Part 2: Creative Organization
March 2023 Blog Post
Last month, we explored what it means to be a jack-of-all-trades maker. This month, I’m going to offer more practical insights into that lifestyle.
I consider organization and time management to be one of my biggest strengths, so I have often devised different ways to make everything fit. Let’s dig into my most successful attempt at this (that I’m still using now): sprints!
Sprint Organization
I’ve never worked in tech, so I don’t know how a sprint system actually works, but I have adopted the basic concept to work for me. I choose a main project and an amount of time, and then I mainly work on that project for that amount of time. Simple, right? But less simple when you want (or need) to work on a bunch of things at once, like a jack-of-all-trades maker does.
Let’s start with how we got here. I used to divide every day up into time blocks. Two hours for this project, an hour here, three hours there. An hour for lunch. A thirty-minute break. And then the next day, completely different blocks for completely different projects. I was working on everything at once—but I was barely getting face-time with each piece of the larger puzzle. By the time I got to pick up a paintbrush, it had been five days since that last time I did it, and I was starting cold and nervous again. Finishing a piece or a project took months, since I was only giving each thing a few hours a week. It was helping me stay a little bit in touch with every medium, but it wasn’t working.
From this, I realized that really, no matter what medium I was working in, I needed larger swathes of time to dedicate to that thing. I devised the basic idea described above and started with six weeks of ceramics as my main project. But, there was still a hiccup. Yes, I was going to focus my art time on ceramics. But, I didn’t feel comfortable or willing to eschew every other medium for that long. I thought about all the kinds of work I wanted to do and chose a few that I needed to keep in touch with: illustration, writing, and sewing. Plus, I was worried about burnout, boredom, and stagnating creatively. I work best when letting all these things flow together—that’s the point!
So, I made some concessions that would span every sprint. I sew once a week, every week, for as long as I want, giving myself a weekly break from the main sprint project. I write once every weekend, usually heading to a coffee shop to spend creative time outside of my home. And, I maintain a sketchbook. It’s not feasible to combine full illustration projects alongside the sprint project, but it’s very nice to spend time close to my materials and making drawings that aren’t feeding a larger idea.
Since I started this system in 2022, I’ve completed a ceramics sprint, natural dye sprint, and am now in the cozy beginnings of a long illustration sprint. Let’s break down how you might set this system up for yourself:
Figure out which mediums may warrant a sprint. Make a nice long list! Choose the one that you’re most excited about or that most aligns with your current goals. This is your sprint.
Decide how long you’d like this sprint to be. This step is a little bit optional. I set timelines (six and four weeks) for my first two sprints because they were associated with a very specific goal I had (a shop update). Now, my illustration sprint has a much longer tentative duration of 4 months, but in a more open-ended way. I am giving myself a lot of time to dig back into this medium. The first six weeks are sketchbook based before I dig into some focused book projects. It might take longer! Figure out what kind of timeline your sprint needs.
Identify your concessions. Take your big list from step one and narrow it down. Which mediums are most important to you? Which make you feel most creative? Which process do you have the most fun with? Which is most inspirational? As a jack-of-all-trades maker, you probably don’t want to lose touch with those pieces of the puzzle.
Make your concessions. Figure out how to fit those important pieces into the sprint schedule. Do you need a day off from the main project each week? Two? Does your sprint project have a lot of down-time (like dyeing?)—maybe that’s the perfect way to pop in a concession. Do some brainstorming and some trial and error. Some of the concessions you make will probably feel like too much. Scale them back if you need to.
Every sprint, every medium, every timeline will need to be a little different. Have some grace with yourself as you figure out what’s working and what needs tweaking. Then dive in!
The Everyday
You might be thinking, “this whole system still seems like quite a lot of work and a lot of mixing of mediums and at least a little anxiety inducing.”
You’d be a little bit right. Part of my way of being a jack-of-all-trades maker is making a lot and working a lot (everyday, for a lot of hours). It’s how I like to live. It’s what makes me happy. All this stuff is what I love to do!
But, your style of sprints can be completely different. Your sprints can be years long! Maybe you can only manage one concession, or maybe you don’t need any. You can make it what you want.
You can do a lot of work every day, a little work every day, a little work every week, a little work every month. Whatever rhythm and pace suits your practice and your routines. Your sprint does not have to be fast.