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Balancing Personal and Professional Work

6/12/2015

As a follow-up to my time management blog, I wanted to expand on how I balance professional and personal art in my own life. Right now I work mostly from home. I still get large freelance assignments so finding a balance was big for me.

1.) Set clear boundaries for when you do and don't work on professional assignments. (If you can).

I'm lucky enough where I don't have massive amounts of work so I can set my schedule and stick to it. I work on my freelance work during the week only until 5pm, and then on weekends and after 5pm I work on my personal work. It's important for me not to blur those lines, or I can get burnt out really fast, especially because working from home there is no leaving the work place at the end of the day. My schedule helps me feel more motivated to do job work too.

2.) Detach yourself from the internet.

Sometimes at the end of a long day of working for someone else, the last thing you want to do is more art. If you really want to get your own work done, try turning off the internet, turning off the TV and putting on noise cancelling headphones to get in the zone. Music helps to keep me inspired to continue working.

3.) Consider having 1 or 2 larger personal projects, instead of many small ones.

Last summer, I was just making one picture at a time. But I found that it was hard to get motivated after finishing each one, and hard to come up with new ideas every time that I liked. What I'm doing right now is a large design project. I read this book called "Revolution", about a modern day girl who reads a diary about a girl from the French Revolution. In order to give a focus to my portfolio and skill building, I decided to design all (or most) of the environments and characters described in the books. I spent a lot of time researching reference pictures, going to the library, and combing through the book to write down all of the author's descriptions for what I wanted to draw. I've found that since it's something I enjoy, and it gives me a large amount of small goals to reach, it's easier to get motivated to work on it. This way if I have a really busy week, I can just color a character sheet, or sketch an 18th century hat. I'm still working and contributing to an ultimate goal, but I don't have to spend all that creative energy trying to come up with a project every time. So finding something that gives a focus to your personal work, may make it easier to set aside time.

One of my paintings from my personal project.

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How to Learn Good Time Management (You too can have time for petting goats!)

6/1/2015

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Time Management is a tricky beast. While it can appear to be something you are “just good at” or “just bad at”, ultimately it is a skill that takes time to learn and develop. You need time to learn how to handle time.

Here I am petting a goat with all my extra time!

Why time management is important in the art industry.

Let’s say you get offered a job. If you can manage your time well, then you are responsible. If you are responsible, you will get your work done well and on time. If you do your work well, you will get hired for more work. If you get hired for more work, you get a promotion. If you get a promotion, you can retire and live off of a diet of liquid doughnuts (every artist’s dream). However if you are bad at managing time, at the same job suddenly you turn in work you aren’t proud of, you miss deadlines. You get a write-up. You lose your job. The next job that comes along you repeat the same pattern. Suddenly people know your habits and won’t hire you again. You must retire with no liquid doughnuts. I’ve gotten a few assignments at my job because other people failed to turn them in on time, and I got called to do it because my art director knew I was reliable.

Why school teaches you bad habits

There is a weird culture in art school where it’s “cool” to wait until the last minute to do your entire thesis project, staying up 5 nights in a row, guzzling energy drinks, just to slide in at the last minute with a less than stellar, and less than complete final grade. You get a passing grade anyway and still graduate. This is extremely unrealistic for post-grad life success though. If you do that for an employer you will be fired. So don’t post on facebook about how little sleep you’ve gotten and brag about how you’ve gotten nothing done until now. If an employer sees that, they won’t hire you. Or more likely, your classmates will see that and brand you as irresponsible, and not suggest you for a future job.

I’m bad at Time Management, what does this mean for me?

Well, it means 1 of 2 things. 1.) Art isn’t the right career for you. The reason you don’t spend time on it is because you don’t really want it, but you haven’t admitted it to yourself yet. Or, 2.) You need to learn good time management! Here’s some ways you can start:

Tricks for good Time Management.

1.) Figure out a realistic schedule and stick to it. You can make a schedule day by day, week by week or even break it down into hours, find out what works for you.

2.) Take breaks. Part of what makes good time management so hard is that people bite off more than they can chew and don’t allow any time to rest. Because of this, they were doomed to fail from the start. Allow time for small breaks at regular intervals where you won’t feel overworked or unmotivated, and don’t feel guilty about taking your breaks.

3.) Listen to your creative energy. If you find yourself getting burnt out on a project, take a few minutes to step away and get your creative juices flowing in a different way. Whether you sketch from life, doodle from imagination, write or sculpt something, it'll make going back to work that much more fresh.

4.) Take care of yourself! Make sure to get enough sleep every night. Try to get to bed and get up at the same time every day. Get enough food to eat and don’t go hungry while you work. When you feel the best, you’ll work the best.

5.) Eliminate distractions. Try to work in a quiet area, log out of facebook, put your phone on silent and turn off Netflix. The more brain power you give to your work, the better. This also gives you a great opportunity to reward your hard work with a quick facebook break, or a couple texts.

6.) Learn how to work faster. Part of time management is just being able to work at a speed where you have more time to do things, whether it’s just a safety buffer of time at the end of assignment, or time to take a walk and de-stress.

7.) Break down work into many small goals. I spend a lot of time staring blankly at my drawing, not knowing what to do next. I try to minimize the time my pencil is lifted from the page by breaking down my work into super simple goals. For example, if I am drawing a scene of a forest, I will first draw all the trees, then all the leaves, then all the bushes, then all the flowers, the rocks, etc, etc until the picture is complete. It sounds basic, but it frees up my mind to just keep moving as I work instead of constantly battling with what to do next.

Good time management is not something you will learn overnight. If you don’t get it right away, that’s okay. Breaking anything down into small achievable goals makes everything easier. If you always turn assignments in late, make a goal to turn every one in 30 minutes early, then go up from there. It can happen! As always, email me with any questions or if you are interested in other time management tips. Thanks for reading!

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Balancing Personal and Professional Work

1.) Set clear boundaries for when you do and don't work on professional assignments. (If you can).

2.) Detach yourself from the internet.

3.) Consider having 1 or 2 larger personal projects, instead of many small ones.

How to Learn Good Time Management (You too can have time for petting goats!)

Why time management is important in the art industry.

Why school teaches you bad habits

I’m bad at Time Management, what does this mean for me?

Tricks for good Time Management.

Meghan Boehman Art

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