How to prioritise competing tasks

In a previous column, I briefly mentioned working smarter, not harder. One of the things that I find difficult to manage at times is what to do first. You get so many things on your plate, you only have so many hours in the day, yet you are expected to complete everything NOW! When you have conflicting commitments and you can’t really drop them, how do you work out what to do first, and what to push to the bottom of the list?

First and foremost, have some way of keeping track of everything you have to do. There’s nothing worse than finding an email you forgot to answer... a year or two later. I’m guilty of that, in fact I know I’ve got a couple of way overdue tasks on my list! This is my way of working things out.

• Paid work should always come first! If you are a professional, you need to treat your paying customers like gold. They are your bread and butter. Being slow is ok, as long as you keep communications open and tell them you’re going to be slow. But never take money and renege on your contract or sale. It’s going to be hell on your reputation, and nothing travels faster than bad news!
• If you have two tasks of equal importance and one’s been in your in-tray longer, that’s the one that probably deserves your attention first. However, if it’s hanging around for ages – like months - maybe you should reconsider doing that task at all.
• The job that pays more bills is the one with the highest priority. Being an artist is important to me, but my day job pays all the niggly things like my mortgage and for food– so I’m not going to screw up that because I was up all hours painting! (Says the girl up til midnight painting on a ‘school night’ *ahem*).
• If a task seems too hard or you know that you are never going to get to it, you are entitled to boot it out the door. Don’t keep it on the list, there is seriously no point.
• If a task looks like it’s going to suck the life out of you and take forever, see if you can break it down into smaller tasks. An hour of sketching is a little more manageable than having to draw 50 line art pieces.
• Stuff you’ve bartered for should be treated the same as paid work. No one hates another artist who receives a trade and reneges on their promise. It’s just not cool. Don’t do it.
• Do fun tasks after you’ve done the ‘work’ stuff. Use it as a proverbial carrot (or in my case chocolate). If you do all the fun stuff first, you’re only left with boring, tedious things that will seem to take forever and ever and ever and.... so try and organise your tasks using this theory.
• Do 5 minute jobs NOW! Don’t procrastinate. Knock them over and get them out of the way.
• Be able to live with your decisions. Recognise that in order to do things well, you have to focus on one thing at a time!

And above all, learn to live with the fact that there are only so many hours in the day, only so much work one poor little trooper can do before they keel over, and that you are not in fact a superhero that can do 12 things at the one time. It just isn’t possible! As much as we would like it to be!

If you are interested in tools to help organise yourself a bit better, here’s a previous post I made on creating and using todo lists
http://parttimepainter.blogspot.com/2008/03/organisation-1-todo-lists-and-part-time.html

Link shout-out - I Draw Girls

Links shout-out! A great collection of digital tutorials/ walk throughs that don't just focus on drawing women (despite the name). Even though this is mostly centred around fantasy & games art, there's plenty for any digital painter. There are zombies, ninjas, mecha, life drawing sessions, studies of old masters, free brushes, backgrounds and architecture. Worth losing yourself for a couple of hours. Check it out!

http://idrawgirls.blogspot.com/

5 online photo editors

Digital editing doesn't require expensive software. You don't even need to be home to access you desktop editor. Simply hook into the Internet and have a look at the 5 best online image editors (according to Lifehacker readers)

http://lifehacker.com/5307419/five-best-online-image-editors

What should you do when you need to take a break (EMG Zine May)

Working two careers can be exhausting. Sometimes you just need to step away from one to keep your sanity. It might be that your day job has taken over your life and you barely have time to cook dinner, let alone paint. It could be that you are a full time artist, and you find yourself doing more business and marketing tasks than painting and you need time to create new products. There could be family commitments, illness or injury.

Whatever the reason, how should you go about the process of cutting back on some of your commitments?

I've had to do this several times as my work peaks and recedes. Some months can be very cruisy, while others I have maybe an hour to myself all day. I still keep on working both jobs, however the balance is definitely skewed towards the day job at the moment!

