Time Management --grrr

" red pears"- WIP acrylic on canvas 9X12" or 23X31cms

Well the past few days i have been involved in all that fabulous tax stuff that small business owners have to do. Such as keeping records identifying expenses etc etc.... I absolutely detest it, it really makes me depressed as i look at our finances and see how much money we don't have, I dream of living in a blissfully ignorant world of just not having to think about it all. Alas, wouldn't we all... so such is life and i best get on with things - well i say that now.


I find with all tasks i dont want to do, i just put it off and put it off and put it off until i can do so no longer. It eats away at me each day thinking i really need to do that ... and then i get to a day like today .. where i spend the time doing the task and i can call it DONE .. i just feel so much better :) and wonder why i didnt just do that weeks ago.... its crazy.

So, back to my time management topic... i often get asked how i find time for my art...so i thought i would share some ramblings of my life ....


i find if I have office /admin bits to do... that eventually takes priority over other things as otherwise i have too much guilt and it piles up too high... and so once that is done some arttime is my reward ... I do admit that i have my mum come and help watch the kids regularly ... she is fabulous .. and i try to get all that stuff out the way whenever she is here.

... to be honest tho .. when she is here i find i often spend alot of my time is wasted as i indulge in reading sites and forums and generally doing the stuff i dont get to do the other days (like writing this post... so yes i am a time waster.... :) So in short mum helps but she isnt the "solution" in fact .. she really likes to talk ALOT ... so i often have to dismiss myself in order to get some things done :)

Another thing i tend to do is give myself a specific time to spend on art.. so eg. if its 12.15pm and my youngest goes to bed i will give myself till 1or 1.30pm to get spend time on a particular piece. I find this works on two levels .. one is means i dont feel guility about all the other tasks i have to do as i have set myself that time and allowed myself to have it (i just have to regulate it so that i stop when i say i will) .. also it allows me to be more efficient with my strokes or drawing or making better colour decisions ... knowing i just dont have all the time in the world to sit there doing whatever.

I find that if i set specific goals for the day i often get most of things done. I try to organise things around my youngest's nap times.. and do things ie. like put a load of washing on as soon as i can and hang it out .. so that when he is down i can go straight to doing art. Last week i was very productive artwise and had a fabulous week in terms of jobs done as this was because i set goals everyday. I try to look at it as a profession rather than just slotting my art in (especially if i plan to make some $$ out of it) is just like any business and i have to approach it that way.

However, i do have days like i did yesterday which just goes to show me how important all of the above is. Yesterday i started a new painting .. i had this painting urge and some new reference photos .. so i went with it and it was great. But i didnt set a specific time so i was dodging the kids and the washing and the cleaning all day .. in order to just get this bit "right" and then i will stop .. i was getting aggitated with the kids and more so myself cause i couldnt get it how i wanted it and the day wasnt very productive in anyway. So rather than getting a task done i felt like i wasted my time and had failed... not a very good outlook on things.

So, in taking a step back ..my goals for the next few winter months is to have some peices to sell and show .. and to get my website up.
I have been producing websites for over 10years now, so that in itself isnt too difficult for me but.. its something i have been putting off and putting off for a long time now and i have 100 excuses as to why i havent gotten to around to it yet. Some of these include: i need to have some more work to put on there... i need to have some different styles ... i dont have a domain name registered .i havent come up with a design yet. etc etc ... and so we go back to our topic of time management ... sigh .. here we go again ... note to self MAKE SOME TIME and GET IT DONE !!!!