[neil-brideau]

So, my restaurant closed on Wednesday, I'm helping pack up through Tuesday, as we'll be moving to a new kitchen soon to reopen as a catering & wholesale company...but then I'm unemployed until we've got a space.

So I figured I'd set up a schedule for work as a comic artist. It's pretty vague, but I'm hoping it helps me stay on task and get work done. The work after dinner can be sketching, writing, storyboarding or binding books, which I can do on the sofa with roommates, friends and my special lady friend. I've specifically got me doing two hours of drawing for my webcomic at the beginning of the day, so I can get back into publishing that regularly.

Does anyone else do something like this. It's half how I operate, half borrowing from Alec Longstreth's Schedule. Also, if any of y'all professionals got any advice on scheduling, let's hear it.

[Lieutenant Lava]

I'm no professional by any stretch of the imagination... But here's what I do!

I work super-butt-ass-early. So after work I run errands, then go home and work on one of three projects. I'm only allowing myself three at a time because a) I would go crazy and I would get nothing done. So I write on my calendar each project, and they rotate throughout each week. (I.E. a) binding, writing or c) drawing in your case)

At first I thought I would gain steam on one project and just want to plow ahead, which does happen (especially with deadlines!) but giving myself a few days to wait and come back to it and see, "Does that face really look weird?" or "She'd never say that!" It's sleeping on it plus two.

The other thing I love about this schedule is that it rotates projects onto my weekend, so that I have two days, one for each project, with one that has to wait a week and one that gets a full day the next weekend. Since after work I'm usually a lazy bum, the weekends are where I cram a bunch in and can really try and get a page a day finished. But if you don't have a job, just pick the time you work best and pretend that you're going to work. For me, that's always what lights the fire under my ass. I think, jeez, I am able to force myself to wake up at ungodly hours, commute and stay somewhere for 9 or 10 hours to work on making somebody else rich. Why can't I spend those same hours doing something meaningful to me that makes me happy? Sometimes that argument doesn't work, though!

All this being said, I do allow for whims. If I want to break my cycle, I remind myself that it's not set in stone... and that I should allow myself days off for sanity's sake.


Also, the book The Creative Habit; Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp is really awesome. I recommend it times infinity!


OH! And don't forget to reward yourself for your accomplishments! Super important!

[neil-brideau]

Awesome! I salute you sir. I've been writing myself notes on how to act during my days, and the first thing I wrote was "This is a job." I go on to encourage myself to work to please my boss (not content wise, but more work ethic-wise), and that I am not my boss.

I'm going to keep a list of my bosses on a separate sheet of paper, such as existing readers, potential readers, my parents, my younger sister, my other siblings, my friends, my peers in the comics world, reviewers, comic book store owners, my mood. If I keep up a good work ethic, my output will improve, and hopefully impress all those folks, plus others.

I'm not a kiss up, but I like to make others happy, far more than myself, that's why I'm not assigning myself as a boss, 'cause if it's just me I'm trying to make happy, forget about it, I wont feel as motivated.

But as for your revolving assignments system, I wonder if I should assign work more, like:

Two hours for Sock-Monster
Four hours for my next Mini Comic
One hours contacting comic book stores, mailing samples to peers, reviewers and heroes
Two hours of story development
One hours of binding & miscellaneous work
Two hours fighting invading invisible alien armies.

This post has been edited by neil-brideau: 28 March 2009 - 05:23 AM

[lizbaillie]

I would definitely recommend not concentrating on more than one project in a day, unless you happen to finish something one day and want to fill the rest of the time up (which sometimes happens). I find it works better, mentally speaking, to organize my time that way. When I try to do a lot of little things from different projects in one day it can break my brain.

I have several different schedules written out - one for the whole year with deadlines for when I want to get everything done for the whole year, then one for every month which breaks it further down, and then every week I write a new one for the week breaking down what I'm gonna do each day, and then if I'm feeling overwhelmed, I break down the day into hours and decide how I'm gonna spend my time that way, sometimes I even set alarms so I don't forget when to stop one thing and move on to the next).

Over time, I've figured out the best hours for me to work, which are 12-8pm and I try to stick to that. Sometimes I am able to start earlier, but on weekdays most of the time my mornings are taken up by exercise, errands and/or bullshit like watching YouTube. Either way, I like to get all that extra stuff out of the way BEFORE I start working, because otherwise I'll feel distracted by thoughts of "what ELSE do I have to do today?" and if I get all my internet surfing and bullshitting and errands done early in the day, I don't feel as compelled to check my email every five seconds (not that I don't still frequently do that, haha).

Once you get a routine worked out, it makes everything a LOT easier. I also find that heavy morning exercise first thing helps too, because it gets me all fired up and whatnot. Better than coffee (though coffee also helps)! But I understand that not everybody wants to wake up at 5:30am to jump around and kick people every day.

[neil-brideau]

Hooray, I was hoping you'd put your two cents in, Liz.

I've definitely been thinking about making more long-term schedules. Hopefully (only from a financial standpoint) this'll only last about a month. But, hopefully it'll get me back into a good work schedule I used to have.

It'll also be good training for the day I've saved up enough to either take a sabbatical from work for a year or two, and either be a comics-maker full time, or go to school for comics.

I'm about to start my first day at this job, so wish me luck!
More advice is welcome.

[chrisruggia]

Indeed! The very best of luck! In fact, I will offer you this day's supply of my own luck to see you off on a good footing.

[neil-brideau]

I'm on my lunch break right now, and things are going well. Yesterday I drew and updated my dormant web-comic, and designed some buttons for Stumptown, then I worked the rest of the day on an illustration for AREA Chicago that is kicking my butt. At 5:45 I took a break, and picked my girlfriend up from work, and made dinner for a bunch of friends. I didn't really do much after dinner, except upload the webcomic and ordered the buttons. But I've been at work all day. This feels good. Gotta go wash some dishes and get back to work.