Time management for artists

I received this e-mail:

I think a lot of us, especially if we are doing this full time, have difficulties in managing our time properly. Its difficult to organize a day when there are 20 things you'd like to paint, emails to respond too, late night deadlines that screw up the next days plans, people knocking on your door thinking that because you are a self employed artist and don;t punch a "normal" clock, you don't have any proper responsibilities and can drop anything you are doing because someone needs a favour. We have commissions to handle, money to manage, shows to submit to.

Some of us (me ) actually live in the studio so the line between what is work and rest gets blurred easily resulting in nothing really getting done. Some have rolodexes, some have schedules, "to do" lists that they make before they go to bed, big charts, or keep everything in their head.

What are some of your tips, and what have you learned to avoid throughout your career? Any pitfalls we should watch out for?
.........................a European friend

I am probably the last person to speak on time management. I get a lot done, but I am not orderly. My trick is that I work all the time. From when I get out of bed in the morning till I go to bed at night I am working. I have been doing that for almost 40 years. It works, at least in the long run. I sometimes am talking to a student in a workshop, or one of the people I mentor, and I realize that they think that any one day is going to make such a difference.

I have known many well organized daybook planner types who migrated into the art from the business world, and I haven't noticed they had any great advantage. The race is very long and won by those who get up and run every morning till the light fails. So the short answer is


IF YOU WANT TO BE AN ARTIST, HERE IS THE SECRET. GET UP EVERY DAY, AND DO IT ALL DAY.

I am not well organized, forget to write stuff down and would rather paint than do all of the the things that those creepy books written by career counselors recommend. But I guess I can come up with a few things.

• Find Earl Nightingale and study his material. Here is a link to a post I have written on that. I am not a devotee of self improvement literature. Earl is different.
• I often carry an index card in my left pocket with five things that I want to get done during the day. I check them off as I go.
• I avoid making appointments. I want to paint, not meet with people so I try to keep my schedule freed up. I will obsess about the damage to my work schedule caused by an hour long appointment sometime next week. If I have an appointment during an upcoming day, I look at that day as lost. I try to get as many things done after the light fails as I can, grocery shopping, laundry, family etc.
• I have no hobbies, I don't play or watch those sport things. I don't play video games or Farmville (whatever that is).
• I don't have a television. If you watch two hours of TV a day and wonder why you are not making it as an artist, you are kidding yourself about the size of what it takes to do this.
  
• I don't seek to earn money from other sources than my art. I don't own a rental unit nor do I buy stock, I am afraid it will divert my attention from my work, part of which is to make a living. If a dollar comes into this house it has to be from the art. I don't do jobs or employment.
• I have a a mental list of my contacts the people who are my dealers and fellow artist travelers. I call them routinely and check in. Speaking with my friends who are professional artists who are also at their easels helps. I have about a half dozen of those, and talking to them helps me build a model for my own efforts. We are working together, separately. Their lives are very like mine. We provide emotional support for one another. You need to have a network of people who you want to be like. I have that in spades, very important to me. These are successful painters, you would know their names. We become like the people we hang out with.
• I keep mental track of my time at the easel. Doing business things, talking on the phone, etc is all essential but it is not time spent on your art. You have to account for it separately.There is a lot of advice for artists out there on business management, most of it written by people from the business world who want to help us spaced out artists. I know a few artists who do all that stuff too. Often their work takes on the same quality though. It is real important to put your art first. ALWAYS THE ART COMES FIRST. Then worry about marketing it. Good art will sell. I don't mean to say that you don't have to do all of that phone calling a list keeping, but it is not as important as the art. I know a very successful artist who has no e-mail, no web site and no business card. He does do the phone a lot though.
• I use Google calender it is on G-mail. It notifies me before appointments and I can look in there and see what is coming up. Many computers are sold with calender and event programs and you probably have one.
• Once a month or sometimes more often, I call all of my dealers. I don't do it to ask if they have sold my work. I do it just to talk, I need to work with friends. If I can't be friends with a dealer usually things don't work out.

I will think about this some more and see what else I can come up with. I will do a post aimed at the serious amateur who has to have a life outside of the studio, which I don't.