Would you like to increase your hourly rate as an artist?
I think everyone can honestly say they would like to earn more money.
How can you earn more money from your art skills?
Measuring productivity is a great tool to increase your time management skills and also increase the value of your time.
If it takes you less time to accomplish a project you are increasing the amount of money you are making per hour.
Measuring Productivity – Increase The Value Of Your Time
I am excited to say that my ebook The Productive Artist – How to Live Your Dreams, has reached over 50,000 downloads. I wanted to share with you this section from The Productive Artist – How to Live Your Dreams, because I feel that measuring productivity is so important, and often not discussed.
I hope that you enjoy it.
Measuring Productivity
There is a way that businesses build productivity. There is a variety of variables that affect the outcome the companies can determine how long specific tasks should take.
For a company to determine how long a job should take, it would first need to describe the job. When the boundaries have been documented they study a group of individuals and time how long it takes each individual to complete the job.
After the study is completed the company would combine all of the individual’s times and find the average time that it would take a job to be completed.
This information is valuable for the company because they will have a good understanding of the costs associated with finishing a job.
However, the numbers that are generated are not one hundred percent accurate. Everyone works at different speeds and because we are all human, there are many variables that will affect our day to day productivity.
Even though the numbers are not one hundred percent accurate, it is still a good tool for a company to see if an individual is performing above expectations, or if someone is working under expectations.
How can this information help you and your productivity?
When you start to understand how long a job should take for you to complete you will know what the best time would be for you to do the job. You will also know if you are ahead of schedule or behind schedule. If you are behind schedule, there might be some common factors that are affecting your performance. Maybe you are being easily distracted by social media, personal phone calls or answering emails that could have waited. If this is the case, you will want to figure out a way to fix the problem. If you can get the day’s work done in four hours, you do not want to be working ten hours because you are being distracted.
When I schedule jobs throughout the day, I have a good idea of how long each job should take. This keeps me focused and motivated to accomplish the job in a timely manner. Work is work, but if I can increase the value of my time, I am increasing the value of my art business.
Repetition creates efficiency. The more you do something, the quicker and more efficient you will become. The more efficient you become the more time that you will have to market your business. The more time that you have on promoting and marketing the quicker you will be building your brand awareness. The more people who know what you create, the better your chance of selling your work becomes.
When you are working for yourself, your goal is to increase the value of your time. You want to work less and make more.
Action Step:
Write down your jobs for the day.
Make an effort to time how long that it takes for you to complete each job. Document the times that it took for you to complete each job. This document will be your productivity log. Your productivity log will increase the value of your time and help you build your business faster.
At the end of the week review your productivity log and schedule your jobs with the allowed time. The allowed time is the time that it took you to complete each job.
During the next week, log down the time that it took for you to complete each job. Did you complete the job quicker or did it take you longer to complete the job? If the job took you longer to complete write down the reasons why. Did you find yourself distracted on social media sites? Were you being distracted by people at home? Were you answering personal phone calls?
Logging down the time that it took for you to complete a project and the reasons why you might not be on track will greatly increase your productivity over time.
You will want to do this for the next eight weeks. After eight weeks you will start to notice that you are becoming very productive with your time. When it is time to get something done, you will get it done.
By having a schedule for your week you will become more productive with your time and you will be able to focus on what is important, building your business. You will make the most of your time and prevent yourself from working around the clock because you are wasting time being unproductive.
I hope this section from The Productive Artist – How to Live Your Dreams, helps you to be more productive with your time.
Productivity Defenition
Measured productivity is the ratio of a measure of total outputs to a measure of inputs used in the production of goods and services. Productivity growth is estimated by subtracting the growth in inputs from the growth in output — it is the residual. There are a number of ways to measure productivity. (Source: pc.gov.au)
Measuring productivity is a strategy most large businesses study to help them increase their profit line.
But this strategy does not have to be only for large businesses.
You can benefit from it as well.
Wouldn’t it be nice to only have to work four hours a day instead of eight or ten hours a day?
Learning how to be more productive by measuring productivity will help you to create more art, market your art more efficient and increase your art sales.
Popular Art Marketing And Sales Tutorials
Below are some of the most famous art marketing courses that will grow your online art business:
Most Popular – How to Make a Living Selling What You Make by Megan Auman
Most Popular – Build a Successful Creative Blog by April Bowles-Olin
How to Build a Business While Learning Your Craft by Megan Auman
Pinterest Marketing for Makers & Designers by Megan Auman
Disclaimer: This post may contain affiliate links. If you make a purchase by clicking on an affiliate link, Nevue Fine Art Marketing may earn an affiliate commission at no additional cost to you. Affiliate relationships include, but are not limited to, Bluehost, Tailwind, Skimlinks, SareASale and StudioPress. To learn more visit Affiliate Link Disclosure Policy
28 Day Blogging Challenge for Visual Artists
Are you ready to start building an online presence?
Available on Amazon or Download your copy today.
The Productive Artist How to Live Your Dreams
The right mindset and time management skills are essential for any business. These topics are often not talked about but are critical elements for your success. You will learn how to have a winning mindset and time management skills necessary for operating a successful art business.
Available at Amazon or Download your copy today.
Get More Done in Less Time The Part-time Artist
Proven strategies that will help you to get more work done in less time so you can sell more art and earn more money.
Available at Amazon or Download your copy today.
Did you enjoy this article? Don’t forget to sign up for my free weekly newsletter.
You can also join me on:
Learn how to start, grow, and monetize your online art business.
Art Business eBooks
Art Business Workbooks
Art Business Planners