Advice for H

Question (paraphrased): I am having trouble balancing my full time job and completing personal work. How do you stay productive when there's so much going on?

Step 1: Define the personal work and its challenges in concrete terms

Start with a detailed time-specific end goal. Some examples:

• Create a professional 2D character and environment concept art portfolio by April 15 of this year (before another batch of art school graduates flood the job market).
• Complete the Studio X design test in time to respond to peer-critique and submit it before the end of this month.
• Update my online portfolio with my collected new work, including WIP, by 6:00 PM this Sunday.

List the obstacles or challenges you face. Some examples:

• I work full time and live on my own. I never seem to have time to draw and when I do, I don’t like the results.
• I have varied interests and social obligations that consume all of my free time.
• I am in a creative rut and can’t seem to muster the energy to work, even when I am free.
• I am stressed at work and have been working long hours, leaving me too exhausted to create, let alone take care of myself.
• I binge on media (social and streaming entertainment) and before I know it, the night/weekend is gone.

Step 2: Review the work to ensure it is solvable and worth solving

Is the scope of the problem within your ability (skills and resources) to accomplish? If not, break it into smaller pieces that you can accomplish directly. Some examples:

• I want to be a 2D concept artist, but have limited knowledge of the profession and beginner drawing skills.
• New goal: Search for open concept art roles and study the job descriptions. Reach out to hiring studios about those positions and apply to art school for fall semester of this year.
• I haven’t completed an original design before, so the Studio X test is daunting.
• New goal: Search the forums for my current favorite games (Shooter X and Online World Y) and find a mod team working on a project that will be finished in 6 or fewer months and is willing to let me design encounters or a puzzle for it.
• My works exist in several media and images of them either don’t exist or are scattered across several devices.
• New goal: Photograph all ceramic pieces and undocumented paintings. Collect all images and place them in my cloud account by the end of the month. Curate photos, edit for web, and post final portfolio images (30-50 jpgs) by the end of next month.

Now ask yourself, would solving the problem lead to a situation you actually want to be in? Identify sunk-cost fallacies, living up to other people’s expectations (but not your own), and decisions that may lead to regret. Modify or get rid of goals that have these kinds of problems. A couple examples:

• I got a degree in illustration, so I feel obligated to pursue it, but my true passion is for character animation – I love how people express themselves through online game characters and I want to be part of that. I feel like a 2D concept art position would leverage my training and give me some opportunity to be involved in character design, but I’m not sure.
• My mentor is breathing down my neck about wasting my talent so that’s really the only reason why I’m pursuing a design role I feel unqualified to pursue. Honestly, I’m happiest when I’m not in front of the computer.

By the end of this step, some of the challenges you listed in Step 1 should have been addressed. Maybe you don't like the result of your work, because it isn't currently solvable. Maybe a lack of a clear goal is what makes you susceptible to social distractions. The problems that remain will be addressed in the following steps.

Step 3: Create a schedule, constantly update it, and follow it

Planning is now possible with a goal that is within scope, worth solving, and has a known end date.

Every day has 24 hours, a total of 168 hours per week. Write down how much time you need for everyday essential activities and weekly tasks. Example:

• Sleep 7 hours per day
• Meals, grooming, etc. 3 hours per day
• Work 8 hours per workday
• Travel 1 hour per day
• Laundry 1 hour per week
• Exercise 3 hours per week
• Hobby class 4 hours per week

The total in this example comes to 125 hours, leaving 43 hours of free time per week. An average workday will have 4 or 5 hours available to do anything you want! Decide how much of that time you will allocate toward your goal and put it into the schedule. Any unscheduled activity (hanging out with friends, writing a blog, watching TV) must fit in the time that hasn’t already been allocated.

