The Most Powerful Tool In My Arsenal, Optimal Work Week

This is the big one, folks. This is the article that so many of you have asked me to write; the one where I pull back the curtain on how I keep my days/time organized. (hint: it’s with an actual schedule)

Why

I’ve said it myself, and I’ve heard it from a lot of others in conversation, “I just don’t have time to ______.” The trick, I’ve discovered, is that you must make time. The way you do that is to schedule time. And the only way that works, is if you figure out how beneficial it is to have a schedule. Finally, the only way to see that is to diligently try it for a couple of months. Full disclosure, I didn’t develop this concept. Heck, we have all either worked for or are still working jobs that have schedules, and then we schedule all the other things in our lives around that. Huge shout out to my friend, the Pinterest Rock Star herself, Cara Chace for first developing this format. She taught me so many things about social media (and more)! I’ve adapted the concept to my needs for my art business.

The issue that I noticed is that I didn’t consider myself ‘the boss’ when I first started my art business. Not in the same sense as the people I’d worked for. My guess is that a lack of experience with self employment led to a lack of an internal “boss” voice. Which as it turns out is not the same as that bastard the “inner critic” voice; he never shuts up!

The idea of being a self employed artist was kind of sabotaging itself. I didn’t think I needed a schedule. Maybe for when to show up and rake in all that sweet, sweet art money at events. I was an idiot. Also, believing that anything I did need to schedule could be kept in my head without issue. Guess what? There were tons of issues with that! Frustrated, I never seemed to have time to do those things.

Don’t get lost

When you’re self employed, especially creative people who sometimes (or often) follow rabbit holes and tangents, or start projects when they know damned well they shouldn’t, it’s easy to think that you don’t need to be as diligent with your scheduling as you were when you had a boss.

I tend to follow rabbit holes and tangents. I start project when I know damned well that I shouldn’t. I’m not alone in this, I hear it all the time from creatives. Issues arise when we lack the discipline to do the work we should be doing. The great news is that with a schedule you can still go on tangents. We’re just limiting the chunks of time available for those. Tangents are like little vacations, I feel that they can sometimes be exactly what my mind needs to overcome challenges. We just can’t let those vacations become distractions or procrastinations.

I’m passionate about sharing valuable insights on my website. Your $3 donation will help me cover hosting expenses. Please donate now!👇

If it isn’t scheduled, it isn’t real.

Now that I’m a self-employed artist, a huge chunk of my waking life is wide open when it used to be scheduled for me; a double-edged sword! I’ve come to recognize that I cannot maintain focus long enough to trust that I’ll stay productive throughout the day/week. The schedule I use goes a long way towards helping. It’s not perfect; neither am I. There are definitely times when I just can’t muster what it takes to do what’s on the schedule or even anything else. I’m learning that’s okay, and not to be too hard on myself when it happens. My schedule goes a long way to reinforcing what discipline I have. It’s a great help for keeping me on track.

What

So here’s a link to the base version of what I call my “optimal work week” (“the schedule”). Don’t edit this one. Use File > Make a Copy to copy it to your own Google Drive. If you don’t use Google Drive (or Sheets), you can use File > Download As to save a copy to your computer in one of several formats. I recommend the Excel or OpenDocument formats because those are ones most easily editable and most likely to open in whatever spreadsheet program you use.

Spoiler Alert (after the fact): I use spreadsheets for all kinds of shit, so this is a spreadsheet. If you don’t know how to use them, or don’t use them on principle, I think you might still gain some insight from reading the article, but you’ll have to transfer that wisdom to whatever system you do use. Let’s be honest though, spreadsheets are super handy.

Google Sheets Link

How

If you’ve been keeping up with this series, you can probably guess how this works. Take all the weekly recurring tasks, along with blocks of time you dedicate to the various aspects of your art business, and plug them into this schedule.

Here’s an example for during the market season:

I typically wakeup at 4:30-5am. Breakfast, car loading and traveling to the event. On Mondays, I drop off weekend orders at the post office on the way. I’ll typically arrive at the market site between 6:30-7a. The event goes until 1 pm and I usually get home by 2:30 pm. Here’s how I schedule my Monday in it (click image to embiggen ->)

Notes

To get the cells in the columns to be ‘big’ like the “Market” one, you have to select all the cells you want, and then choose “Merge” from the toolbar. (in Google sheets, it’s basically the same in Excel as well) The cell colors are already compiled in a theme to maintain a consistent look and feel as you revise your copy.

Remember, there are no rules, you can use this as much or as little as you want. You can get as detailed or a vague as you like. I recommend keeping a blank one and just duplicating the tab as you need, that way you’re always ready to start fresh. You might want to have a tab for your “off season” vs your “on season”, which is what I do. I also like to experiment with changing the schedule without losing anything so those experiments are new tabs. Finally, if you mess something up beyond repair, you always have that starter tab to begin anew.

I’ve also given you some examples of what I use each type of time block for, and some copy-paste starter blocks that make it much easier to fill in the schedule if you’re not very comfortable with spreadsheets. I can’t train you in how to use spread sheets, you’ll have to put in some time to do that yourself. However, if you believe something is broken in the spreadsheet, please let me know and I’ll look into it.