Time Management for Artists: Challenges and Skills Needed

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What is time management exactly? It is technically the process of strategically planning and controlling how you allocate your hours, ensuring that each moment is utilised to its fullest potential.

Time management for artists (or artist time management) could be a challenging task for some. Moreover, this phrase sounds corporate in the creative world, where creatives would associate it with something restrictive and rigid.

Even though there are a lot of books dedicated to time management, guides tailored specifically to artists' time management is not that easy to find. This also includes creative projects.

So, how can you work on time management as an artist who prefers flexibility over structure?

Table of Contents

Why is Time Management Important?

5 Challenges of Time Management for Artists

7 Skills Needed for Artists to Manage Time Better

Key Takeaways

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Author Bio

Why is Time Management Skill Important?

Time management has a big impact on the quality and cost of a project, ensures timely completion and reduces wastage. Plus, it can also save artists from a lot of potential headaches. Having a secure timeline and adhering to it with discipline significantly reduces stress and anxiety, positively impacting the quality of your final artwork.

5 Challenges of Managing Time for Artists

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The challenges that creatives face are not something like struggling to perceive time or other internal struggles that could affect their performance. Other factors could cause them to have difficulties with time management.

1. Creative Blocks

Creative blocks are an internal struggle that is hard to control. It can come at random, making it unpredictable. What artists can do is try to find inspiration from different sources of creative media to break that block. Bouncing ideas back and forth with your teammate or friend is, surprisingly, helpful too.

2. Perfectionism

A struggle for most artists, where they end up being stuck on an art project more than necessary, is to over-polish their craft. Hence, it affects their schedule.

While perfectionism takes time to overcome, as it might be a deeply ingrained habit for most creatives, pushing yourself to work in a specific time block could help stop you from working on a specific project for too long.

3. Overcommitting

This is when artists take on more projects than they can actually handle while overestimating the work they need to complete them. First of all, take a step back to estimate how long your projects will take. This is one of the steps to assess your capacity and understand your availability.

Secondly, learn how to say 'No'. Choose to prioritise tasks that matter and impact your team project's timeline. And if the request is optional, you don't have to accept it if it doesn't bring value to your personal growth.

4. Unclear Project Breakdowns

Without a detailed breakdown, there may be confusion during the process, which could result in underestimating or overestimating the time and effort required.

Taking the time to list the specific tasks involved in a project can help you better understand your capacity and capabilities. Additionally, this checklist can provide a sense of satisfaction as you check off each item marked 'Done'.

5. Last-Minute Feedback from Clients

A constant cycle of last-minute feedback can lead to burnout as artists are pressured to edit their work under tight deadlines. If this situation continues, it can result in demotivation and a decline in well-being, leaving little room for genuine creativity.

While it's not something you can fully control, setting clear expectations for when you should receive feedback is a good starting point, followed by proactively seeking input from those who can help advance the process.

7 Skills Needed for Artists to Manage Time Better

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Skill #1: Organisation

Staying organised could include physical factors, like a clean desk. Or digital factors, like having one place where all your work and tasks are noted down and stored. It’s undoubtedly more difficult to accurately predict how long a piece of art will take to complete in comparison to something more straightforward, like sending emails. Moreover, it’s even more cumbersome if your thoughts and notes are a mess.

Here are a couple of practices we can start doing today to organise better:

1. Tidy up your physical working space: Declutter and reorganise your workspace art supplies. This will reduce distractions and open up space for your work to invite more creative energy, helping you focus better.

2. Consider tidying up your digital spaces: Use a project management tool to help you with organising. For example, TESSR is a tool designed for artists and animators alike, where you can upload all your work in a specific hierarchy designed for creative studios.*

For optimal organisation, TESSR can help you arrange your tasks through the built-in order. If needed, you have the option to create “Playlists” to customise your scenes or select recommended ones.

Skill #2: Prioritisation

Once you’ve organised your workplace and your tasks, it’s time to move to prioritisation. There are many ways to do so, and it should be done based on your preference. One of the ways is using project management tools like TESSR, which has a feature to colour-code tasks to help sort your priorities.

Task prioritisation helps you properly plan a timeline and have a clearer overview of your work. If you look at all tasks with equal importance, you’ll potentially overwhelm yourself and feel burnt out—thus delaying the whole process.

There are different methods of prioritisation that you can research and then choose what is best based on your personal preference, such as Getting Things Done (GTD) or the Pareto Principle. However, the foundation of this prioritisation exercise tends to come down to two (2) things:

1. Importance: Weigh the importance of certain tasks. Smaller, less critical tasks can be put aside. Save your time and energy for what matters most in the present moment.  

2. Deadline or Target Time: Set up deadlines for all tasks on your plate to have successful project management. Creative project management tools could help you lay this out in an organised manner. 

