A little preparation goes a long way, even if it’s old news.
France has long vacations, shorter work weeks, and many national holidays. Yet the workforce is considered quite productive. How do they pull this off?
Le Figaro is a national newspaper with several magazines that clearly prepare issues in advance of the summer break. This August they featured “Celebrity Carcrash of the Week”. These were stories about actual historical car crashes like James Dean or Princess Diana. It’s pretty gross, but from the staff’s point of view, easily researched and prepared weeks in advance. It means they can happily go to Saint Tropez, flush in the knowledge that they can relax and their circulation will not suffer. Old gossip is often as good as the new stuff.
Productivity is possible, you just have to work at it.
Politics is ruining everything!
As of this writing the French Post Office has decided to suspend sending packages to the United States. This is in response to the current government’s mysterious love affair with tariffs. Not only is it mystifying on it’s own, but the policy seems to change frequently. Politics aside, it means that I can’t send paintings to the U.S. This might change soon, it might not. But for the moment I can only sell prints in the US, because they are literally printed in the US.
Grrrr.
This stories are from my monthly pdf magazine Living & Painting in France. Click here for your free subscription.