Several months ago, I was on the edge of overload. I had a number of great projects in progress, gallery sales were humming along, and the little things that a business owner has to deal with were beginning to compound. Add to that dealing with dozens of emails each day, random phone calls, traveling and meetings, (not to mention writing for this blog) and, quite simply, there weren’t enough hours in the day to get it all done.
Though I am fortunate to have a high stress tolerance, I was beginning to feel the weight of carrying a workload that was simply too high. Many days I would start work before 8:00 a.m., work all day, come home and, after dinner, work again until 10 or 11 at night. Even so, each day I felt I was falling just a little further behind in accomplishing everything I wanted to get done.
On a regular basis, I have the opportunity to talk to artists and have found that many are experiencing exactly the same predicament.
You might not think of it this way, but as an artist you are the owner of a small business
You might not think of it this way, but as an artist you are the owner of a small business, just as I am. As the owner of your fine art business, you have to manage your accounting, your inventory, and your marketing. You have to find time to build and maintain relationships with galleries. If you sell your own work, you have to manage your sales, both by making sure that you are developing new leads and following up and closing sales. You are responsible for managing your website and following through with your social media. These tasks alone could keep you busy most days, and we haven’t even mentioned your most important work: creating art.
I am sure that many of you can understand the desperation that was beginning to creep into my days.
Luckily for me, I was directed to some tools that have changed my day-to-day life and helped me get control of my time.
I don’t want to cast myself as a time-management expert, nor is my intention to write an all-encompassing post on how to get control of your life. I just want to share a few things that have had a huge impact for me, and could help you become more productive and feel like you are in control of your day, and more importantly, your over-all direction.
The Ideal Week
Many of you know Barney Davey through podcasting and workshops we have done together. Barney is a fountain of great information and he is particularly good at finding great tools and resources online. I consider him to be my digital guru. Several months ago, Barney pointed me to Michael Hyatt’s blog.
Hyatt is the former president and CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers and blogs about leadership at michaelhyatt.com. While his blog posts cover a wide range of leadership topics, Barney directed me to an article on planning, where Hyatt describes how he designs an “ideal week.” I recommend you read Hyatt’s post by clicking here.
I won’t attempt to repeat everything Hyatt writes. but the basic concept is that by creating a template of your week – scheduling out your time in blocks – you become more efficient and complete your most important work. Obviously Hyatt isn’t the first to discover the concept, this is a bedrock time-management principle, but the timing was just right for me. I read his article at exactly the moment when I needed to have more control over my activities. Hyatt includes a downloadable spreadsheet that you can adapt to your schedule, and I did just that.
the act of creating the ideal week was revealing – it forced me to prioritize so that I could allot my time to those tasks that are most important to me.
Again, this isn’t rocket science and after creating my own ideal week, it seemed so obvious I couldn’t believe I hadn’t done it before. Just the act of creating the ideal week was revealing. It forced me to prioritize so that I could allot my time to those tasks that are most important to me. Reading Hyatt’s post, you’ll see that he suggests starting your day with your long-term priorities, rather than your day-to-day tasks.
Prior to this exercise, I would sit down at the beginning of each day, look at my task-list (more on that in a moment) and try to plan things out as best I could. The problem with this is that prioritizing on a daily basis often caused me to work on projects that were urgent rather than important.
I encourage you to try and plan your own ideal week and see what it looks like. I suspect that the biggest blocks of time on your schedule will be for your creative process and production time.
Once I had my ideal week on paper, I was surprised by how easy it was to begin following my plan. I created my spreadsheet in Google Docs and I have it set as a permanent tab in my browser so it is always easy for me to access. I look at it every day to make sure I know what I need to be working on that particular day.
The To-Do List
I have long been a fan of the to-do list. I always have dozens of little tasks pending, and prior to using a to-do list I would often drop the ball on some of these minor tasks. Several years ago, I converted to managing my email in Outlook and started using the integrated task list in the program to make sure I was getting everything done. This was another revolution in my life. Any of you who have used Outlook before know how easy it is to create a task or convert an email into a task, set a due date, and then manage the list.
In May of this year, I moved the gallery’s email to Google for hosting through their gmail system. I kept hearing how wonderful gmail was at cutting through the clutter of the inbox and making it easier to manage. I’ll have to write another post on how amazing I have found gmail to be, but the one downside was losing Outlook’s great tasking system. Gmail offers a to-do list, but after trying it I found that it simply wasn’t robust enough to deal with my tasking.
