Creating an ideal artist schedule for any creative person can be a challenge. There are a lot of techniques you can use to ensure you are productive while still having a personal life.
As a working artist, you’re going to find that it’s often going to be 50% admin time and 50% creating art.
How Do I Make An Artist's Schedule?
As an artist who wants to earn an income with what you make, It’s extremely helpful to create an ideal artist schedule for yourself. Make sure it's realistic, flexible, balanced, and productive. Most importantly, make sure you can sustain it.
Take your habits into account and consider what would be the best way for them to fit into a recurring flow of work.
Look at how many hours of sleep you need as well as how much time it takes for inspiration to strike.
And, observe when your mind works best.
You can also estimate how much time each project or task will need to complete it in its entirety. Then track how long that task took to see if your guess was accurate. Once you have a ballpark, then divide that number by the number of days per week you want to work. This is great for those activities that you need to do on a regular basis.
For example, if posting on social media takes you five hours to do a week’s worth of posts, you could schedule one hour per day to work on it. Or you could schedule working on those posts for the first two days of the week for 2.5 hours each. This approach is called batching.
What if when you finished that next project you felt giddy? What would that look like? Here are my Tips to Complete Your Next Art Project.
How Do Artists Organize Their Time?
As a working artist, it’s important to have a routine or a set of habits that support you. A schedule is a framework that you can use to organize your time and it holds those routine habits and stretches of time you need to get work done. The key is to make sure that you pick tasks and activities based on what matters most to you. What actions will move the needle forward and get you results?
If you don’t know where to start, try breaking down your day into small tasks to help. And, before leaving at the end of the day, can you make notes of where you want to pick up tomorrow so you won’t lose your flow?
Plan out the time you'll take on each task and ensure it fits into your schedule without having tasks overlapping. This is the final step in creating your ideal artist schedule.
It helps to use calendars or a planner for this process so you can see what you want to get done each day. It makes it really clear to see that if you have 10 activities you need to get done, and each one takes one hour to complete, you’ll either be working a 10-hour day or you’ll need to schedule some of those tasks for the following day.
Keeping a short, handwritten list handy can also keep you on track. This is because the mere act of writing it down makes it more likely you’ll get those things done. Yep, studies have proven this. Having all of your planned actions in one spot helps when setting priorities, especially when things get busy and you have to shift priorities.
This gives you more freedom to focus on what matters the most while still keeping track of your goals over time.
Balance Your Life
In order to prioritize your art and career, you'll also need to make time for other aspects of your life. This can be difficult if you're used to spending all day at the studio but it's important for both your art and sanity. Here are a few things I do that may help you:
I make sure my family knows that they're a priority, even if it means missing an Instagram post or two. I also don’t take work calls during dinner or on the weekend, and usually turn off my phone.
I schedule regular visits with friends who don't know much about art. This way we can enjoy each other's company without talking shop.
It's easy for artists who work from home or on their own schedule to forget how much time they spend alone. Make sure you take breaks where necessary. If possible, try setting aside one day per week as "me time". Use it as an opportunity to learn something new or take yourself out on a solo date to the coffee shop.
What’s Most Important To You?
An ideal artist schedule should take into account the things that are most important to you. You need to make sure that all aspects of your life are taken into consideration. If something isn’t on this list of priorities, then it’s probably not helping your career or making you a better artist.
You’ve just spent your time reading this article (congrats if you’ve made it this far!). So, leave a comment and let me know, what can you include in your own ideal artist schedule to elevate your art practice?