The picturesque scene of an artist draped in linen cloth, twirling a paint brush in her hand, paint delicately splattered across her neck and hands (but heaven forbid, never on her clothes). There’s soft music playing in the background of her high-rise studio flat with huge windows (facing north of course) letting in the sun’s warm rays, splayed across the dozens of linen wrapped canvases neatly stacked against the walls and on her paint-free easel.

Days are spent in the studio surrounded by art and beauty, creating for the absolute love and joy of creating with never a thought towards marketing, pricing or social media. Websites? That’s for her art dealer from her prestigious gallery to deal with of course, she would never worry herself with such nonsense like how to actually sell her artwork and make a living from it.

Ha. Ha ha ha. Ha.

I’m sure all of my artist friends had a bit of a giggle at this picture, because it couldn’t be further from the truth. I know it, they know it, and yet we still strive towards that idealistic idea that we can float like a butterfly in our art studios, without a care in the world about money, websites or marketing.

Believe it or not, making the actual artwork we sell only accounts for maybe 50% of our working days.

The other 50%?

Well, there’s marketing to do, podcasts to record, blog posts to write, websites to update, photos to take and then edit and then post. All of the social media accounts to keep up with (it can’t just be Instagram), we need to varnish artwork, package artwork, ship artwork, write thank you cards and order business cards. Then there’s the bookkeeping, the email marketing campaigns, planning our next show or collection release, trying to figure out why a certain customer can’t add that specific painting to her online cart, track down missing parcels, order prints (or worse yet, print them yourself!).

It’s definitely a full-time job, and we put on so many hats they sometimes fall off our heads, stacked up so high on top of each other.

So how on earth do I organise my time?!

How have I been getting it all organised, completed, on time, and without pulling out all of my frizzy curls?

calendar blocking.

It’s taken a couple of weeks to get into a rhythm, but after listening to Amy Landino and Ashlyn Carter (two incredible women, go give them a follow - seriously) I’ve organised my week into calendar blocking.

The mornings are allocated for that 50% of work that artists don’t typically like to do but have to do, and in the afternoons I get to draw or paint to my heart’s content, without that awful gnawing at the back of my mind saying “Hey, Jenna, remember that thing you need to do on Friday” or “Hey, Jenna, you need to reply that email.”

utter bliss.

Calendar blocking is essentially batching certain tasks together onto specific days, so that you can’t get distracted or have to run from the computer to the easel to the post office and then back to the computer all in the same 3 hours. All computer related things are on a certain day, all running around is done on a certain day etc.

Every Sunday, I open up my planner and my work diary and allocate to which days each task needs to be done. That way, when I wake up that morning I already know what my day will look like and what my energy needs to look like to get everything completed and physically ticked off my to-do list.

I’m just one of those people that strive with routine and organisation, and this has worked wonders for me!

As an example for you, below are my time batched days:

Marketing Monday

On Mondays I get all of my marketing and self promotional stuff done, prepping for the week ahead.

I schedule all of my social media posts for the week (Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest etc)
I write and edit this week’s blog post
I draft and edit this week’s email marketing newsletter
and I spend time being “social” on my social media accounts - commenting, taggings etc.

training tuesday

I’m a huge advocate for personal development and investing not only in your business, but also in yourself.

Tuesdays are spent taking courses, learning something new, and brainstorming ideas and different avenues for my own creative business to explore. Tuesdays are probably my favourite days - I love learning!

I’m currently in the middle of Emily Jefford’s Making Art Work course, so that’s been taking up a fair chunk of my Tuesday mornings. If I still have time though, I catch up on Jenna Kutcher’s and Ashlyn Carter’s latest blog posts, or take a mini course on Skillshare.

Whatever wednesday

So this one sounds funny, but bear with me.

It’s the middle of the work week and even if you work for yourself and love your job you probably still feel a little bit.. well… blah. So, I dedicate this day to whatever I feel like doing (has to be work related, catching up on the latest season of Outlander definitely does not count.)

Do I want to work on something other than the commission sitting on my drawing desk? Okay.

Do I want to go to a cafe and work on my website for an hour? Okay.

Do I want to prep panels, varnish paintings, build frames, photograph my artwork, or just clean up my studio (finally!)? Okay.

It’s also the day I package artwork to ship out, order any supplies I need, and go to the post office.

techy thursday

First of all, if anyone has a better name for this than Techy Thursday please let me know - I couldn’t come up with anything better!

I spend my entire Thursday morning in front of my computer screen. I’ve enjoyed batching these tasks together because you really need to be in a focused frame of mind to get them done:

I edit all of my photos, to either be printed or to go up onto the website
I work on and update my website

This is when I post my blog posts and send out my marketing emails
General design work for new PDFs or for my website
Backing up my computer/iPhone and uploading photos from my camera

financial friday

Just in time for the weekend, this is honestly the easiest day for me; I’ve been blessed with a brain that loves numbers and math so bookkeeping and filing has never been a problem for me.

I update my spreadsheets, transfer money from account to account (have you heard of the Profit First Method? Amazing.), organise and track down all shipping and ordering from clients and for myself, send follow up emails, and have a look at all the fun analytics from my website and social media accounts.

Fascinating.

Because I’m still quite small this only takes a couple of hours anyways… and then… TGIF!

Of course, life happens and sometimes you don’t have a chance to finish everything on that particular day (as a great example, I’m writing this blog post on a Tuesday because I spent all day drawing on Monday and it was ah-maz-ing!)

I hope this has helped you maybe bring just a little bit of consistency and organisation to this otherwise chaotic time.

I can fully attest that this system has helped me focus and get so much more done (along with a little help from Red Bull).

how on earth i get anything done