Mark Time
One mark per fixed interval; a missed interval stays missed, and no mark is ever made late.
Kawara: one dated painting a day, or destroyed.
Seen in On Kawara, Today series, 1966–2013
Try it on your work
Make one small permanent mark at every fixed interval while you work (a stroke, a stone moved, a knot) for one full session. The row of marks is the session's actual size; compare it to how big it felt.
Say the time elapsed aloud every time you finish a unit of work: "forty minutes," "two days." After ten announcements, note the ones you resisted making; that is where your time-sense and the clock disagree.
Add a visible age to every open item in your project: days since opened, untouched, promised. Sort by it once. The oldest items are a decision list you've been declining to read.
How it has been used
Make time's passage visible through what it deposits: the notches on the doorframe, the daily photograph, the rings in the trunk. The move forces a fixed interval and forbids retrospective marks: a mark made late, backdated, poisons the whole record.
Where it leads
Grouped under Show me what I’m missing