So my words have been absent from my blog for some time now – this is simply due to the sheer amount of work I’ve been doing.
Quite a few bits of album artwork, t-shirt design, poster design, web design, even a bit of 3D rendering! Exciting stuff!
Though it has made me more than a little exhausted on a few occassions.
I just have to ask my clients to extend their patience for me as being a sole-trader my time can so quickly get eaten up. Even with good day and time management, projects overrun, short requests set things back as minutes add up to hours. And I love to help people wherever I can, it can just get very hard to meet self imposed deadlines sometimes.
So here’s my advice (although I’m still far from perfect – I’m improving with these little practices lately) – Lists. I write so many lists trying to remember everything I’ve agreed to do.
I have an overarching list of work to do, and then I write a daily list of what I should be able to achieve. The tough thing is to know how much to put on your daily list.
And on top of this, too much screen time can be very detrimental to your work-speed. If you can, you should always get out of the house or office, even if for only half an hour. A small walk, or sit in a coffee shop to read a magazine. Anything to give your mind a break and the chance to think about something totally different.
Next comes a case of prioritising – sometimes it’s dependant on who the client is, what they’re time restrictions are, what the budget is, and how long the work will take. Sometimes a client will offer to pay more than the quote if their work can get done sooner. While in theory this is sound, and is akin to working overtime in an office, in practice it can throw all of my planning and lists out of the window for the following number of days and weeks. Sometimes the money is necessary to be able to keep working on the artwork projects that I really love doing.
Incidentally more artwork samples will be posted very soon!
Joe