Art Problems: How Do I Manage My Time?

How is it I’m busy all the time but I don’t have time to do what is important?

(graphic Hrag Vartanian/Hyperallergic, original photo via Koen Jacobs's Flickrstream)

Paddy examines why time management is so difficult for artists on Hyperallergic and how to fix it.

My main problem is time management. Between work and my studio practice, I feel too busy to network. How do I find the time to run my social media account? I can’t seem to do all of these things and make art. — Stretched thin and stressed out. 

If I could offer a simple answer to your question, I’d have millions of dollars in book deal money. The unsatisfying answer is that being stretched for time is a part of most artists’ lives and that reality doesn’t change until you start making an insane amount of money for most artists. For most sole proprietorships, $250,000 a year represents the benchmark when time constraints ease because you can afford more support.

Given your to-do list, the cause of your stress may seem self-evident, but I think it’s worth spelling out the larger cultural shifts responsible for your predicament. Because if having a job, making art, and getting people into your studio was hard pre-social media, adding the demands of managing a website, social accounts, and emails creates a perfect communications shit-storm. Sure, we can connect with more people than ever before, but that comes with a pretty big downside. For every real-world networking and marketing task, we must now complete a virtual equivalent that takes twice as much time.  

I mention this because I hear that you want time to do all the things you’re supposed to do, and I want it to be clear, not just to you but everyone reading this, that it’s not possible. The question isn’t how to drive ourselves crazy doing all the things, but how to stay sane by doing fewer of them. 

The read the full article on Hyperallergic click here.