Barney Davey saved me again by pointing me to todoist.com. Todoist is an online task and project management web app that not only gave me back a lot of the flexibility to move tasks around and prioritize them (as Outlook had) but gave me a cleaner interface and a workflow that felt more natural to me.
Quite simply, whenever a project or task comes up, I put it into todoist.
Prior to using a to-do list, I would be tempted to simply go to work on every thought or idea that popped into my head. Consequently, I would bounce around from project to project because invariably, as I was working on one project I would have an idea for another.
Now if I have an idea or realize I need to do something, I pop into todoist (also a permanent tab in my browser), create a task (by simply hitting ctrl+q), assign it a date, and go back to my original project. Because I am secure in the knowledge the task won’t be forgotten, I can now forget about it and get back to the original work I was doing.
My to-do list works in tandem with my ideal week. I plan out my broad strokes with the ideal week schedule and manage the little tasks involved in each project or day to day activity in my to-do list. I do have to be a little bit careful about not looking at my to-do list at the beginning of the day for fear that I will be derailed by the little things it contains. I work on my big projects in the morning and through about 2:00 p.m., and then I look to my to-do list to manage the rest of my day and get everything done.
Delegate
Perhaps the hardest thing for any small business owner to do (and remember, I consider you a small business owner) is to let go of some of the control of any aspect of your business by delegating it to someone else. As small business owners, we often have to figure out how to do everything on our own – all the way from the most important business decisions down to cleaning the bathroom. After a while, it becomes a way of life and we feel pretty good about the fact that we can do so much by ourselves.
Ultimately, however, our self-reliance can become a hindrance to our long-term success. Yes, you can do your own bookkeeping and taxes, and yes, you can ship your own art, and yes, you can clean the bathroom, but is doing these things the best use of your limited time?
A week consists of 168 hours and every minute you spend on one task is a minute you can’t spend on another.
I am fortunate to have great people working for me, and the work they do for me frees me to focus my efforts on the work that I have prioritized as most important for our long-term success.
You might say “I’m a starving artist, I can’t hire anyone.” Indeed, you may not be able to hire someone to work full-time for you, but if you can simply farm out some of the more basic parts of your business, you will find you have more time to create. Consider having a bookkeeper take over your day-to-day financial record keeping. Hire an art-student to come into your studio weekly to organize and clean the studio and catalog your artwork. Have your spouse take over your website maintenance.
To my delight, I have found that not only can others do the work I was originally doing myself, after a little training they often do it better than I could!
Learn to say “No”
While you may have countless great ideas and opportunities, none of them are any good to you if you can’t get them done. Sometimes you just have to learn to put your foot down and say “no” to things that are going to prevent you from accomplishing your priorities. Again, your ideal week can be a huge help in budgeting your time in relationship to “opportunities” that might pop up.
You might be approached by a charity that is looking for volunteers to help with an event. If you believe in the cause it can be very difficult to decline. Before you accept, however, go to your ideal week calendar and ask yourself where you can fit in the commitment and how much time it’s going to require. If you’re not willing to give up other priorities to fit the commitment in, decline the opportunity.
Michael Hyatt has another great post on saying “no” in a positive way: http://michaelhyatt.com/how-to-say-no.html
Eliminate Distractions and Create a Buffer
Prioritizing and planning are meaningless if you can’t stay focused while you are working on your priorities. We live in a world of constant distraction. Email, phone calls, television and even friends and family can intrude on our productive time and prevent us from accomplishing our goals. Once again, the urgent can get in the way of the important.
I experienced another huge productivity increase when I simply changed my habits around my email. I used to work on my email first thing in the morning. I would arrive at the gallery before 8:00 a.m. and open my inbox to get to work on clearing it out. Inevitably, I would end up stuck in my email for hours, and sometimes all day. Email comes in at a steady stream, so just when you think you have it licked, another message rears its ugly head.
Now, I don’t even open my email until after 3:00 p.m., and yet, amazingly, I can still manage to respond to all of my correspondence before the end of the day.
I try to do the same thing with phone calls – I ask my staff to take messages or I let calls roll-over to voice mail so that I can deal with them on my time. Obviously there are exceptions, but most emails and calls aren’t so urgent that they can’t wait a few hours so that you can stay focused on your most important work.
