3 Ways to Perfect Your To Do Lists (for Creative Types)

THE POWER OF TO DO LISTS

Artists are stereotyped as being super quirky, always late, fashion-forward, unorganized, and people seem to think we’ve always got our head in the clouds.

But that isn’t (all) true.

We can be totally organized and have super productive days, too. We can work on our latest projects bit by bit everyday, all while keeping up with marketing, vendor events, and commissions — not to mention the hustle and bustle of life.

It all starts with a great to do list.

If you plan your day ahead of time, you’ll wake up knowing exactly what you plan to do, when, and how much you’ll get done. At the end of the day you’ll be able to see how much you’ve accomplished so you can give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. Or you’ll see how much you actually don’t do in a day, so you can start to consider how to better manage your time.

But there are simple strategies to writing a good to do list to make sure you’re actually getting more done — creative type or not.

1. WRITE DOWN ALL YOUR PLANS

Put down everything that you actually want to make a priority that day. Include tasks like walking the dog, mopping the floors, or stopping by your granny’s to give her that painting you made her for her birthday.

If you only record the things of “most importance” like finishing that new sketch or other art and business related tasks, you’ll let those other items get in the way of your work. You’ll end up saying, “Oh, I’ll get to that to do list after I see Granny.” Or you’ll do the classic, “I’ll clean the house first, then paint.” Then suddenly, the day has ended and your house is spotless but you never got to the list at all.

Making everything part of the list means you’re working on it all day long. You never have a chance to avoid it, because waking up is literally on the list. You’ll roll right from one thing to the next and continue from granny’s, to mopping, to painting, and by the end of the day you’ll see that your momentum carried you further than you thought. Everything you need to do that day deserves a place on the list. Don’t hide it from the list if you genuinely plan to do something (that means include scheduled naps!) Besides, those things are important too and it feels good to check more off.

2. BLOCK OUT TIME FOR EACH ITEM

Give yourself a specific timeline to follow. What time will you wake up? How much time will you spend getting ready, eating breakfast, or showering?

I find it easiest to measure everything in half hour blocks. It may take you 19.5 minutes to shower and 7 to get dressed, but that’s way too specific and we don’t need to waste our brain power calculating that out. Just write, “Get Ready – 30 minutes” and be done with it.

Block out a rough timeline for your whole day. Make sure to reference it throughout the day to see if you’re ahead or behind schedule, so you can speed up or take more time for your toughest task (you earned those extra minutes!).

This helps you stay on track by prompting quicker, timelier action with a new sense of urgency.

It also helps you learn more about yourself. If you’re blocking out 3 hours to complete an illustration but you’re constantly overstepping into the next block, maybe it takes longer for you to finish a piece than you thought. Or maybe it means you’re spending too much of that block checking your phone instead of painting. Either way, it helps you recognize your time management habits.

PARKINSON’S LAW

I want to side-step for a second to relay a theory about time management when it comes to blocking time in your to do list. It’s called Parkinson’s Law.

I forget where I read it the first time, but you can Google it and find all types of articles explaining it in full. It was created by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, a British historian and author. Basically, it’s the theory that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.

If you give yourself a week to finish that illustration, it will take all week. If you give yourself the next 24 hours, it will take you 24 hours. Of course, you couldn’t complete the same level of quality in a minute as you could in a day. But how do you know unless you try?

This principle is meant to be tested — test the limits of time for yourself. If you successfully complete a task within an hour, try 45 minutes next time. If it’s successful, try to fit it in 30 minutes, and so on, until the law reaches its breaking point. You never know how quickly you can get something done until you try.

But note: it only works if you see your deadlines as unbreakable. If you don’t care about going over the time limit, you’re truly giving yourself a bigger block than you wrote down on your list. So no cheating!

MY LIST: AN EXAMPLE

If you need an example of what these time blocks would look like, below is my to do list from last Saturday, when I had the day off work from my day job.

You’ll realize that instead of just indicating “spend an hour here,” I actually write out the start time for each task. This helps me keep track at a glance during the day as to what time it is and what time I should’ve started that last task.

• 7am – wake up, feed the dogs, make coffee
• 7:30am – lay on block, stretch legs and back
• 8am – shower, get dressed
• 9am – draw sketch for Valentine’s Day
• 10am – paint sketch
• 11am – Write out 2 emails for list
• 12:30pm – make lunch
• 1pm – walk dogs (the long way)

And you get the point.

I’ve had the same morning routine for so long though, that I’ll actually write shorthand for myself. Wake up, dogs, coffee, stretch, etc. You can do this too if you’ve got a steady rhythm going already. Otherwise I suggest writing it out. I’ll explain why:

3. IDENTIFY TASKS IN TERMS OF RESULTS

The way you write out your tasks can have a HUGE impact on how much you get done in a day. You’re essentially setting tiny goals with each task on your to do list and you want to make each one count.

For instance, I could write, “work on portrait series for 2 hours,” or I could write, “finish 3 headshot paintings for portrait series.”

The first doesn’t specify how much I’ll get done at all. I could spend the whole 2 hours adding detail and shading to a nose (when I wanted to complete 3 full headshots) — yet according to my to do list, I completed my task successfully. But it wasn’t successful at all because I just spent 2 hours getting hardly anything done.

The mini goals you set for your list have to be measurable in RESULTS, not in time. Time is just a resource you give yourself in order to achieve that result.

Some can finish a painting in 15 minutes, others in 15 hours. But they still each completed one painting.

And spending time on something is not the goal or result you want to achieve. The goal is to have 3 finished pieces created that day. So write it like that, and measure your success by if you accomplished that.

Examples:

Don’t write: Work out

Do write: Run 2 miles and do 20 situps

Don’t write: Draw at lunch

Do write: Finish the outline for new sketch at lunch

Don’t write: Go shopping

Do write: Buy new paint brush set at Blick

TO DO LISTS MAKE YOU BETTER

While it’s important to get more done in your business and hustle, it’s also important to get more done when it comes to relationships, self-care and mental health. To do lists can help you manage all that, too. I know it helps me.

I write a to do list every single day. I write down when I plan to hang out with my best friend, when I go to visit my mom at her work for lunch. I write down how much time I spend at my day job and how much time I spend relaxing at home with my boyfriend. It may seem pointless to include these parts in my list, but it’s really not.

I can look back at my lists from that month and my eyes will be opened to who in my life I’ve been neglecting. (I haven’t spent a day with my dad in a whole month!) It allows to you be proactive in changing course before a month turns into two turns into the whole season. When was the last time you had a day to treat yourself? When was the last time you gave your dogs a bath? When was the last time you went on a date with just you and the ol’ man?

You’ll know when it’s time to make time for these things. And by making a regular to do list, you’ll probably have more time in your ultra-productive day to fit them in.

So get cracking: What’s on your to do list for tomorrow?

P.S. If you liked this article, you’ll probably also love Proven Tactics to Make More Time for Art Right Now