Surprising Secrets Artists Use for Time Management

Do you constantly find yourself up against time? Afraid you’re wasting it? Never feeling like you have enough?

If time is your enemy, it’s time to change your relationship with it.

Time is a currency. And we are so lucky to be able to choose how we spend ours — yet instead of blessing it, we curse it. We’re insatiable, always damning the clock.

1. Stop saying “busy”

When I ran a large studio and art gallery, busy was my reply when people asked how I was — because I was. I made all of the sales, managed the personnel, paid the bills, answered the correspondence, oversaw production details, maintained client relations, wrote all of the marketing and PR, and traveled one week out of each month. Every day was a race. I worked into the night. I worked weekends. Until finally I imploded.

But I started to get tired of hearing myself say it. Every time I said busy, my teeth would set on edge. I loved what I was doing — just not how I was doing it. So for my New Year’s resolution, I took the word busy out of my vocabulary. I was not allowed to say it for the whole year. By doing this, I was forced to connect in a more authentic and truthful way. I had been using that word to keep people at arm’s length. In simply not using it anymore, I became less stressed out.

Stop using the word busy to describe yourself. We’re all busy. It’s not interesting. Use your other words. Make them more meaningful.

2. Ideas are your currency — don’t let them own you

The same way that bankers deal in money, creative people deal in ideas. We crave them and we hoard them. And when we feel stressed out, our connection with them shuts down. The work becomes — well — work. And nobody likes that.

But here’s the other trap: artists can be blinded by their own ideas. We sometimes have so many that we become their victims. Ideas live in our heads and whisper tantalizing new thoughts — singing siren songs that take us away from the tasks at hand. We feel we need to honor each idea as precious and brilliant. But in doing so, we become master of none.

The best way to solve the problem of too many ideas is to capture them. Carry a notebook with you wherever you go. Keep another next to your bed. Have a master list on your computer that you can update and consult. By capturing your ideas, you gain control over them. You prioritize them. You even start to leverage them — one idea supporting another. You’ll feel less stressed out, less guilty, and free to utilize the ideas that are relevant right now.

I am the boss of my own ideas.

3. Break the big idea into the next small step

Very big ideas can be very scary. They can feel overwhelming and unattainable. Self-defeating thoughts love very big ideas — it gives them a chance to sing their song of failure. Ignore them. You are the boss of your ideas.

The best way to deal with a big idea that won’t let go is to make it a goal. Then list out every single step — no matter how small, no matter how scary — everything necessary to achieve that goal. Start by identifying all of the steps and put them in an order. Then begin at the top. All you have to focus on is what is right in front of you.

If something comes up that you hate to do but know you have to — here’s my trick: set the timer on your phone. One hour, two hours, whatever. Do what you can during that time and come back and do the same thing the next day until it gets done.

It’s not the goals that we seek — but the experience of attaining these goals that we’re really after. The experience of realizing our goals is what shapes us into the people we want to become. So managing time is really about owning who you are.

Start small and you’ll do great things. Start now.

This is a call to arms. The world is changing — don’t you feel it?

Are you just going to sit by and watch?

Or are you going to take the jump?

___________________________________________________________________________