I have also found that I am less distracted if I create a physical and psychological buffer between myself and the world around me. A closed office door (or studio door in your case) and headphones create enough of a barrier that all but the most insistent distractions are blocked. While the wrong music could be another distraction, I have found that classical music and instrumental movie soundtracks actually help me focus.
The Payoff
I know these suggestions are pretty simple, but it’s amazing how taking control of my time has impacted my outlook on life. At the end of each day, I can now look back with satisfaction on the work I’ve accomplished and the progress I’ve made toward my goals, instead of feeling guilty that I didn’t get everything done.
Managing my time more carefully has, almost miraculously, given me more time to stop and smell the roses of life. Over the last several months, I have read two lengthy books to my children and spent more time with my wife, Carrie.
There is still much more I need to do to optimize my time and work and I’m not always 100% consistent, but at least now I feel like I am on the right track and have the tools at my disposal to take advantage of the time I have available.
What are your greatest time-management challenges? What tools do you use to maximize your productivity? How does your control of your time impact the art you are creating?
About Jason Horejs
Jason Horejs is the Owner of Xanadu Gallery, author of best selling books "Starving" to Successful & How to Sell Art , publisher of reddotblog.com, and founder of ARTsala. Jason has helped thousands of artists prepare themselves to more effectively market their work, build relationships with galleries and collectors, and turn their artistic passion into a viable business.
{ 31 comments… read them below or add one }
Holy cow, Jason! Reading your blog post was like watching my own thoughts transform themselves into words upon your page. I have been struggling with finding enough time in my schedule to paint new works. Not just enough time, but I need consecutive hours to work my paintings while they’re still wet, time to photograph my art, to re-size my images, and respond intelligently to posts such as yours.
Recently, I began a blog and look forward to making more entries on it. I have an active website and a Facebook business page too. I paid a web hosting company to optimize my website and I also have engaged a person to optimize my social media. It’s beginning to make a difference.
The funny thing is – all of this has helped the success of my classes, workshops and art commissions and now I must face the “time” demon. Your post was just what I needed. I’ll check out Michael Hyatt’s blog and look into todoist.
Thanks, for your great art marketing blog and for caring about artists like myself!
Best Regards,
Susan N. Jarvis
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the post. I like your style of writing. I can hear the care in your voice for artists. Time management is so incredibly important. But often very difficult for creative people. Nice to find your blog and I look forward to future connections.
Jason,
I enjoy reading your blogs very much- when I take a minute out to read. I have but one simple question, could you share some of the classical music and instrumental movie soundtrack titles you prefer. I need to expand my short list of the same. If you get a chance, please visit my website and let me know what you think.
Thank you for your time!
Brian Kuether
Jason,
I enjoy reading your blogs very much-when I take a minute out to read. I have but one simple question,could you share some of the classical music and instrumental movie soundtrack titles you prefer? I need to expand my shortlist of the same. If you get a chance, please visit my website and let me know what you think.
Thank you for your time!
Brian Kuether
And time is even more important when you are 81 years old. You start to figure how many paintings you might have left to create.
Wonderful post Jason.
Very informative and helpful as always very timely. I have to get back to using mine more regularly for sure. Grateful for all of the info.
A side note: I stopped using Outlook years ago and now use Thunderbird Mail, http://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird/ (it is free) and I love the tasking calendar and the way I can sort and manage my days/ tasks and emails through the add on; Lightning Calendar. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/addon/lightning/?src=hp-dl-featured
a Thunderbird calendar add on.
I do not have MS products, (new computer with out all that and no budget to buy it) a great free download office suite is Open Office, complete with spread sheets etc.. for those in need. I like getting mine free downloads from CNET, a most trusted techy site as well as the reviews I get there so here is that link also. http://download.cnet.com/OpenOffice-org/3000-18483_4-10263109.html?tag=contentBody;pop .
Thanks,
Andy
Jason, this was the most useful and most needed (at least for me) post I’ve read in a long time.
Thanks a million
Bonnie
Hi Jason, This was very timely for me! Thank you so much. I am passing it on to our Local Colors of Utah gallery members. Great info!
Catherine
Great post, Jason! Lots of gems for reader to pick one. Implementing just one or two will really help anyone who is experiencing “not enough hours in the day, days in the week” feelings. Overwhelm is almost the norm now.
