Making The Most Of Time
Being an arts professional is a difficult juggling act. Not only are you responsible for producing your work, but particularly in the early days it’s likely you will also be responsible for engaging with marketing activities, processing sales, dealing with enquiries, building relationships, managing your finances, planning for the future and so on.
Whilst they say variety is the spice of life, donning these multiple hats several times a day can be downright draining and take away from the joys of making.
So how can you best utilise the invaluable asset of time to further advance your artistic career whilst maintaining positive wellbeing? Here are my top five tips!
1. Observe and record how you currently use your time (and be honest)
In Cal Newport’s brilliant book ‘Deep Work’ he talks about once observing a CEO to record how he was using his time on a daily basis. One of the most striking findings was observing the number of times this individual checked his emails. In short, this person of power spent waaaay too much time on this menial task, checking his inbox again and again and again throughout the course of a single day. Sound familiar?
How many times a day do you check your emails ? How many times do you check your social media? How much time do spend on messaging apps? How much time do you spend procrastinating?
The first step in addressing any problem is defining the problem as specifically as possible. In the context of time management this comes down to discovering the true extent of how you currently use your time.
To find out, both myself and Wingman community contributor Liam Taylor suggest keeping a ‘Done List’, an ongoing list of tasks you have successfully completed in a day. Not only does this provide you with a daily dose of satisfaction, seeing in black and white what you have achieved, but if next to each completed item you also mark down how long you truly spent on the task then at the end of each day you can see where every minute has been spent. If the minutes don’t add up to the number of hours you have worked you then know the remainder is taken up with procrastination or tasks that don’t really amount to anything in the grand scheme of things.
Further to keeping a Done List, if you’re feeling brave why not also download an app that gives you a report on how you’re using your time on your phone or desktop? I bet you’ll be surprised how much time you spend checking in and out of these devices!
Whichever the method, the more honestly and accurately you can track and review how you’re currently spending your time, the more you can quickly identify the specific time management problems you are encountering and can therefore begin to create bespoke solutions.
A big part of this is in reflecting on whether you are investing time into the right tasks. In other words, it’s perfectly possible to become excellent and time-efficient at tasks that aren’t influential to your success. Key to this is having a clear, concise and well thought-through strategy, which I advise you construct before undertaking any other tasks. (Don’t forget, you can always book a free chat with me if you need any assistance constructing your strategy!)
2. Eliminate, Delegate, Automate
Keeping a daily Done List also gives you a strong advantage when it comes to practising the essence of Tim Ferris’ world-famous book ‘The 4 Hour Work Week’.
Now that you see in front of you what you’re spending your time on and how long you’re spending on completing these tasks, firstly ask yourself what you can eliminate. What can you remove that isn’t significantly influential to your success? For example, if you’re checking your emails 20 times a day, can you eliminate 18 of these checks? If you’re checking social media 30 times a day can you eliminate 29 of these visits? If you’re spending an hour a days going down a YouTube rabbit hole can you remove it all together and block yourself from using the platform during office/admin hours?
Once you have eliminated all unnecessary tasks, next ask yourself what you can delegate. For example, once you have reached the point where you have some working capital you could consider reinvesting a proportion of this into professional services, perhaps with a marketing professional or a virtual assistant. Or could you attract and engage a manager or an agent? Of course, such decisions need to make financial sense in that that they need to be an investment in the truest sense, but do you have anyone in your network who would be willing to help you with certain tasks, perhaps who you would even be open to offering a sales commission to if your working capital is currently low?
Finally, once you have delegated all tasks that can be assigned to new or existing contacts, can you automate any of what’s left? With new advances being made in software services, there are a host of options out there for using technology to automate certain admin, financial and marketing tasks. Have a look and see what’s out there to help you manage the menial tasks that you enjoy the least.
3. Batch, batch, baby!
With any luck, your task list will now be significantly shorter now you have identified how you’re currently using your time, have measured it up against your strategy and have applied the eliminate, delegate, automate process to the tasks left over.
However, I can guarantee that you will still be left with a list of essential tasks that need completing that can’t be eliminated, delegated or automated e.g. creating the artwork! (Although if you take Warhol and Hirst’s ‘factory’ approach or utilise AI painting software you could even perhaps delegate and automate this part too if you so wished!)
Batching is the most effective solution to tackling those essential tasks that need completing, that of grouping together similar tasks into dedicated blocks of time. For example, instead of spending time each day creating a social media post, story, blog post or other marketing content, could you dedicate an entire morning or day once a week or once a month to creating several pieces of content in one go? Instead of checking and replying to emails and social media messages several times a day, could you batch these tasks into one or two short timeslots dedicated to admin tasks each day (and if you’re feeling brave close your inbox and uninstall social apps in the meantime) ?
In the case of YouTube sensation Evan Carmichael, he revealed in a recent interview that he separates his week into different days in which he batches similar tasks together within the same day. For example, he dedicates an entire day each week shooting several YouTube videos in one day as opposed to shooting different videos across a week. He also dedicates Fridays to what he calls his ‘CEO day’, an entire day dedicated to big-picture thinking, creating new opportunities and building new relationships.
The same goes for creating artwork, where are the bigger blocks of time in your schedule that could enable you to be in the studio for a good run of hours free from all distractions? When could you be in the office to create a week or a month’s worth of marketing content in one go free from all distractions?
I often get the feeling that most of us believe that doing a million things at once is the hallmark of busyness, productivity, effort and endeavour, but not so in reality. Batch your most important tasks into dedicated blocks of time, each one specific to one core task, free from distraction, and observe how this improves your output and general wellbeing.
In conclusion, for each and every human being our greatest asset is time - it’s literally invaluable. Therefore, making the most of your time in a smart and strategic way is absolutely key to unlocking the right form of success for your artistic career, striving for the ideal work-life balance and creating positive wellbeing.
I hope the above tips will provide you a solid platform to begin the process, and don’t forget you can book a free chat with me to explore the possibilities specific to your artistic practice.
If you enjoyed this article you might also like my video ‘5 Tips For Keeping Focused’