So...let's talk about Time Management

[eru]

I struggle with this a lot...

Currently I've managed to get myself into a situation where I have just about the entire day, every day, to practice art. Time management is extremely difficult for me, even in this situation. I used to think that if I could get into a situation like this then I'd just spend 12h a day drawing and improving, but it really hasn't been like that for me, time still needs to be managed, balanced with health, with resting, getting inspiration, keeping in touch with people, not getting miserable or bogged down, etc.. managing time seems to go hand in hand with managing energy, managing health and moods and all these things.

I'm terrible at following strict timetables, and given the flexibility of having the whole day to plan for myself, I tried coming up with another approach

The system I set up for myself which ended working the most and which I stuck with for the longest time was one where I tracked on paper what I was doing at each hour of the day, every day. I printed out on an A4 sheet of paper an "emtpy schedule", 7 columns, one for each day of the week, with 24 rows, one for each hour of the day (starting at 5am).

As soon as I woke up, I'd note down the time on the paper. After doing some stretches for 30mins, I'd note that down, then after breakfast and cleaning up the kitchen I'd note that down too. Then I'd note down my spending 30mins with emails and 1.30h browsing the web, then an hour drawing, etc etc..

Eventually I'd get a pretty clear picture of where I was putting my time, and by the end of the day I would see where I could have used it better, etc.

This system helped me get up to an average of between 6 - 8 hours per day, peaking at 10-12 on the crazy days, and falling to 3-4h on the bad days (exhaustion etc).[[

I think the reason it might not be talked about much is that everyone's attitude seems to be to just go at it warrior style. Go draw! Don't plan things out so much.

It's really more complicated than that, because hours of practicing the wrong things or ignoring certain areas is a problem. On places like CA you see all these people pressuring themselves stupidly, practicing the same things over and over and not getting anywhere, not thinking enough about how to practice.

I think systems like Dave Rapoza's seem pretty good. His system is great because the exercises keep changing but they're all in one of two broad categories, Anatomy and Colour, and those are two things he really excels at now. Set yourself up 2h a day where you draw no matter what. Then another few hour to do whatever work/obligations you must. And then draw/adapt in the rest of the hours depending on what you need to do. They say that work always expands to fill all the available time. Those 24h Gamejams are a really cool example of how having a constraint can really rev you up and focus on the essentials and do what has to be done.

how do you manage your time?
do you think there're any lessons you can port over from your wow days?

Thank you, I've always thought about this and it seemed to work for you, I'm going to write down my time management, because I had a problem with doing nothing at all sometimes, I never thought why. I need job right because i have no money to support my art but then if I do art all day then im a bum on that day no earning money. Some days I would just spend nagging on my family trying to get attention and then turns to argue everyday lol, Im a try this method. Also some people can do art really good in 2-4 hrs a day rather than spending 12 hours I could never do that, but I have stress issues so I shouldn't do that. I still play Games I'm learning to manage that, I'm sorry I said all this. I have no art friends to talk to in my real life :)