Time management as been what has really opened up my creativity and production time. Once I moved into an electronic calendar where every half hour is accounted for, I no longer miss exhibiton opportunities, forget to do marketing tasks that only happen once a month or once every two weeks, etc. Being that structured actually found time that I was missing. More time for family, recreation, etc and still accomplishing what needs to get done.
I no longer have to remember to go look for prospectus for specifiic exhibitions I want to submit to each year, I have them entered into my calendar 1 or 2 months ahead of the submission due date and setup as recurring events yearly, every other year, etc. I’ve included the website as well so it is simple to just go and find it.
Instead of going through email once a day as you have now developed, I have set aside 30 minutes three times a day and that has been more than enough time in most cases. This allows me to handle a lot of overseas emails when the recepient is beginning their day. Obviously if I have been gone for several days, this is greatly modified as my time on vacation is just that, MY time and I disconnect totally to recharge creatively as well as not being “on call” 24/7 as seems to be the inclination now for any field. Not thinking about my art and business during vacation has really made me more productive and generated great ideas that wouldn’t have come forward as easily.
Continued Success!
Jason,
This is SUCH an important post, I shared it on my facebook studio page (https://www.facebook.com/JoyKrevesArtStudio) because I am sure this is an issue for us all. I regularly learn and enjoy from your posts, so thank you.
Wow, Jason, you just never stop giving. What a great post. I look forward to investigating the tools you passed along. This has been one of the most productive months of my life in terms of my artistic career, and there were times I thought I would explode if I had to wrap my mind around all the balls I was juggling. I changed my to-do list from successive scrawls to more spacious paper in color-coded gel pens so I could conceptualize it better, and the colors made it much funner to look at. That alone has improved my life in a deep way.
Another useful thing, which may be similar to your Ideal Week plan, is that every Monday my husband and I (both self-employed) have a meeting where we celebrate what we achieved the week before and explain to each other our priorities for the coming week. I log those intentions so we can refer to them the following week to see how we each did. We don’t use this as a to-do list, but rather as a focusing tool in moving toward our dreams and bigger goals. We never use the meeting to feel bad about what we didn’t do, only to celebrate whatever we did that had meaning toward our goals, even if it wasn’t on the list.
Finally, my method of choosing what on my list to tackle next is this: At the beginning of the day (or the night before), I look over my list and think, “By the end of the day, which (3 or so significant) tasks will I feel wonderful and proud to have done? Certain things “light up” as being these true commitments for the day. So, those, I know I will do. Then I briefly review all the other filler tasks that I might also want to fit in, and let “the Universe” take care of peppering those into the schedule of my day. But the (three) significant tasks are the ones always on my mind and plate that day; and when I am done, indeed I feel proud and wonderful and ready for the next day’s adventure.
Excellent advice Jason! Thank You! I always search out experts to do those things I cannot do effectively and even some things that I can, after all I’d rather be creating and selling my art. I like to make my To Do list the night before, that gets it out of the way and don’t have to waste time the next day on it or lose sleep wondering if I remember something in the morning. I often tell other artists to make it a habit to often go and watch people who are better selling art than you are. I learned so much myself from doing so and saved a lot of time! Enough so that I was able to eventually open my own very successful gallery in San Diego!
RD “Randy” Riccoboni, Artist and Best Selling Author of The Big Picture – The Seven Step Guide For Creative Success in Business.
Hi Jason,
Great article – and since I have discovered your blog and all you are doing to help Artists, I have been a big fan. Hope you don’t mind the share on our FB page promoting your blog – and recent webinar. I totally agree with the philosophy that any help/advice on Marketing or the Business side of Art Practice should be made freely available i.e. pass it forward and for free as much as possible. May it come back to you 10 fold!
Thank you very much Jason!
I am organize most of the time, but recently I cannot find time to create. Your blog post could not have come to a better time… as always you are there to help us. I will definitely visit michaelhyatt.com and Todoist to apply them.
Merci, sincerely
Véronique
@Brian Kuether
Some of my current favorites:
I have really gotten behind in my production part because of cleaning the toliet and other things. I really like your ideas about getting an art-student to clean the studio and I have toy with the idea but have not follow through because I don’t have the money at this point. I really like your ideas and hope to put them to work.
What a great article to make as a priority!
And most timely!
Thank you for posting, and how fortuitous of me to somehow have received it!
I’m not as far along as Susan Jarvis, with glass blowing artworks, but the phase is the same.
Thanks again,
Jeannie
Vitreous City Glassworks
Hi Jason!