Once the schedule is made, look at the total time allocated. Is this enough? Assign the time available to actual tasks (e.g. 8 hours assigned to layout drawing) and verify things are going to fit. If not, you must allocate more time to your goal. Steal it from other activities by arranging to have them fulfilled in other ways (delegate) or compromised. Some examples:

• I love sleep, but honestly, I am healthy on 6 hours a day. I can wake up an hour earlier during the work week and score an extra 5 hours a week.
• I spend over an hour every morning dressing and grooming for work. If I simplify my routine I can get that done in half an hour every day.
• I’m willing to forgo any social outings during the work week for the next month.  
• Yay, my parents are coming to visit me every Sunday for the next month to cook a week’s worth of meals and do my laundry while I work on my project all weekend.

Step 4: Firefight (solve problems as they arise).

Your best plans are laid to waste as progress comes too slow and unforeseen work has arisen. You must identify priorities, correct time-wasters, and find time.

Triage activities to cut excess work (assign degree of importance/urgency). Look at the individual tasks within your schedule and rank from what is most essential to the least important and assign points. For example, creating the layout for a design is very important compared to adding final decorations.

Go over the list again and assign another set of points based on what must be completed before other tasks can be started. For example, to begin a character concept illustration, choosing a pose is urgent (lots of tasks depend on this) while painting highlights in the costume are not. Often your two rankings will be similar, but not always. Add the points for each task. Review the results and see how that compares to your schedule – are the tasks with most points scheduled first? Rearrange and see what still doesn’t fit in your schedule. The overage should be tasks you can live without if reach the deadline.

If essential tasks still fall outside your remaining time, you must create time –

• Reduce the number of decisions you make in a day. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are both known for wearing the same kind of clothes every day. Automatic decisions or at least simpler daily choices means more time for creative ones. Plan your weekly menu in advance rather than stare into a refrigerator each night wondering what you might have for dinner, for example.
• Automate the process of coming to the right choice. Do not rely on your intelligence or communication to get to the right decision (both of those take time and are prone to mistakes). For example, create rules in your email/messaging apps that automatically filter important messages that you must address immediately and those you can ignore until your day’s project work is complete. If you must constantly review your emails to decide what to read and which to defer, you’re wasting time.
• “Crash” an activity with more people. If you want to get a job as a 3D artist, don’t bother creating original 2D concept art. Use an existing piece of art or ask someone to do it. If you want to finish a level design, dress some key areas with decorative objects and then ask a friend to study what you did and propagate the assets in a similar fashion. In all cases, give proper credit for assistance (and if your work is part of an official studio test, be sure using help is acceptable).
• Keep an honest log of how you spend your project hours. Cut out distractions like choosing between music albums (have a predefined work playlist instead), YouTube channels, or engaging in social media.
• Repeat Step 3: review the schedule and find ways to free time from other activities, so that you can allocate more to your goal. Be aware that there is a price for hours you steal – sleep can’t be replaced later. But horse-trading is fine (I’ll do dishes for a whole week next month if my roommate will do them this week). If there’s something that needs to be done, but anybody can do it, then get somebody to do it for you (hire them if you have to), so that you can do what only you can do – create your art.

Step 5: Stay motivated

Track your creative activity and watch progress develop as the list of completed work grows. Don’t let your gut tell you what the truth is, look at your records and schedule to give you an accurate picture of what’s left to do. There is no point in worrying about an ambiguous body of work ahead – that will only stifle you. A clearly defined vision and schedule with few blind spots will give you confidence. The fog of war is your worst enemy. It will stop you in your tracks. Maintaining your vision is the only way to stay motivated and move forward with confidence.

Rest adequately. Do not burn out by working all night over and over. Schedule breaks in creative work so that you can recharge and reflect on decisions ahead.

Consider the impact of not completing the work to bring a necessary sense of urgency. What would you lose if an opportunity slipped through your fingers? What would a delay to achieving your goals mean? What benefits are in it for you, should you complete your goal on time and at the quality level you envisioned?

Talk about your goal with friends. Your passion will reinforce itself and their response to it will support you when you need it.

Step 6: Pay it forward

When you’ve reached your goal and someone asks you for advice on how you did it, provide it.