Skill #3: Goal Setting

To aim for the overall project success, set milestones for yourself to track your progress and performance. It mitigates the risk of going off track or at least helps you realise it in time. Make sure your goals are specific and relevant to your project.

Within the context of time management for creative people, goal setting can help you establish both short-term and long-term goals—clarity can help you gain a better sense of purpose and minimise distractions.

These two are key factors of creative time management, and p.s., this helps with staying motivated too.

How do I start goal-setting?

1. Take time to reconsider your creative goals. Reconnect with your inner artistic intentions and break them down into smaller, achievable, and actionable goals.

2. Project management software can aid in this area, especially when it can visualise your progress and how close you are to your goals.

TESSR app’s feature, “Woohoo”, allows the progress of a project to be tracked through a doughnut chart. Therefore, you’re able to set measurable goals with this data.

Skill #4: Focus and Flow

To further improve your time management skills, utilise the natural flow of your creative work. We are all familiar with the term ‘getting in the zone’ or ‘locked in’. When you can achieve this focus, you improve your performance, leading to better time management.

How does one achieve a natural focus and flow?

1. When you’re about to start your work, minimise the chances of getting distracted. It is tempting to just peek at your phone and check your social media for just a minute, but doing this will break your flow. Instead of looking at your phone during your break, consider embracing the boredom and letting your mind wander.

2. If you need something a bit more structured or to assist you in staying focused, schedule deep work with time blocking or utilise the Pomodoro technique. By having a set time block for deep work, you would be less likely to let yourself get distracted.

Skill #5: Adaptability

Typically, time management can be hard to set with the unpredictable nature of artistic projects, but with a bit of adaptability in your belt of skills, any uncertainty can be dealt with.

So, how do you become more adaptable?

1. Setbacks and changes of tasks can be hard to deal with. More so if you’re halfway through, only for it to change direction. To cope with it better, reframe rejection as an opportunity to learn and improve rather than as a failure.

2. When changes happen to a project that require you to pivot your schedule, develop your ability to bounce back from these setbacks. Be open to feedback and maintain a positive attitude.

Skill #6: Saying No Without Guilt

However, no matter how good your time management is, if your workload exceeds your capacity in a day, it’s time to reconsider how you have accepted tasks. While it is noble to want to prove your abilities, it shouldn’t be at your own expense.

Here’s how you shift your mindset away from guilt:

1. See it as you prioritising your health. You’re not rejecting the work, per se. You’re saying no to tasks that could potentially lead you to burn out or working beyond your scheduled work time.

2. You know you always do your best during your work hours, and having rest is what you deserve, as you will come back the next day with a full battery again.

It is a way to learn your boundaries and build up your self-respect. Setting limits shows you value yourself, your time, and what work aligns with your goals better.

Also read: How to Say No as A Creative Professional

Key Takeaways 

• Effective time management is a crucial element for creatives and artists when it comes to the successful planning and execution of their work.

• Identifying their main challenges can direct them to the right strategies and tips to better manage their time.

• By integrating better time management into their daily habits, artists find they can strike a healthier balance between their artistic pursuits and personal life, allowing for sustained inspiration and productivity over the long term.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Preventing creative burnout is one thing, but how do you bounce back from it when it does happen?

Take a long break from screens, whether it is your computer screen or your phone. Or, as some say, go out and ‘touch grass’. Take the time to do a mental reset to get you back on your feet.

I heard that there’s something called the 5 P’s of time management. What are those?

They are Prioritise, Plan, Prepare, Pace and Persist. The 5 P’s are basically the pillars of time management for managers as a sort of framework.

I want to be able to do deep work that could last for hours. Is there a way to do this?

While it is possible, it is more encouraged to maintain a healthy and sustainable deep work with frequent breaks rather than doing deep work continuously. This is mainly because burnout would happen faster if you let yourself work with no breaks.

How does creativity work with time management? 

The structure that comes with time management gives more of a security blanket than stifling the flow of creativity. It prevents burnout and ensures that you know when to work and when to rest. 

It also sets an expectation for you and your client when you know how long you will need to execute your creative work, rather than saying, “I’m not sure,” or “We’ll see.” This gives confidence to your client that you are a reliable artist. 

Author Bio

From Malaysia, Leia Emeera is a writer at TESSR, and a published author. She has been putting pen to paper ever since she learned how to, and has an anthology to her name, titled 'Ten'. Leia loves music, games, and her beloved Labrador retriever, George. She aims to further her studies in English Literature and Creative Writing the moment her gap year ends. 'Till then, you will find her sitting behind a desk, writing with TESSR.

Connect with her on LinkedIn: Leia Emeera

With a background in Arts English, Adilla has been a casual writer for various hobbies, like parodies of animated shows and plots for board games. She loves to read anything and everything from fantasy stories to articles on tips and tricks. Now an advocate for mental health and effective project management for the creative industry. Currently, Adilla resides in Malaysia and is a creative writer at TESSR. To know more about her, check out her LinkedIn.