Practical Tips for Finding More Creative Time
Time is a valuable commodity, and we often don’t give enough for the ventures and activities that would bring us more joy and prosperity in our lives. Maybe you’re busy with work, school, children and other responsibilities, and you feel you don’t have any more time to give to yourself. It could be that your schedule is full, and you simply don’t have a slot for you. How can you make more time for the things you love and the goals you have yet to achieve?
There’s no easy answer to the problem of ‘there is simply not enough time in the day’, and often, the answers we do have are easier said than done. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t parts of your life you can’t streamline, places where you can get back time for what you love and your goals. Importantly, getting more time in our lives for our art and creativity shouldn’t come at the cost of our relationships and health. That price is often too high, and it’s easy to fall into the trap of sleepless nights and unhappy spouses.
Like me, you’ve probably given up on many goals because you didn’t have time. However, if you take on board what I have to say and make some small adjustments, you’ll have more time for the things you want to achieve. It worked for me, and I know it can work for you.
Where Can You Find Time
Have you tried to get time by fitting your creative work and drawing during your free time and breaks? If so, you know how exhausting and completely unsustainable it is. Working in breaks and your free time doesn’t work because there is a lag in the brain time when switching between activities. It would be like trying to work on what you care about while in constant jet lag. So it becomes crucial to have a timeslot dedicated to you in your day where you can deeply work.
I’m proposing to make that extra time not by squeezing it into every opportune moment, which will lead to burnout and less quality in your work, but by choosing a time in your day that suits your daily rhythm. When I have dedicated time to work, I have more energy and can look forward to it because I’ve set time aside and don’t feel rushed. I want you to have that same confidence and control within your work – time to grow and achieve the goals you’ve set out to do.
Achieving anything requires dedication, and sometimes it requires a lot of hours. That might mean you must make sacrifices and shift your lifestyle, but that’s okay because your goals should be things you genuinely want and something worthwhile to pursue.
If squeezing in your work within the extra time between responsibilities doesn't work, then how on earth will you come up with the extra time needed to put in your schedule? Well, I want to show you what I’ve done to get back some more time for myself and create fewer obstacles so I have more time to work and less time procrastinating.
How to Make Time
Getting time back for the things you love and where you want to grow in life requires steps. If you’re like me and work hard and put in lots of hours into your business, it can sometimes still feel like you don’t have enough time. But there are things we do that eat up time when there might be a better solution. Here are a few things I want you to try:
Tip 1: Set Up An Environment For Working
When I started learning to draw professionally and set up a business, I struggled to find a place for my drawing. My partner and I were in a shoebox-sized room while living with his parents, and we had no space for drawing. It was often difficult for us to work because we never had a fixed environment separate from our sleeping arrangement, which is a big problem when trying to switch focus to a working mindset. To make matters worse, whenever I wanted to draw, I would have to waste time clearing a space and finding all my drawing tools.
The best solution we found was to set aside time to draw on the desk and have the environment ready for me. It meant I had the only desk in the room to work, and my partner would work on a laptop sitting in bed. This might be a more extreme version of not having an environment set up for work, but it’s a reality for many living in small spaces.
If you have space in your home, make a small corner for you and your art, claim it and ensure it’s always ready for you. I’ve also found it extremely helpful to keep my working space sacred to working. Doom scrolling and social media are not allowed at my desk! If you want to ‘get in the zone’, then make sure you’re working in a space that is for that alone. If you mix up your environments for your free time and work time, you might find that distractive itch to check your phone creeps up on you while working. And we all know how much our phones zap our time away at incredible speeds.
Tip 2: Lower Uncertainty
One of the places I wasted a ton of time regularly was choosing and cooking food. I would spend 10-15 minutes (sometimes more) choosing what we would eat, and then I’d have to cook everything for another 15-45 minutes. It was an obvious area for improvement in my life and a place where I could get back a lot of time. Slow cooking and cooking in batches came to my rescue because instead of choosing what I would eat and cooking every meal, all I had to do was grab the food out of the fridge or freezer, heat it up and eat. I can’t overstate how much time I’ve saved by doing this.
Making choices in the face of uncertainty is expensive for your willpower and time, and you only have so much in the day. If you’re spending a lot of time making choices because there is no certainty in what’s happening next, then all that time you spend choosing is wasted.
There are many other ways to save time around your work associated with uncertainty. Plan your personal and work week, choose your clothes the night before, plan and cook meals and more. If there is a choice, see if you can make it at a better time so you have more time during your deep work hours.
