Cameron writes “It is a paradox that by emptying our lives of distractions we are actually filling the well”. If reading was the distraction in 1992, in 2025 that list of distractions grows to also include on-demand television, movies, endless scrolling of social media, podcasts, audiobooks, and much, much more. To get true value from this week, someone on the Artist’s Way course should seriously consider cutting out all of these distractions — as I did.

I knew this week would be gruelling, because I had read other blog posts written by those who interpreted the deprivation tool in the same way as I did. Many of the authors of these blog posts did not complete the week. For whatever reason, I anticipated not having so much trouble as them, perhaps thinking myself too stubborn, or too able to resist temptation.

Oh, how wrong I was. The first day without media was OK. I went out, had a nice Sunday lunch, went for a walk, and generally filled my time with other tasks. But by the evening, I’d grown frustrated. This task had taken away almost everything I enjoy. I couldn’t settle down to watch a couple of episodes of the latest show (Severance, in this case) and nor could I crack open one of the nine books that currently sit on my bedside table (that is an accurate number, I just counted). Instead, I was left twiddling my thumbs, and ended up going to bed for an early night.

This frustration and irritation only grew in days two and three. But before long, I realised just how much I thoughtlessly consumed media. I’d absent-mindedly scroll through my BlueSky, Instagram and Reddit feeds for maybe an hour of a morning. Could I tell you what I’d seen? Not at all. When I binged TV shows, was I really getting all the enjoyment out of it that I could, or was it background media, put on simply out of convenience? Or worse, as a distraction?

In those early days, I felt almost like I was in withdrawal. Like when I once decided to stop drinking caffeine, I felt irritable, had more anxiety, even had headaches. These social media apps in particular were calling me back, as they’re built in such a way as to deliver a constant flow of serotonin with their immediate delivery of further content. Not having these at my disposal made me realise just how much they’d messed with my brain chemistry.

It was then that I realised that this reliance on media was all the more reason to see the challenge through, and I approached it with renewed vigour. I hoped that by the time the week was through, I would go on to still consume media, but I would do so more intentionally. I hoped that I would watch fewer TV shows, but give them my full attention. I hoped that I would listen to music (actually listen!) rather than putting it on in the background while I focused on some work or a chore. I hoped that I would not spend quite so much time on social media — something that I am determined to maintain going forward.

So I had time on my hands, time that I was struggling to fill. I ended up going for more walks, bought a watercolour paper pad and some Warhammer to paint. I did things that I wouldn’t normally have done. But did I enjoy them as much as I would have other media? Even now, at the end of the week, I can’t give an honest answer to that.

One phrase I saw thrown around with regards to this media deprivation week was that it was a “productivity hack” or the like. I’m not sure I personally experienced this one. I didn’t get any more jobs done that I would have in any other week. I had more time on my hands, yes, but much of it was spent lazing around, not doing much of anything. This may well be because of my struggles with long-term illness and constant fatigue, but I learned that my limiting factor is not time or headspace, but energy. It is not that I spend time watching TV that I could spend creating art, because between writing and a near-full-time day job, that energy simply isn’t there. But for others, maybe that would be the case.

As always, I did the usual morning pages, artist’s date, and there were the list of tasks to work through. Though I had more time on my hands, I actually completed fewer of this tasks than usual; I simply didn’t have the headspace for a lot of them. I might even come back to some of these in future weeks.

Nunhead Cemetery on a warm Spring day

In terms of the artist’s date, I had some difficult work news during the week, so I chose to get away from my desk for a while on Thursday. I took the train just a couple of stops down to Nunhead, and then had a wander around Nunhead Cemetery and surrounding area. You might think that is a weird spot for an artist’s date, but there is an almost perverse beauty to it, and it’s strangely wooded and quiet for somewhere quite central to London. As always, I did find the artist’s date truly rejuvenating, though the “high” of taking time for myself faded fast this week, as upon returning home, I quickly remembered my task of avoiding media.

I feel like there is a very obvious question at this point: would I do this again? The answer is… maybe. Maybe in a year or two I might find my way back to the full Artist’s Way again, and if so, then why wouldn’t I do the media deprivation week again? It’s a good reminder of the power that media has over you, and how it inhabits seemingly every part of your life. I think it might even be something that I need to do regularly, to realign my priorities and set a more sensible media/other balance in my life on a longer-term basis.

It was incredibly difficult, yes, but I would say very, very important. And worth it.

Next week, I begin Recovering A Sense Of Possibility.

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