How to be a disciplined artist

Posted by on Nov 27, 2013 in Art mentor | 7 Comments
How to be a disciplined artist

Creativity and productivity don’t always go together, but without being disciplined, how can you, as an artist, make things happen?

Resist extensive project craving

As artists, we often become obsessed about a project and a long period of time. It’s like a craving for creativity that’s eager to be fulfilled. It’s all well and good to be passionate about your project except when following happens:

  • You might exhaust your energy and abandon your project half way through
  • You might be ignoring all your other tasks that are more urgent and crucial to your success
  • You lose sight of your bigger picture after exhausting yourself

If these ever happen to you, it’s worthwhile to think about a different way to spend your craving. At the end of the day, leaving you wanting more is better than abandoning the project all together.

Build an appetite for different tasks

There are a lot more things you need to be doing apart from your art project for your art career (or any career) to succeed. But sometimes you just don’t have the appetite for things like sending an email or writing a proposal. When that happens, you have to somehow find the interest to complete these tasks. Here are few things you can do about it:

  • Plan tasks weekly. Sometimes finding a good spot to do something in a week is easier than forcing yourself to do something in a particular day or hour
  • Observe your energy level throughout the week. Start on less enjoyable / high stress tasks as soon as you spot a good burst of energy
  • Find a weekly routine (or monthly) and use habit to build an appetite for different kinds of tasks

You will do your best work when you are listening to your inner voice. Take advantage of your energy level and get things done while they are more desirable.

Schedule everything (unless you can complete it under 2 mins)

In any given week days you might be getting new tasks via emails, Facebook and before you know it, you are procrastinating. It’s great to keep yourself open for new opportunities, only when you fail your earlier promises. Sometimes there might be an urgent task which seems more important at the time, and you thought “since I’m here I’ll just quickly do this and get back to my current task later”. And before you know it, you day has finished without completing any really important and urgent tasks. The reality is, you always treat your future self better than your current self, and if you give yourself time to prioritise everything, you will end up completing more important stuff more often by the end of the week.

Focus on one thing at a time

I know it’s easier said than done. I have been there. My mind wonders all the time. I could be working on something, and then the grass start look greener in the other tasks. And then I switch between tasks, which leads to nothing gets done at the end of the day.

There are numbers of ways to help you focus on a particular tasks

  • Treat your task like a person. Imagine you are have a meeting with this task and you promise to take an hour. What do you do in the meeting? You focus on the person (task), you don’t pick up phones unless it’s more important than this person (tasks), and you have to have a very good reason if you want to postpond it.
  • Schedule your tasks like meetings. Once you start to treat your task like a person, you will start to realise you have very limited time throughout your day. “Can I finish submitting a proposal this week? Let’s see, I have an opening on Thursday afternoon at the moment, if I can’t finish it by then, I probably have to turn down some other tasks on Friday.”
  • Review your tasks daily, or even hourly. Deadline may change, things might become more important on Tuesday than Monday. Postpone everything that’s not realistic and move forward anything that can fill a small time slot. This will free your mind and make it less stressed, therefore more motivation.

So, are you a disciplined artist? What sort of system do you use to prioritise and to get things done? Do you struggle to keep focus? Let me know in the comments and perhaps I can learn from you too.

7 Comments

  1. VeronicaGlass
    November 27, 2013

    I decided to use my weakness to make stronger, can not force things to settle, I changed the description of my activities :from reality ..for disciplining my work! .. as a do something achievable with my current means to move towards what I want – as soon as possible I set up gradually all the hobbies outside my blured – it makes me quite anguished kind 🙂 I love when it happened and I start to create things – to summarize: the blur is a necessary step, it is useless to try to avoid it ..(sometimes it takes a long time)

    Reply
    • Yeok
      November 27, 2013

      When you say blur, do you mean the “extensive project craving” I mentioned in the first point? If so, yes, letting it go is the most natural way to a creative project. In fact I still do it from time to time without worrying about productivity. It only becomes a problem when I start missing deadline and not getting what I want done, or abandon project. So walk the middle line is the key.

      Reply
      • VeronicaGlass
        November 28, 2013

        yes, it means a great desire to project but not really: blur is when something product .. beyond the desire to do so, it begins before that I desired, as if various elements put in place to lead on a project – it’s special to describe 🙂 This is what, for me is an artistic blur – I have also changes around my sleep and sometimes it is very complicate – now it seems that I manage to explain this phenomenon as I did – over time I take my marks and I am able to manage what happens as artistic emotion (oups I look so weird) i don t know if is the point about your topic precisely ? i talk about your question at the end

        Reply
        • VeronicaGlass
          November 28, 2013

          the crucial difference is when time seems to cause a stress which is the opposite effect – usually creative things flow of emotions is that .. so sometimes pressure can lead to exhaustion and abandonment yes, it is not reality, but it happened a security to avoid losing creativity because I think the difference between artist and non-artist is this desire freedom no specialy wanted , so natural ..and the pressure does not mix well with freedom

          Reply
          • VeronicaGlass
            November 28, 2013

            I read your entire article: what I think is because I have to manage a family life and my artistic personality , – then what happens is that I have complications but I let ignored and I defend the fact – it is not worth breaking a process… of become the strength of the success lies in the fact that a creative person must simply be well surrounded by understanding people and kind and do not talk too much if possible as a creative person should be able to open thoughts when they go be welcomed! if everything will be turned upside down and bring a little discomfort break! So the reconstruction time is needed but sometimes too – I wrote to you as an individual experience, but there is so many things that I know in your post – so if you can afford around your artistic action, simply enjoy it – because nothing just be better – but on the other hand when you dive to the bottom of issues emerge stronger, make sure that around, something is not going to the problem – I recognize your world – it seems to be so nice! bravo!

          • Yeok
            November 28, 2013

            I woke up today and saw your comments, love the fact you have put much thoughts into it. Thanks for that and best of wishes to your art making 😀 and looking forward to many more conversation like this.

          • VeronicaGlass
            November 28, 2013

            🙂 Yes, the subject has been an inspiring source and I write a lot around .. 🙂 thank you for your nice way and your answers

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