Sustainable Time Management Tips for Artists

As we’ve gotten to know our community and have asked them about the challenges, they face in the process of building their businesses or side hustles… there always seems to be a common struggle surrounding the topic of time management.

For all of us, it can often feel like there are thousands of things involved in building our brands, so much so that the trickiest part becomes knowing what to do in what order.

As professional artists who want to make a living with our work, we must balance creativity AND the marketing of our creations, the dedication to projects we’ve started AND the motivation to learn new skills that will make them profitable for the long haul. But how do we find the time to accomplish it all AND still enjoy our lives?

Are you feeling a little sweaty reading all that? Can you relate? We sure can!!

If the idea of learning to manage your time for your business better makes you equal parts excited and exhausted, you’re in the right place, friend. We made this week’s YouTube video and blog post just for you! We’re here to offer some advice to help you calm down, unclutter your brain, and reassess how you use your time so you can make real progress with your work!

Watch below to learn three simple, sustainable tips to help you manage your time better as an artist!

Tip #1 Convince yourself to work on something for 2 minutes

Sometimes the most difficult part of any project is getting started on it. We love the idea of committing to work on a task for just 2 MINUTES because the practice can jump-start progress and build momentum, using a very very attainable goal.

If you manage to work for 2 minutes on something and need to move on, that’s great! You made a step forward. But the odds are high that those 2 minutes will turn to 5, and then to 10, and before you know it, you’ll have pressed on and finished the whole dang project. It’s a sweet snowball effect! Give it a try! Your future self will be so proud.

Tip #2 Set a broad goal for yourself and work backward!

We love setting big goals in terms of distant deadlines or financial milestones because they allow us to work backward and break things into actionable steps in order to reach them. Try setting a big goal for a year from now or a significant financial goal, and then ask yourself, “what do I need to do each quarter, each week, each day to make it to that finish line.”

You’re going to beam with pride when you reflect on that original goal with the realization that you DID IT! You broke your big goals into smaller goals and crushed them.

Pro Tip: If you need extra accountability in setting these broader goals for yourself, try setting a public deadline (AKA, telling people in either your brand’s or your social community). The idea is that once you tell people you’re going to do something, you’ll have the social accountability in place to help you follow through!

Tip #3 Determine your Roles and Goals

This is a beautiful method of setting sustainable weekly goals in your life and work that Stephen Covey teaches in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His process essentially helps you define what matters the most in your life so that you can set balanced, attainable goals to honor your many roles as a human.

In our video above, we break down this sweet approach to goal setting in detail and have outlined a free downloadable worksheet to help you put the method into practice!!

You can get that free tool HERE.

Thank you for reading this post!

If you liked the video, keep in mind that we release a NEW YouTube video on our channel every FRIDAY.

If you have any questions (or requests for upcoming videos), just let us know in the comments!

Remember – we believe in you. You got this!