Comments on: How to Get Stuff Done

By: Lisa Call

Lisa Call — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 01:33:14 +0000

Thanks to everyone for your comments – so glad to hear there are so many artists out there working with structures and goals also.

Caroline – yes- In addition to the sheet above I track some of the individual time for each of the pieces I make. Not always but often. It really helps in estimating how long things will take.

By: Joan A Hamilton

Joan A Hamilton — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 23:10:06 +0000

I miss the time I used to spend only painting. Now it seems there all kinds of other obligations artists need to fulfill to market their art. It’s such a big gap between “love your art’ and ‘I’ll buy your art’ that I feel guilty when I don’t work on marketing goals. Some days I wonder if I have a hope in hell of selling my digital art in enough quatiities to make a difference to my standard of living.

By: Susie Monday

Susie Monday — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:05:16 +0000

Thanks Lisa, very timely for me. Since my partner doesn’t teach in the summer it tends to get awful floaty around here. I am setting up a better system right now! And the #20hrchallenge on Twitter is helping, too. Since I have the luxury of being a fulltime artist/writer, my art time needs to stay at least at 20, with another 20 on the business side of things.

By: K. Henderson

K. Henderson — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 03:15:37 +0000

I don’t have problems getting & staying in the studio working. But I use the 15 minute timer when I have things I don’t like to do, like book keeping. You CAN get a lot done 15 minutes at a time and I find that once I start on a project I work well past the 15 minutes But knowing that I’m ‘allowed’ to quit gets me started.

By: Trisha Findaly

Trisha Findaly — Mon, 25 May 2009 23:42:28 +0000

Thank you for this post and all the comments. I am going to buy a battery for my timer today!!! I just loved reading “the Creative Habit” by Twyla Tharp. She write about the need for structure around creativity

By: ozquilter

ozquilter — Thu, 21 May 2009 00:44:09 +0000

Thanks for this really thought provoking piece, like all the others here, I create art and work full time and have a busy and active family and friendship life and therefore the art creating suffers.

I am going to try your method, I will put aside time and note times spent because at the moment nothing is happening in my studio except the growth of dust on the fabric!

By: Laure

Laure — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:37:52 +0000

You’re talking to my heart, singing my song!

I have found that without goals nothing is obtained. Without schedules nothing happens. Art simply fades away.

Rather than stressing on the weeks I have not been able to “meet” my goals, I celebrate what I did accomplish as it’s all good!

Thanks for the reminders, and for being the living, breathing example that it can be done!

By: Jo

Jo — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:49:41 +0000

Thanks for writing about what I feel is the answer to my problem. I’m product oriented but since retirement I’ve had a terrible time getting the work done that I expect from myself. I’m not setting the long range and the short term goals that I once did, and working in the midst of all my home responsibilities gives me all kinds of excuses not to work at what I really want to do. Thanks to you I will spend some time writing out attainable goals and start working with a timer and a work chart. I play a game with myself using my timer to clean up my studio… set the timer for 30 minutes and work as fast as I can picking up and putting away. That works well, so why not do the same with my painting?

By: Caroline

Caroline — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:44:47 +0000

Hi Lisa,
This entry (and the ones from 2008) are very helpful for me. During the school year I have an external structure that helps me get in the studio, but over the summer that all falls apart. I am going to try tracking my time in my sketchbook because I think that will help. I too need structure and I am beginning to think that I need to impose a strict schedule on myself. Floaty gets me nowhere.

I like that you also track the specific quilt you worked on – does that help you with pricing?

By: Jeanne Beck

Jeanne Beck — Wed, 20 May 2009 13:52:43 +0000

Hi Lisa, I subscribed to your blog several months ago and share your commitment to living an art-centered life. Creating a structure to spend 15 hours a week in the studio again will certainly fuel the new directions you’ve started exploring.

I hope you will continue to share your insights into the question in your last post about identifying what it is you want. Self-reflection and adjusting the “map” seem to reoccur periodically for me too. Since we can manifest whatever we desire, that makes choosing what we want to set in motion important, so I’ve also been asking myself, what are my truest desires for my life as an artist?

The answers to that seem to evolve and change. Right now for me it is boiling down to focusing on refining and advancing my work.