The somehow painful truth that many of us artists have learned from experience is that working well-paying day jobs can demand most of our time and energy, leaving us with nothing for our art. This can be seen especially with artists who excel in their craft but cannot entirely bank on it as society has taught us that there are better places to be and better things to do. Although a part of that statement is true, there is still the fact that our art can keep us sane in this chaotic world and that it is still essential to make time for the things we enjoy doing.
But the problem comes when making time becomes a difficult task. Our jobs may take up most of the day, and the rest is reserved for a well-deserved break. With this, here are some things that you can do to hopefully free up a bit of your schedule and find some time to create something extraordinary.
Start a planner
Starting a planner is the most straightforward thing you can do to find the time for your art. Organizing the tasks in your life by the day and even by the hour can help you encase your tasks in a specific period without it spilling over and taking up the space for your other responsibilities. This project of incorporating a planner in your daily routine should help you in your quest for some time for art by letting you know your entire schedule. Having every one of your scheduled tasks in front of you will show you the exact times you can go back to making art. Additionally, journaling can go side by side with writing your planner as a creative and therapeutic way of listing down your schedule.
Write down valuable ideas
You have probably experienced getting very artistically inspired during the wrong time of day, maybe while you are working or doing chores, tasks that you cannot instantly put aside and abandon to start making art. But you can definitely use that inspiration for a later time. Writing down your brilliant but fleeting thoughts and ideas for your craft can help you to get inspired during the instances when you actually find the time but not the motivation.
Lessen the tasks on your hand
The surest way of freeing up your calendar is by lessening the number of tasks in your hands. For corporate employees, try to avoid unnecessary work like favors asked by coworkers or unpaid tasks from your boss. Learning to say no to these time-consuming activities will help you in the long run. On the other hand, self-made entrepreneurs can let go of some of their work by either assigning them to someone else or hiring companies that offer to do the work for them, like IT services for their digital business functions and consultants for other administrative needs.
Turn away from your devices
Unless the kind of art you make is digitally rendered, you can benefit from lessening your personal computers and devices. Scrolling endlessly through social media can take away valuable time that might have been used for our craft.
Join an art challenge
Art challenges can be a great way to motivate yourself to make art within a busy schedule. Many challenges include some sort of time constraint like MerMay and Inktober that call for artists to draw every day for a whole month. These can help you push yourself to create art even more whenever you find even the shortest free time.
Just do it
Lastly, you have to ask yourself if you actually have a busy schedule or are missing your craft but are just dreading the process, making you put off your art. If the latter is true in your case, you are holding yourself back, possibly with fear of making ugly art or with your aversion to committing to a labor-intensive process. You probably have the time to do anything you want, so go for it and create something beautiful with your creative mind.
Having found a few minutes or hours of your day free from your daily stresses, you are now able to practice your craft once again. This can also be a part of that needed rest in between your tasks. Just be strict with yourself and be firm that this newfound time is for your art, not for more work or aimless whims. Otherwise, you’ll regret it again later that you have lost the chance to do the thing that you love doing.