You need to take a look at PODIO.com is a tool that has made my life so much easier!
You can use it to manage anything, todo lists, stock, marketing, contacts, pretty much anything you want.
The good thing is that you set it up to work the way you want to, and you can create your own apps in minutes.
I manage all my studio with it.
Take a look at it I am sure you will love it.
thanks, here I am reading my emails first thing in the moring, when I know I have two days just to finish a
painting promised by the end of this week, and several graphic jobs to finish and a festival to attend to Sat. even.
oh my god. I will read more after 3 p.m. thanks
Hi Jason, fabulous article with such great, practical tips! Like Susan, who posted above, I have been struggling to get control of my schedule and recently started charting how I spent my time, which has helped a lot! I shared my progress and also a link to this article on my own blog, http://makealivingmakingart.blogspot.com.
I enjoy the e-newsletters and your blog very much. Thank you and keep up the good work!
Gayle
I don’t like the idea of a spreadsheet to plot out time; too time consuming. (I’ve tried it. Doesn’t work for me. And I know one or two things: I’ve been a time Management Instructor for 13 years.) But I do like the concept of “an ideal week.” Helps to focus priorities.
I also like modern classical to work and focus: anything by Steve Reich is excellent for this purpose.
Jason, the key item that jumped out at me was “important” vs. “urgent.” It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day “urgent” stuff and lose sight of the important tasks that help us achieve our long term goals. This was a great post …thank you! Best, Laurie
Wow Jason, I was overwhelmed with the webinar ‘How to Get Your Art Seen and Sold” lastnight with Barney Davey that you hosted and then first thing this morning here was your blog, repeating some of the info we learned about last night. You really do burn both ends of the candle. Thank you so much for sharing your information and experiences with artists who are struggling with the issues you so elequently wrote in your blog. I am getting ready to implement some of the great ideas from your blog and the workshop. Thanks again for sharing and thanks to Barney. Great workshop! Thanks for taking my questions too!
Sincerely,
Burneta Venosdel
small town artist
Hey Jason
Amir here from Todoist. I enjoyed your article and I have a tip for you (and others) that might improve your workflow even more:
Todoist’s plugins for Chrome and Firefox! Both these plugins support one-click delegation of Gmail emails as tasks. You can also add websites, articles etc. as tasks. Personally, I mostly use Todoist using these plugins.
Please see these for more information (there are also short 1 minute videos that explain how they work):
* http://todoist.com/chrome
* http://todoist.com/firefox
Best regards,
Amir, founder of Todoist
Thanks for your post. Yes…there never seem to be enough hours in the day.
There are some days I would actually Love to put in 15 or more hours just on my “business”….however…. for some of us you also need to factor in laundry, housework, cooking, children, errands…etc.
Sometime we just have to make the best of whatever hours we actually can get!
Jason
As someone who has completed one career, and now refocused onto a second, art, career: right on!
I suggest you take a look at Stephen Covey’s concepts (7 Habits, etc), but especially his time management quadrants: Urgent, Not Urgent, Important, Less/Not Important. In worklife, many things that tie people’s time up are in the Not Urgent/Not Important quadrant. Which is what you’ve said in your blog.
Regards,
Mike
Thanks Jason for a timely post. Time management seems to me like exercising: really easy to slack off! Thanks for the push! I’m going to do a spreadsheet tonight. I have a millions things to do before Fall!
Also, I use “Things” as my task manager (I’m a Mac person). It can prioritize and hold projects but mostly is SO easy to use. I keep a copy on my phone too. I even use it for a grocery list…
Some suggestions for music too: The #1 Guitar Album – various composers and wonderful classical guitarists including many works performed by Andrés Segovia. It’s a nice intro if you haven’t been familiar with classical guitar works too. Rimsky-Korsakov: Sheherazade (there are many recordings, I currently like the Eugene Ormandy: Philadelphia Orchestra version) is fantastic too.
As a chronic list-maker, I am so excited to check out Todolist! Thanks Jason!
Paula
Thank you Jason!
Xochi Hughes Madera
Jason, I had to say that I just spent some time exploring Michael Hyatt’s website and there is so much wonderful information there. Thank you for sharing this great resource. You are a pretty great resource too!
Jason,
Thank you for the insightful blog posting. Any ideas on what to do with the very needy Golden Retriever in my home studio? Forget about cleaning the bathroom, the paw rules!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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