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Life keeps us busy. If we aren’t careful, the time you’d rather spend drawing is easily stolen by errands or meeting friends. It feels impossible to be productive, with such limited time drawing.
I felt this restlessness last week, with too many things distracting me from my NSFW art. Sometimes, I’d only be drawing for 15 minutes before having to run off and meet someone.
But what if the time limit didn’t mean anything to begin with?
In the book Compound Effect (affiliate), Darren Hardy talks about how the little things stack up. Our habits set the foundation for our futures. For example, your $4 daily latte habit seems small at the moment, but amounts to $1,459 annually!
Is it possible the Compound Effect works with your time as well? I decided to find out.
The Time Keeping Experiment
Instead of waiting for the perfect day to get some work done (surprise, it never came), I drew whenever I could.
Whether an hour in the morning, or 5 minutes at a friend’s place, I tracked the time I spent drawing over the week. I wanted to know if these small drops would amount to something big, as The Compound Effect claimed.
| Monday (2 hours) | Tuesday (2h 30m) | Wednesday (2h 20m) | Thursday (3h) | Friday/Saturday (3h 40m) |
| 7:14-7:30AM (16m) | 7-8:10AM (70m) | 6:51-7:34AM (43m) | 12:55-1:28AM (32m) | 10:17-10:32PM (14m) |
| 11:44-12:17PM (32m) | 10:05-10:52AM (46m) | 8:49-9:15AM (26m) | 2:47-3:01AM (14m) | 7:17-7:47AM (30m) |
| 12:28-1:06PM (38m) | 11:41-12:17AM (35m) | 9:28-10:07AM (39m) | 3:03-3:15AM (12m) | 7:49-8:04AM (15m) |
| 11:07-11:43PM (36m) | 10:46-11:19AM (32m) | 11:25-12:17PM (52m) | 8:08-8:14AM (6m) | |
| 10:57-12:04AM (66m) | Edited for Space (163m) |
Sometimes I was working as little as 15 minutes, and sometimes as long as an hour and a half. The erratic sessions might seem ineffective, but surprisingly, it was the opposite.
I finished two sKetch commissions at $220, while continuing WIPs for other commission works.
Despite the evidence, you might not be convinced. Isn’t it counter-productive to draw for such short periods of time? Surely, it’s better to wait and spend a free day drawing?
The Value of Your Time
I used to think drawing longer meant more productivity, more things done. But I forgot to factor in the value of my time.
When I only had a short time to draw, it created urgency, pushing me to be totally focused. It gets harder to maintain this focus for long stretches of time.
This mindset of shorter more valuable time pushed me to hire a colorist. A few months ago, I would have protested, claiming “you’re wasting money you could have kept!”
But consider what you gain: An hour to spend on your passion project. An hour to spend on marketing and networking. An hour to rest. An hour not spent on tedious and mind-numbing work.
I’d say that’s time and money well spent.
Work with Intention
None of this will work if we let distractions steal our focus away.
Timing forces consciousness of what we’re doing. As The Compound Effect asserts, conscious action leads to achieving our goals. If we’re still clicking to YouTube or social media despite the ticking timer, then there’s a distraction issue to overcome.
Undoubtedly, it’s hard for us to disconnect. Social media is our lifeblood. It’s where we find work, companionship, affirmation, entertainment, sexy stuff, and more.
But we need to learn how to get our work done, when we need to. Because it’s not the shitposts or the twenty daily tweets that will get us to our goals.
It’s putting our heads down and working at our craft.
I consider Cal Newport’s Deep Work (affiliate) an essential read for any aspiring creative. Being able to do Deep Work will give you an edge over your competitors and peers.
Whenever I hear my classmates grumble about not having enough time for homework… Well, it’s probably not a time issue.
We all have the same 24 hours. How much of it do you spend on the things you want to spend it on?
Moving Forward…
It’s easy to preach, so I encourage you to try tracking your time. Just one week.
Download Toggl. Create a new entry and name it whatever you want. Each time you sit down to draw, start tracking.
Our goal isn’t to get more hours in (though that’d be nice). It’s to become conscious of our time and what we do when we’re supposedly working.
The value of your time is important. Join me and track your time spent drawing, for a week. Click To TweetAfter your week, let me know how things change for you. Does it become easier to do the work once you click start? Do you consciously stay away from YouTube and Twitter, making your time more productive? Will you make timing a part of your routine?
Tweet me @hbeatsart to stay accountable, or join the NSFW Artists Guild server to tell us how it goes.
Cheers, Beats.