Are you frustrated because you see weeks, months, or even years fly by you without finding time to do what your true passion is, being an artist? Do you feel that creating and selling art is only a dream that will never become a reality? I know how you feel because I have been in your shoes. In this post, you will discover 5 effective time management for artist tips that will help you to achieve your creative goals.
Even though I have been self-employed for over 20 years, I worked a full-time and part-time job for many years before I considered becoming a creative entrepreneur.
During those years, my goals were to make a career out of music and art.
The only way I was able to work over 65 hours a week and find time to enhance my music and artistic skills were to learn how to be more productive with my time.
It did not come easy at first, but in time, I was able to get everything I need to accomplish promptly, and you can do the same.
It does not matter if you want to make a career selling your art or earn some extra spending money, learning time management strategies is essential.
The 5 time management for artist tips I am covering today comes from my eBook Get More Done in Less Time The Part-time Artist.
These are a few of the strategies I used to change my life and enabled me to live my dreams.
Original Pasted Painting by Dave Nevue
Time Management For Artist – Know Your Objectives
Becoming productive with your time stars with having a clear vision of your priorities and knowing how you spend your time.
We all have 24 hours in the day, and we all have a choice on how we manage those 24 hours.
Before you can start to manage your days, you need to know what you have to get done and how long it takes you to complete each task.
I can almost guarantee that you can find an extra ten or fifteen hours a week that you can devote to your art business.
What are your priorities
Setting aside time every week for creating and marketing your art will be one of your priorities if your goal is to sell your artwork.
You will also have other priorities to consider, such as making enough money to pay the bills, spending quality time with the family, children’s activities, and so on.
Everyone will have different responsibilities that will have to be taking into consideration.
Make a list of all your responsibilities and prioritize them.
The most important should be on top of the list, and the least important should be on the bottom of the list.
For example, a list might look like:
• Work
• Getting the children ready for school
• Preparing meals
• Helping children with homework or after-school activities
• Paying the bills
• Grocery shopping
• Household chores
• Watching television
• Having a glass of wine
• Reading a book
Make a List of Your Daily Activities
The next step is to write down your daily activities and prioritize them.
For example, block off Monday through Friday from 9-5 if that is your work schedule.
Take into consideration travel time and how long it takes you to get ready for work.
If you have children, block off the times that are dedicated to them.
Block off the time it takes to prepare meals and grocery shopping.
Account for every bit of time that you have from when you wake up until you go to bed.
This exercise is to have a clear vision of how much time you can devote to your art career.
Action Step
Take the time now before you move on to the next section to write down all your responsibilities.
Write how long it takes to complete each task.
Be accurate, and do not overlook anything.
It is better to overestimate the time than it is to underestimate the amount of time it takes to complete each project.
For example, it might only take you 45 minutes to grocery shop.
But how long does it take to get to the store and back home?
How long does it take to put the groceries away?
This is the additional time that needs to be accounted for.
If you want to be successful in selling your art, you need to have a plan, and you cannot develop a plan if you do not know when you can take action.
Block Off Time on The Calendar
The next step is to write out your weekly schedule.
Find an hour or two you can devote to your art business each day.
The time can be split into different segments.
For example, you might be able to spend an hour in the morning before you go to work and an hour at night after the children go to bed.
Your schedule might allow you to work for 5 hours on the weekend and an hour a day during the week.
Everyone will have a different schedule, and that is ok.
What is important is that you know exactly when you will be scheduled to work on your art business.
Now that you have a work schedule, you will be able to develop a plan that will show you tangible results.
Time Management For Artist – Plan Everything
There is a phrase that I live by, “What gets planned gets done.”
This statement is true in everyday life.
If you want to call your mother, you must plan for it.
If you want to eat healthily, you must plan for it.
If you want to go to the movies, you must plan for it.
I learned over the past fifteen plus years of selling art online. I must set goals and develop a plan.
Failing to do so will only slow down the growth of my business.
Set Goals
Before you can plan, you must know what you are shooting for.
Setting goals is a simple strategy that is often overlooked.
People who are successful set goals for everything they have achieved in life.
If you want to lose ten pounds, you must set a goal of losing ten pounds.
If you want to sell five pieces of art every month, you must set a goal to sell five pieces of art every month.
Once you know what you want to achieve, you can start to develop a plan that will have you achieve your vision.
Setting goals are challenging for most people, and if you do not know how to write realistic, achievable goals, you will come up short and become frustrated.
Here are some tools to help you write goals you can achieve:
These workbooks, planners, and video courses will help you to create a solid foundation for your art business.
Time Management For Artist – To-do List
Now that you have your goals documented, you are ready to write out your daily to-do lists.
This step will either make you go to bed happy or go to bed, frustrated.
If you know what your priorities are, you will be able to make an extensive to-do list for each day.