Tip 3: The One Thing
If you’re anything like me, and you enjoy working on many things at the same time, it’s so easy to get distracted when new innovations come out, you get new commissions, or an idea spontaneously comes to mind. Trying to juggle multiple projects at once is the sure-fire way to get overwhelmed and waste a lot of precious time either procrastinating or obstructing your workflow.
Something I've learned from Gary Keller's book "The One Thing” to help deal with the many things demanding my attention is to ask the simple yet profound question, "What ONE Thing can I do, such that by doing it, makes everything else easier or unnecessary?" So if you were working on a drawing, instead of getting distracted during your sketching phase and going too detailed in one small part, the one thing you should focus on is finishing your sketch and doing all of the problem-solving before moving onto the lineart and details. By doing that, you won't have to waste time having to erase an area and redo it because you never got a piece of anatomy correct or the perspective was a little wonky.
Focusing on one thing can sometimes be easier said than done because things always come up and demand your attention. But when you take on yet another thing to do, you remove the time you need for, quite often, the more important thing to you and your goals. I'm not saying you can't have time in your day dedicated to tasks, but make sure you stick to the task dedicated to your time slot and focus on ‘the one thing’ that will bring you forward in your journey. It really does save a lot of time to be focused.
Tip 4: Managing Responsibilities
We all have responsibilities, and the older we get, the more we seem to get piled on top of us. Maybe you’re at university, helping your family, caring for someone or working in a job? These are responsibilities you can’t escape from, and sometimes you might feel like they dictate what you can and can’t spend your time on. If you have a lot of responsibilities, maybe you’re using all of your time and effort on others and not taking some of it to nurture your own growth and fulfilment.
It’s important to realise that your time doesn’t become less important because you have many responsibilities. If anything, it becomes more important! If you’re not dedicating time for growth and personal fulfilment, you’re in less of a position to help others when needed. I’m not asking you to drop all of your responsibilities, but there are a few things you can do to save some time:
Stop Taking On More Responsibilities
It’s easier said than done, but there are a few of us (you know who you are) who, if asked by someone, take on their problems and become responsible for yet another thing. It can be hard to say no, and you’re probably a kind soul, but you must take more time for yourself and not give it all to others. Don’t trade your personal time to take on someone’s problems; give your free and extra time when you can.
Schedule Your Week
It might sound obvious, but how often have you had to do last-minute things and remove yourself halfway through work because of a responsibility? It shouldn’t surprise you when you need to be somewhere or do something. Organise yourself, schedule time for you, schedule time for your responsibilities and stick by it!
Broadcast Your Boundaries
The time you spend on yourself must become sacred. Make sure everyone knows that when you go to work, you’re turning off your phone, and you’re not going to be reachable. You need to dedicate time to yourself; responsibilities can have their time when you’ve scheduled them, but they can’t take yours. Stand up for your boundaries because self-growth and fulfilment mean you can help more people, sometimes in more meaningful ways.
Tip 5: Sacrifice What You Can
Sacrifice is a scary word, and it’s something of a taboo topic in the world of making time for yourself. No one wants to sacrifice cake because it’s the healthy thing to do, and no one wants to sacrifice time playing games for more work. But the truth is, if you want to get good at something and achieve your goals, there will always be a level of sacrifice somewhere in the journey, and it’s easy to confuse self-love with self-coddling. I mean, who wouldn’t want things to be easier and take that time to relax instead of doing something hard?
Many people who you see with success are sacrificing something in their lives. However, there are places where you should draw a line. We don’t want to be rich and lonely because we sacrificed our time with friends and loved ones. For me personally, it’s important not to sacrifice my health, and you are unique and entitled to what’s important for you in your life.
The easiest way to find something you can sacrifice is by asking: Is there something in my life that’s not bringing me value? Are you spending too much time playing games or sitting in bed in the morning? Or maybe you spend too much time in front of a TV? These smaller things are easier to let go of, so you can spend more time on your goals and ambitions. Large sacrifices will be harder and something you need to think long and hard about before making any decision.
Making time for your goals and work is never as easy as people make it out to be, and it’s something you’ll probably continue working on throughout your creative pursuits. Life won’t stop throwing you new and unexpected challenges, and there are more distractions around us than ever before. But there are things you can actively do to get some of that time back. A little time goes a long way, and the more you can get by making more informed choices and letting go of the things not serving you in your journey, the closer you'll get to accomplishing the goals you've set out to do.