The list of chaotic energy sucks, time sucks, and bullshit that I shouldn’t be doing anyways

When I decided to make art my business, as in “pay the bills, thrive, and still be sane and happy”-level business, I quickly discovered that I had no idea how to make that shit work. So much chaos in trying to manage it all that I was just putting out fires from moment-to-moment…when was I going to have time to even plan stuff?

If you’re like that now, don’t worry, you have a lot of company. If you don’t want to be like that anymore, keep reading on how I solved this problem.

Enter the list

You know all those fires you’re putting out? All the things you’re rushing to get done last minute because you forgot those cupcakes for your kids bake sale that’s in two hours now? Or that your car insurance is a few days behind because the email reminder went to your junk folder? Or that commission that was supposed to be drying and then on its way isn’t even started? Yeah, all those things, and so many more. They’re the reason why you’re struggling to run a successful art business.

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No shit, Peter, thanks for the enlightenment!

Okay, I’m captain obvious about this for sure, but just as with myself, I wanted to make sure you understood that it includes things from all aspects of your life. You can’t just organize one sector of your life, it doesn’t work like that. So here’s what I did to get all that shit under control.

I wrote it all down! It wasn’t a “to do” list. This was a list of every task, every chore, every errand, every project step, every brainstorming session, every social media post, every time I thought about doing some of the things my mentors were suggesting. Everything. I wrote it all down without judgment or filters…it all went onto this list. I did that for a couple of weeks just to make sure things weren’t slipping through the cracks. Every time I came across a recurring one, I’d just put a tally mark next to the existing one to keep count. Yes, the list was huge.

Once I had this list, I broke it down and rewrote it out into several smaller lists for things that were recurring on a regular basis, things I shouldn’t be doing but are helpful to my business, things I shouldn’t be doing period, and things other people should be doing instead. There were some items left over that are just things I have to do, but I don’t have a way of pawning them off on someone else or getting done faster through some clever productivity tricks.

On each list, I highlighted the items that were business-related. Those are what I’m writing about on this site. I don’t care about your bake sale issues, but I’m sure you’ll figure out how to apply what I did to everything you got going on. We’re all rooting for you, little buddy!

I’m going to write some other articles about what to do with those lists, but you can see where I’m going with all of this. Bend the chaos to your will by making smaller chunks out of it all. As I write those posts, the “Series” list will get longer.