So I decided to grow up and start using a planner. I don’t know why but I’ve always felt that people who use a planner or bullet journal really have their shit together and I am not that kind of human. I’ve played around with planners in the past. I love the idea of drawing out the pages and making them pretty with colored pens and stickers and such but the reality is I start one page, misspell something or put a line down wrong and I’m like: That’s it! It’s ruined! Throw the whole book away! But I’m determined to cringe my way through the bad handwriting and poorly drawn straight lines this time and if I can’t let go of the perfectionism I can just put a sticker over it!
Another thing that has stopped me from planning is I don’t really have that much on my schedule, to be honest. Like my day is not packed with appointments and I’m not about to write down my grocery list or some mundane stuff that I don’t really care about. (TBF my husband does all the shopping and I don’t have to worry about it :P) Some people are just amazingly organized like that but I know I won’t stick with a book based around chores and appointments. But I do have a few balls in the air. I’m self-employed (non-art stuff), doing this painting thing, trying to write about it somewhat regularly, and very into my reading list this year.
One thing I am interested in keeping track of is: what is a good use of my time and what is a waste? Is it worth it to post my art on Instagram or would my time be better spent writing more on the blog and/or learning to post on YouTube? I feel like the Insta ship has sailed but I’ve never really thrown myself into it. I mostly find video/photo focused social media apps boring. Short-form content just doesn’t feel rewarding or interesting. So I can’t get into TikTok either but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t use them, does it? We’re constantly told as artists or self-employed people: promote, promote, promote! But is it working? Is it worth it?
I’m going to make a plan, track the results for a couple of months and find out if I should throw in the towel on social media or stick with it. I want to make some concrete decisions in 2024 about my time. Like why am I spending an hour reading Facebook in the morning when there’s nothing interesting there? Is it more rewarding to sit down with my planner or journal for 30 mins and then get in an extra 20 mins of reading before I start my day? This morning I snuck in 10 pages of East of Eden while on the elliptical and that feels like such a better start to the day than building discontent via Twitter doom scrolling. Btw Twitter is absolutely trash now isn’t it? I’m so bitter about it, but anyway..
Another thing I want to track to make myself accountable for is getting up early every Wednesday and getting in two hours of painting or other art work before leaving for “real” work. It’s so, so hard to drag my ass outta bed at 6am but I find I get so much done in those early two hours. I’m focused, right to work, and I end up feeling like I had a full day of painting. Having that mid-week dedicated art time also makes it easier for me to get through the real work day. Being self-employed it’s a little too easy to bail and leave work early at the slightest provocation lol. Allowing myself dedicated art time makes me stick with the dedicated work time.
With these things in mind, I started planning the planner in Dec. And guess what, I immediately screwed it up royally lol. Writing too fast, messed up my little squares, wrote notes on the completely wrong date *smacks head*. Well luckily for this test run I used an old Rhodia journal that I already tried and failed to bullet journal in so all the mess and trials went in there. It definitely took some experimenting to plan out my pages. To find that balance between enough room to write a meaningful amount of info and wanting to have the month at a glance.
A few of the things I’m tracking are my reading plans since I joined The Hardcore Literature Book Club patreon. Ben has an amazing reading list for us for 2024. Not sure if I can tackle them all. Right now I’m reading War and Peace and have to get in only 20 pages a day to keep the pace I have scheduled. Since I’ve done the math and started to track pages, I feel good about being able to finish it before the club starts their next book. (They’re starting the year with East of Eden. Amazing book that I’ve read twice so I think I can finish out War and Peace and just dip into EofE and be all caught up by Feb.) I may also track what new books I buy this year and why. I tend to buy books well in advance of reading them, like years, and it might be interesting to look back and see what motivated me to originally purchase. It’s usually in connection with some other book, a rabbit hole situation.
After the book tracking, I have week at a glance pages that I want to use to keep track of how much painting/drawing I am doing and to write down any outings that lead to new ideas and inspiration. I think if I look back and see that every time I go to the park, the city, or just take a walk, I come back with a new idea that will encourage me to get up and outta the house. I’m always wanting to spend my weekends painting, painting, painting. But recharging is important, maybe even more so than I think.
I plan to have a page listing completed paintings but I’m a pretty slow painter so not sure if this will be encouraging or discouraging. Either way, I guess it will give me the truth of the situation regarding how much time I’m painting vs how often those hours turn into a completed piece. It might also be worth taking some notes on my satisfaction level with the completed work and where I’m going next. Of course, I don’t want too much journaling in the bullet journal, it’s really just for short notes and my art journal is for deeper thoughts. Another aspect that will be a balancing act.
Which leads me to get organized with my art journaling and blogging. I have a big book I’ve been regularly writing in for a few months and I realized that the art journaling and blogging really go together. Most of my journaling would be too boring to publish but some of it can definitely be turned into blog posts. For some reason in the past these two things have been very separate in my head. My 2024 goal will be to journal twice a week at least and blog twice a month. Like painting, I find I have to write when inspiration strikes. That means just getting the laptop open and starting a draft no matter what time of day it is, saving the editing for later. I’d like to look into a good dictation app too. I’ve used Notes a few times and it’s so much easier just to talk into the phone, especially when you’re on the go. I find driving to work is a great time to dictate thoughts. But that damn Notes app sucks. It constantly stops recording and saves the craziest sentences that I cannot even decipher later lol.
Alongside the weekly layout I have some little boxes for tracking SM posts, blog drafts and posts, work stuff like taking photos, listing new products, and newsletters, and then exercise. I’m a little hesitant to put my “real” work stuff in here because then I have to actually do the things, ugh. But it’s probably a must. There are actually a lot of steps and little things that need keeping track of and it’s pretty easy just to never get around to it when the only one who will complain is yourself lol. 2024 the year of adulting I guess.
In the past, it always feels like I only have time for one thing. Either I’m painting like a maniac and so in flow OR I’m “working” really hard and finally getting stuff done OR I’m gonna tackle social media this time and post every week OR I’m really going to get back into blogging it’s 2009 all over again! What I need is a little bit of all those things. Hoping this little book can help me find a balance.