How to Schedule: Thoughts from an Artist

By: Ann Solyst

Do you sometimes find keeping a schedule discouraging? Scheduling my time is something I have resisted much of my life.  Over the years I have associated scheduling and planning with negative feelings I had in school. Anxieties about grades, homework, and deadlines would fill my veins if I decided to put together a checklist or weekly schedule. But, as a freelance artist and someone naturally prone to daydreaming, structuring my time is essential for my productivity. Without a boss, co-workers, or strict deadlines to keep me accountable it is all too easy for time to float dreamily by until that terrible, stomach churning day when I realize I forgot something very, very important and there is almost no time to make it right.

In order to achieve my lifelong goal of being a successful freelance artist I had to overcome my childhood anxieties about scheduling my time and become the best time manager I could be. I am still learning and growing in my quest for optimum time management but want to share a little of what I have learned so far. Hopefully this post can help you achieve your time management and scheduling goals, too.

I first want to impress upon you how exceedingly helpful it is to write down a schedule. When I write my schedule for the week I am much more productive, I can stay organized, and I actually experience less stress overall. In a way it is rather empowering. I feel less like life is something I crash into every once in a while and more like something I am directing and enjoying.

When I write a schedule it is easier for me to set clear goals. Not amorphous daydream-ie ambitions of "one day I'll write a book about a duck who wears socks because his feet get cold" but clear, concrete goals. "Today I'm going to spend an hour on character sketches of Gregors, the cold footed duck". Writing a schedule also makes it easier to break large goals into manageable pieces. Instead of feeling completely overwhelmed by a mammoth sized task, I can break that task into smaller, achievable goals and spread them out over a reasonable amount of time thus turning something that was once stress-inducing and seemingly never ending into multiple, smaller somethings that are very achievable.

Which leads me to my second point. When approached with sensitivity, keeping a schedule can relieve anxiety rather than be a source of it. Organizing my time helps me stay focused. Instead of trying to think about a hundred things at once, never able to fully concentrate on the task at hand, I can be in the moment, knowing that everything will get done at its appointed time. Setting clear (and reasonable) expectations has a positive impact on my self esteem. If I haven't set a schedule or written any kind of list indicating my goals or accomplishments for the day its easy to feel like I never do enough. Let's face it, there will always be more tasks on the agenda so when there isn't a clear expectation for a given time period the default expectation is to accomplish absolutely everything. On the other hand, when I write out clearly what I want to accomplish that day I often have a sense of pride when I look back at my completed checklist. And even though there is another list for tomorrow, I can be contentedly fulfilled for today.

Which leads to my last point that not only does keeping a schedule often allow me to have more time for hobbies or just relaxing but my leisure time can be guilt free, knowing that I built it into my schedule and I accomplished a lot of work earlier in the week so I can knit in bed while watching Pride and Prejudice on my laptop to my hear's content.

So, now that I've made it clear how helpful keeping a schedule can be, I want to talk about my journey from finding schedules anxiety inducing to seeing scheduling as a way for me to make my dreams come true.

The first caveat I want you to keep in mind is planning takes practice. I think we forget that keeping a schedule is a skill and it is necessary that we should try, learn from our mistakes, and try again. By thinking of scheduling as something to be practiced and worked at over a period of time I can find my own way to successfully and sustainably plan my days, weeks, and (dare I say) life. I'm sure we have all seen the blog posts and Buzzfeed articles with titles like "10 Things Successful People Do" and "Top Tips for Productivity" and I will occasionally read those articles but I try to remember that what works for one person, or even a "successful person" (whatever that means) doesn't have to work for me. It's my life and I get to choose how to live it.

A few months ago I heard a tip on a podcast to plan your week on Friday rather than Monday. Very compelling arguments were made for this tactic and for some reason it really stuck with me. I felt like I had to plan my week on Friday or I was never going to be as productive as I should be. Thus followed a stressful month of planning my week on Friday only to have to re-plan the next Monday because I inevitably made some questionable planning decisions in my tired Friday rush to just be done with the task. Sometimes I would forget to plan on Friday altogether, thus starting off the following week already feeling like a failure. Long story short, although a very competent and organized person made some most convincing statements in favor of planning a schedule on Friday, that routine was just not working for me. 

I try to be flexible. By that I mean sometimes (or rather most of the time) my schedule doesn't go exactly according to plan and I have to shuffle a few things around. Maybe my lesson planning happens on Tuesday rather than Monday because I mis judged how much work was left on the blog (eek!). Or perhaps I forgot about a meeting and end up rushing out the door last minute, leaving that laundry to be folded another day. For whatever reason my neatly balanced schedule tumbles to the end of the week in a tousled flurry of scribbled out plans and re-worked goals.

Making reasonable adjustments is all part of the process. Writing a schedule to me is not just about rigidly obeying a specific timeline, but also about clearly seeing my priorities and making decisions accordingly. I will even schedule in buffer tasks. Things that I would love to complete but if necessary can be postponed a week. The point is it's ok for a schedule to be imperfect. As long as I try to keep track of a schedule I will be better off than if I throw my hands in the air, exclaiming in dramatic fashion "Why even bother?!"

Which brings me to my last point. Be kind to yourself. It's ok for some of your plans to go awry, for things to fall through the cracks, and for you to make mistakes that have consequences. It might be uncomfortable, stressful, and discouraging but no one is perfect. Work through the hard parts, learn from your mistakes, and always give yourself recognition for jobs well done. Even if all you did that day was make your bed.