You will be able to account for every minute, including downtime.
Documenting an extensive to-do list will help you to stay focused on your daily priorities.
Do not rely on your memory, that never works.
Once you document your tasks, you are freeing your mind from preventable stress.
Grab the To-Do List Printable and get started today.
Action Step:
Take a piece of paper or open your favorite to-do list app and start filling every hour of the day.
Start from when you wake up until you go to bed.
Even schedule in your sleep time.
Your list should have everything you will be doing for each hour you are awake.
Drinking coffee, eating lunch, washing dishes, cooking, working, watching television, creating art, social media marketing, blogging, it doesn’t matter what you will be doing. Just write it down.
During the day, review your to-do list every hour.
Over time writing and reviewing your to-do list will become a part of your daily routine.
From that point on, you will be accountable for every minute of your day.
You will soon find that you will accomplish more, and you will have more downtime to relax at the end of the day.
Time Management For Artist – Social Media Tips
One way you can be more productive with your time is to work smarter and use tools that are available to help you get the job done quicker.
Building brand awareness is the key to becoming successful in selling your artwork online.
One way you can build brand awareness and connect with your following is by promoting your art on social media platforms.
Some of the top social media sites are:
There are many more networks to choose from, but these are the top four you should be starting with.
How to Prevent Social Media Time Killers
You know as well as I do that every task takes time.
If I tell you that you have to create art, take images of your artwork, write an art description, upload your art to your artist website, write a blog post about the art you are showcasing, send a newsletter, post on social media, answer emails and so on in order for you to sell your art online, you would be shaking your head asking yourself, “How can I do this all?”
Enhancing your time management for artist skills will help you to accomplish everything on your to-do list.
It takes a lot of work to sell art online, and if you do not find ways to manage your time more efficiently and focus on the strategies that produce real results, you will be spinning your wheels making no money.
Social media is a great way to build brand awareness, but it can quickly become a time killer if you are not careful.
You could easily find yourself wasting precious time on social media and receive nothing in return.
What I mean by that is you will be receiving likes, comments, and shares, but you will not be landing any sales. You will be working for free.
The easiest way to save time on social media is by not going on it.
Yes, you will have to interact with your audience as well as a post on a regular schedule, but you do not have to be on each platform for hours at a time.
Scheduling Social Media Posts
Lucky for us, there are tools available that allow us to schedule posts on most social media platforms.
You will have the option to schedule posts for the day, for a couple of days or even a week in advance.
Batching your social media posts for a day or week in advance will save you a tremendous amount of time.
Just think about how much time you will be saving by not visiting every social media site several times a day to upload a post.
Not only will you save time by not visiting on to your accounts several times a day, but it will also prevent you from becoming distracted and waste time scrolling down your news feed.
Like I have said earlier, there are many tools available, and each tool will have something different to offer.
I want to share with you my two favorites, social media management tools.
For scheduling posts for Facebook and Twitter, I use Buffer.
Buffer is an excellent tool if you create content and curate content for your audience.
This tool allows me to spread out my social media posts as well as share content that I have found that I think would be valuable for my audience.
Tailwind is another goldmine I have found. This allows me to publish pins throughout the day on Pinterest.
Tailwind is like Buffer in that it allows you to pin your content or repin other content you would like to pin to your Pinterest boards.
Between the two of these tools, I would say that I save between eight and ten hours a week posting on social media.
More Social Share Tools
I use and recommend using Buffer and Tailwind, but I also would like to share with you some other popular tools artists and bloggers are using to save time on social media.
Look at each and decide what will be the best fit for your goals and business objectives.
• HootSuite
• Hubspot
• TweetDeck
• MeetEdgar
• IFTTT
• Sprout Social
• EveryPost
Action Step
Take a few moments right now to decide on what will be the best tool for your art business so you can start to save time scheduling social media posts.
I do recommend you start with Buffer and Tailwind. I think they will have everything you will be looking for.
Time Management For Artist – 4-Week Calendar View
There is a saying that if you write something down on your calendar, it will get done.
Spending thirty minutes at the beginning of each month to assess the outcome of the prior month’s marketing efforts and writing new objectives for the current month will not only help you to build your art business faster, but it will also help you to be more productive with your time.
How many times have you sat wondering what you should be doing next?
How many times have you said to yourself, “I can’t believe I forgot to do that.” at the end of the night?
A 4-week calendar will help you to stay on track, stay focused, and help you to write more efficient marketing strategies in the future.
Yearly Goals
At this point, I hope that you have already written your goals for the year.
Every strategy and plan you put into action should be based on your goals.
The goals you write for the year should be broken down into monthly goals.
This strategy will allow you to see what plans are effective and what strategies are not producing positive results.
Knowledge is power.