So where to start?
1. Identify the 'dead wood' you can trim from your life
2. Ease back on commitments you can't get rid of, or don't want to drop i.e.simplify your life!
3. Work smarter

What should you look at getting rid of first?

• Things you hate. You know the tasks I'm talking about. They are the ones that you drag your heels on, avoid answering emails to, put in the 'too hard' basket. They suck the creativity right out of you. They bore you. They feel like work. If you're doing work like this, and have very little time to call your own, you will burn out.
• Things that don't make any money or you are doing for free. If you can't do the job, someone else can. And if it's free, unless you are doing it for your own reasons it is unimportant. If it was truly important, they'd be paying you!
• Things that are not cost or time effective. If you spend 10 hours making something, then sell it for a few dollars, then you are selling yourself short ... especially if your time is limited. Your time is a valuable commodity!
  

How to ease back on commitments and not disappear entirely

• Maintain an online presence somehow. Whether you use a blog, twitter, facebook, or mailing list, make sure you don't disappear of the face of the earth for 6 months at a time
• Finish the things that you've started or reschedule them. It's bad business to turn around on a client and say 'that painting I'm halfway through, well can't do it' if you really can still finish it. Reputation is still king when it comes to business.
• Prepare people for the change or give them alternate contact points. If you're closing down your shops, try and give people warning, or at least tell them you can still ship products, and give them a contact point.
• Try and ease back on things, one thing at a time rather than all in one hit. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but if things are gradually getting more and more hectic, you can try and start cutting back one thing at a time
  

How to work smarter?

This is for another column, but essentially it comes down to:

• Know thyself. Know your limitations, habits and strengths and work to them
• Learn to say 'NO' and to prioritise your tasks
• Value your time and energy
• Try not to over commit!

Shoutout - Smashing Magazine

Another shout-out to a great illustration and inspiration resource: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/. This site showcases talent, design tutorials, ideas for being a more efficient designer/ artist/ illustrator and a host of free resources. Beware, you may get sucked in for hours!

Jack of All Trades (EMG Zine April)

There's an old saying about being a jack of all trades and a master of none. While this saying is often about someone who never perfects anything, but rather can do lots of things adequately, from an artistic point of view there are many reasons why you may want to be a little more adaptable and flexible when it comes to subject matter and style.

So which is best? Being a specialist with a particular artistic bent, or being a generalist who can do lots of things, but doesn't specialise in any one thing? Here are some thoughts on the matter:

• "I never ever get bored with painting pink fairies with monarch butterfly wings".
  
  Being a specialist can be boring. If you have to paint the same thing, the same colour scheme, the same style ALL THE TIME, life can get a bit dull. Of course, if you are passionate about your speciality then it can be a never-ending exploration of something you adore. Kind of like chocolate or trashy romances. Some people could live their lives never eating another kind of sweet, or read anything else and that's ok.
  


• "Hey, aren't you that girl who paints the weird dancing turnips?"
  
  Is that really how you want people to remember you? And is that really what you want to get commissions for, for the rest of your life? As a specialist you can be pigeonholed. You can be defined by a particular moment in time -- much the same way an actor gets typecast. If you love dancing vegetables, then great, you won't have a problem, but if you don't, it can be very hard to escape from people's expectations.
  


• "Who are you again?"
  
  If you don't specialise, you can get lost in the crowd. Imagine yourself a bird of paradise amongst a bunch of pigeons -- You want and need to be noticed. Being memorable (for good reasons) is a way to build a fan base and get sales/ work.
  
  If you have many different skills and subjects that you can paint (competently), you open yourself to a greater variety of projects.
  


• "Why don't you ask her? She's the queen of painting purple unicorns!”
  
  Being a master in a particular field immediately makes you an expert whose advice is sought. This can be good and bad -- depends on if you are happy to answer questions, or even defend your position as an expert. There are a number of digital artists that are expert painters that essentially have to provide work in progress shots to 'prove' their method.
  


• "I have no brand!"
  
