Hey, lovely readers, let’s dive in to time management for artists!! Ever find yourself staring at a blank canvas or a blinking cursor, wondering how on earth to organize your time as a full-time artist and content creator? Well, fear not, because today, I’m inviting you behind the scenes of my week to spill all the secrets on how I keep the creativity flowing while staying on track.
In this blog post, I’m pulling back the curtain on my tried-and-tested methods for balancing the hustle and the artistry. From batch working time blocking, I’ll walk you through how I craft my week to maximise productivity without sacrificing the magic of spontaneity.
But let’s be real – this isn’t about rigid schedules and endless to-do lists. It’s about finding harmony between structure and flexibility, allowing room for inspiration to strike while still getting stuff done. After all, creativity thrives in freedom, right?
So, whether you’re a fellow creator looking for some organisational inspo or just curious about the inner workings of a creative mind, grab a cuppa and join me on this journey. Together, we’ll explore the art of time management for artists and maybe even pick up a few tricks along the way. Let’s dive in and make magic happen!
Time Management for Artists: Video Transcript
Hello! I often get asked how I managed to juggle all the different parts of my creative business and get everything done, so I thought I’d share with you how I organise my working week.
As I mentioned in a previous video, I am very much a completionist and I tend to hyperfocus on one task to the detriment of others, which also may need working on at the same time alongside whatever I’m currently working on.
There’s so many aspects to running an online business these days. Think social media, content creation, actually creating artwork, processing artwork, uploading to print on demand, etc. etc. they all need constant attention and each one is a cog in a constantly turning machine.
My brain has a tendency to hyper focus on one task and then completely forget that the others exist. I’d happily spend all week focusing on one aspect of the business and then end up behind in all the other areas. I also find it hard to switch from one task to another halfway through the day, so to keep me on track, I find a combination of batch working and timetabling works for me.
Monday-Weds
The biggest chunk of my week is dedicated to videos and content creating for YouTube and Skillshare.
I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday working on making and editing videos and other content for these platforms. Those are probably my three favourite days of the week. I sit down at my desk about 930 after the school run and walking the dog and some days I just lose track of time and don’t even get up to make a cup of tea until my stop working alarm goes off at 2pm!
One of my goals for 2024 was to stop desk working at 2 p.m. and spend the rest of the day working on drawing on my iPad. For years, I’ve been in a routine of getting up at 6 a.m. and drawing for like two hours at the beginning of the day. But since about November last year, I just can’t get out of bed. at that time anymore. So I switched to drawing in the afternoons instead.
Thursday
So then I have Thursday as my art processing day. This is another desk day and I’ll be in Photoshop the whole time, finishing off my procreate patterns and illustrations, applying the designs to print on demand assets, sell sheets for my portfolio, and adding them to my social media templates.
I basically pull out every template on no ever need to use the design on, and then I’ll make all the assets all in one go. Because I know I won’t remember to do it later. I also get bored of new designs very quickly, so getting it all done while I’m in the first flushes of romance with my latest design is much easier before I get my head turned by the next one.
This art processing is one of the bottlenecks in my business. It’s kind of boring, not that fun, and it’s one of the steps that I get behind in because I would rather be spending all week making and editing videos or just drawing more patterns, but allocating one day per week to it. I don’t get to skip it. I sit at my desk on a Thursday, and I know that today is not for making videos. I know what I have to get on with and there’s no “what shall I do today?” Conversation to be had.
Friday
And then last of all, on a Friday I have an upload day. Again, this is another bottleneck because uploading to print on demand is boring, but I convince myself to do it by working on the sofa with something good to binge watch on Netflix while I’m working.
It *almost* feels like a day off.
Social Media
Spending time hanging out on Instagram, chatting with all the other lovely creative people on there is another task that I have to schedule or I just completely forget the app exists. I normally spend some time on there responding to comments and sharing your artwork to my stories first thing in the morning while I’m having my coffee.
Then I’ll spend around another 20 minutes on that around 2 p.m. when I post something, and then maybe another 20 minutes after dinner. One last job that I will fit in once a month is social media scheduling. Usually at the end month, I’ll swap out one of the content creation days for a day spent working on all my social media captions and scheduling them using tailwind.
All the images are already made ahead of time as part of the art processing I do on a Thursday. So all I have to do is upload them and write captions. I find this is much easier to do on mass, so that my head can get into caption writing mode. If I try and think of something to say on the spur of the moment, and this applies to life in general, hence why I’m reading a script right now.
It usually comes out as either incoherent waffle or my mind just goes blank. So doing a whole month in one go helps me to get into the flow, and mostly makes for more coherent captions.
Conclusion
So that’s how I’m currently spending my working week, to make sure that all the different things that need to get done actually get done.
I’m not perfect at sticking to that schedule, and I’m still struggling with breaking off from things I really want to work on in order to focus on the more boring things. But mostly it’s working for me. If you’re running a one person operation, I’d love to hear your tips or strategies for juggling all the different moving parts, and how you keep up with the tasks that you don’t enjoy so much.
Start a conversation in the comments and we can get chatting about it.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these time management for artists tips that I’ve shared with you. As always, take what works for you and leave the rest behind!
Have fun! Stay creative and I will see you next time.