By having a clear picture of what you are doing as well as the results of your actions will help you to build an art business more abundant than you could have ever imagined.
If you struggle with writing goals, don’t worry, you are not alone.
Here are some tools to help you write goals you can achieve:
- How to Write Goals You Can Achieve Workbook
- Annual Art Business Review WorkBook
- Art Goal Planners
- How to Write Goals Online Video Course
4-Week Calendar View Strategy
Now that you have your goals written down, it is time to write out your 4-week calendar.
This calendar should be separate from your personal life. This calendar is only for your business.
There are several different types of calendars you can use for this project.
You can use a desk calendar, whiteboard, pocket calendar, Gmail calendar, or even a wall calendar.
It does not matter what you use as long as it is somewhere you can see daily.
There is no reason to spend time writing a schedule if you are not going to be looking at it.
Now that you have the tools you will be using, take a few minutes to review your goals.
Develop a strategy that will complement your goals and start writing down on your calendar your action steps.
The tasks should include social media marketing, content marketing, video marketing, newsletters, and so on.
Be as specific as you can for each task.
Instead of writing, upload two Facebook posts on the calendar, write:
• Facebook post #1, showcase artwork at 9:30 AM
• Facebook post #2 promote new blog post at 9:00 PM
The more specific you can be, the better.
You will notice that writing out your monthly plans will become easier in time.
Look at Your Calendar
This might sound obvious, but I feel that it is essential to say.
Look at your calendar every morning when you wake up.
This will get you mentally prepared for what you should get done for that day.
Once you have an idea of what you will be doing, you can get the jobs done quicker.
You should also make a habit of looking at your calendar at the end of each night.
Doing so will give you a sense of pride in accomplishing all your tasks, and if you could not complete a job, you will know what tomorrow will bring you.
Action Step
The first step is to write out your goals.
The second step is to decide on what tool you will be using for your calendar and purchase it.
The last step is going to be writing out your daily to-do list on the calendar.
If you want to be more efficient with your time and have your business grow quickly, start using a 4-week calendar view.
Time Management For Artist – Three-Item To-Do List
Planning and documenting your objectives is a sure way for you to accomplish all of the tasks you set out to complete.
Your goals and 4-week calendar view are just the first steps.
If you want to get things done, you will want to create a daily to-do list.
Have you tried a daily to-do list before?
How did it work for you?
Did you become frustrated or stop using it after a couple of days?
If your to-do list discouraged you, you are not alone.
Most people do not know how to write an achievable to-do list and become frustrated very quickly. Their frustration leads them back to their old habits.
Create a Daily Habit
Before I talk about how to write a list you can achieve, I would like to take a minute to talk about the importance of creating a habit.
Everything you do daily has been created by doing the same routine over and over until it became a habit.
You take a shower at the same time because you have created a habit.
You brush your teeth around the same time because you have created a habit.
Your morning routine is similar because you have created a habit.
You scroll down your Facebook newsfeed several times throughout the day because you have created a habit.
Repetitive actions create habits.
You want your daily to-do list to be a part of your daily routine. This can be done by writing your to-do list every day for at least 21 days in a row.
Three-Item To-Do List
Let’s talk about how you can create a list that you can achieve and feel good about.
I am hoping that at this point, you have your yearly goals documented, and you have started your 4-week calendar view.
Every day write down 3 of the most important things you would like to achieve for that day.
Only write down three. You will be setting yourself up to fail if you write more than you can accomplish.
Most people stop writing lists because they become frustrated that they cannot complete the list. The reason they cannot complete the lists is that they write unrealistic to-do lists.
Be realistic about how long each task will take and how much time you can devote to the jobs.
Become Aware of Your Time
The last thing I would like to mention is to become aware of how much time you have during the day to work on your art business.
Do not write a list that will take you four hours to complete if you can only devote an hour to your art business for that day.
Write down tasks that fit into your schedule.
Being productive is all about becoming aware of your time and surroundings.
Action Step
Take out your goals a 4-week calendar view and start writing your daily to-do list.
If you do not have your goals or calendar documented, take the time to do it now.
For one month, write down on a calendar every day that you had a to-do list and document if you completed the tasks or if you didn’t have enough time to finish them.
If you could complete all the tasks, you did an excellent job planning.
If you were not able to complete the tasks, think about what prevented you from crossing off the last job, and make some adjustments for the next day.
After a month, you should become an expert at writing your daily to-do lists, and you will find that you are achieving more than you could have ever thought possible.
Conclusion: I am not going to lie and tell you that it is easy to operate a business. It is a lot of hard work. But with the Time Management For Artist Tips outlined above, you will soon realize that there is plenty of time during the day to accomplish particular tasks that will help you to achieve your objectives.
If you liked these tips, be sure to grab a copy of the Get More Done in Less Time The Part-time Artist eBook.
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