  Having many skills and doing many themes can make it difficult to 'brand' yourself. How do you want yourself to be known if you don't have something that stands out as representing 'you the artist'? As a specialist, your speciality is your 'brand'.
  


• "How dare you paint a space monkey? You're supposed to paint mermaids!"
  
  If you are a specialist, you can have violent reactions from fans when you don't paint what they expect. You'd be amazed at comments from so called fans when you change your style or your media. It doesn't matter what the reasons are, if you have a fan base for a particular reason, you do something different and you are bound to tick someone off!
  Sometimes specialisation only has a small fan base. You may be brilliant at what you do, but if there are only three people in the world who love your stuff, unless they are willing to be your patrons, you may need to broaden your artistic field.

So what is the best approach? Generalist or specialist? Well, it really comes down to a few things.

• You have to paint what you love or connect with. Whether it's a style, colour or subject. Things that have meaning to you, or you enjoy painting, generally come out better than something you loathe and struggle to paint.


• Know thyself. If you love to paint the same kinds of paintings, go for it. If you get bored with the same paintbrush between one painting and the next, you might be happier doing a bit of illustration, a bit of design work, and selling products as well.


• Skills regardless of specialisation are important. Without skills, you lose credibility.Finally, people grow and change. You might specialise in one thing for ten years, and then abruptly change and do something different. And that’s ok too!

Do I Really Paint Like That? The Artistic Post-mortem (EMG Zine March)

Even if your time is limited, there is one part of any project which is critical to help you improve. Whether you spend five minutes or a week, doing an artistic 'post-mortem' on completed works is a good habit to get into.

So what do I mean by this? Well, at my day job, we have what's called a 'post implementation review' -- it's where a bunch of people get together and dissect how the project went. Sometimes it's full of people patting each other on the back; other times it's full of people pointing fingers and burning effigies.

An artistic 'post mortem', for me, is where you apply the same principles to a completed piece of work and reflect on what went right, what went wrong, and more importantly, where the opportunities for improvement are. We don't always need a bunch of critics to tell us what is good or bad. One of the most important things an artist can learn is how to be critical of your own work. To help you become more reflective about your own work, try asking yourself some of these questions the next time you finish a painting:

1. What one thing would I do again?
   
   This can be something as simple as using a particular color, waiting for a wash to dry, or using a particular stock photographer. Sometimes the smallest thing that works can lead to a brilliant new style or technique.
   


2. What is one thing I'd never do the same way?
   
   Everyone makes mistakes. Some are small, some are huge. Even if something is successful, you might decide for example that you never ever, and I mean never, choose to paint a picture with more than five roses in it.
   


3. What one thing did I do in the piece that I could improve on for the next one?
   
   Be critical. If you took a shortcut like placed someone's hand behind their back, or relied too heavily on one photo reference, aim to paint at least a few fingers or sketch a hand. Don't get stuck and never improve. Everyone can improve.
   


4. If I could do the piece in a different medium, what would it be and why?
   
   Sometimes when you finish a piece, although it was a success, you feel that it may have turned out differently if you'd made a different choice in media. Would a pencil sketch be better as a digital painting, should you have used oils instead of watercolours, or would a photo have been more effective?
   


5. If I had twice as long to do this piece, how could I have improved it?
   
   Time is always a factor. When you are doing this part time, sometimes you have a limited window in which to complete work. Even if you paint full time, you might have several project on the go at once. When you are finished, work out what you rushed through, what you slaved over, and see where you skimped.
   


6. What part did I take the longest on, and could I have been quicker?
   
   You can get bogged down in the details. That 8 hours you spent painting fur -- will it actually be noticed when the piece is printed out as a greeting card? Practice speed painting to improve your abilities to render image quicker and more effectively.
   

The key to asking questions about your own work is to work out what you need to do to improve. It's not about beating yourself down, comparing yourself against others, or giving yourself a complex. It's about learning to take off the rose coloured glasses and see your work as it is. If you can't see you own strengths and weaknesses, you can't necessarily take criticism, and you certainly can't improve or grow.