Organize Your Creative Time and Focus on What Matters Most
by Thea Fiore-Bloom, PhD
Are you an artist who struggles with priorities for your art practice?
Let’s start with today, for example.
Should you be:
- Posting to Facebook
- Making a reel on Instagram*
- Creating an art marketing video on our smartphone
- Pinning on Pinterest
- Working on SEO
- Writing a quick blog post
- Re-envisioning your newsletter
- Making art in your studio
- Or perhaps you want to collapse in a heap of overwhelm?
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“Stella Maris,” egg tempera on board by artist and Charmed Studio subscriber Jane E. Ward.
Let me help you out of that overwhelming pit we all fall into.
Because I just discovered a quick, effective way to identify what truly matters to us in our current creative work.
A way to help us know what to focus on next, to try to let it come to pass.
It’s a simple exercise mentioned in Amy Porterfield’s podcast interview with Kate Northrup.
This “experiment,” as Northrup calls it, is taken from her book Do Less.
The exercise, which I’ll share with you in a minute, is based on a theory all artists should know about.
It’s called the Pareto Principle.
The Pareto Principle and Your Priorities
The Pareto principle, aka the 80/20 rule, is an economic theory that states that 80% of your best business gains usually come from just 20 % of your actions.
So, if we want more results and less stress in our art business, we should identify which actions fall into that 20% category.
I thought it would be another boring exercise, but the answers I got shocked me.
I hope you get good info too.
Get Clear on Priorities with Glinda the Good Witch
When I did this exercise, it was as if Glinda the Good Witch flew in my office window and made me drink truth serum.
I say Glinda because she is the figure in the Wizard of Oz that author L. Frank Baum used to remind readers of an important thing.
That being:
The answers to the life questions we run around asking others have been inside us all along.
Want Glinda to hook you up, too?
Ok, here we go.
Northrup’s 5-Step Exercise To Unveil Your Top Priorities
Priorities for Artists 1st Step
Take a piece of paper and draw a line vertically down the middle.
Priorities for Artists 2nd Step
On the left, make a list of stuff you spend time on every day during the course of the last few weeks.
(For people like us, that may involve making art, writing in a journal, writing a blog, entering art competitions, posting your art to Facebook, working your day job, watching cute cat videos, and the occasional drooling into a cup.)
Priorities for Artists 3rd Step
Now, on the right side of the paper, write down your biggest wins to date.
“Big wins are relative, but everyone has some,” Northrup said.
Big wins for creatives include things like:
- Launching your art website
- Getting your first 10 subscribers
- Landing an artist-in-residence gig
- Having your art up in a cafe
- Having an author agree to be in your documentary
- Or finally getting up the guts to start introducing yourself as an artist or writer to people.
Priorities for Artists 4th Step
Go ahead and draw a line between each win on the right side of the page and the activity on the left-hand side of the page that had something to do with that win coming about.
For example, your left side of the page activity of taking a daily walk could be connected to your right side page win of starting that new painting series based on the double helix.
How is that connected?
Because it is on your morning walks that you got the idea for that series in the first place.
But take note, if you are like me, there will be a whole heck of a lot of daily activities on the left-hand side of the page that never have a connecting line from the right side of the page come anywhere near them.
It’s an embarrassing but illuminating moment.
Priorities for Artists’ Final Step
Circle the activities on the left side that do have a line connected to them.
They are your 20% activities.
They are the actions you’ve identified as helping you get closer to your heart’s desires.
How To Figure Out Great Priorities for Your Art Practice, Starting Today
“What you will be left with is a list of the 20 percent of things you need to front-load your day with,” Northrup said.
Northrup teaches you can keep doing much of the 80% mundane stuff on your list.
Just shoot to do it later in the day.
In other words, try doing the things that bring you closer to your heart’s desire in your peak productivity times.
You know, those 2 hours every day when you focus clearly.
That time slot when you tend to produce your best work.
Sounds logical, doesn’t it?
Why not devote our best hours to tasks that align with our dreams?
What Will Your Results Be?
What was my 20% activity?
Paid classes.
This surprised me.
Because paid classes, especially higher-ticket ones, were things I had mistakenly felt guilty about spending money on (like a video series on how to improve my website SEO, or Coaching Courses), were some of the very things bringing in my big wins.
The exercise is causing me to participate in those activities in a new way.
With less guilt.
Renewed vigor.
When I am working on online classes now, instead of thinking ‘Ooh, I shouldn’t be doing this,’ I’m like “Yes, this is helping me meet my dreams.”
I’ll be consulting Miss Good Witch again in the future as things change.
What will Glinda tell you?
Do you feel overwhelmed with social media marketing choices?
Up for talking to Glinda and sorting out your priorities?
I’d love to know in the COMMENTS below. 🙂
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This post may contain Amazon affiliate links. This means if you buy books or stuff via my blog I may receive a tiny commission and do a happy dance. There is no extra fee for you. I only link to items I personally use and love; products that I think help heart-centered artists.
Hello again from your loyal follower, Aruna! 😊
Thank you for introducing me to this simple yet effective exercise. This easily lets one understand what is working and what is perhaps 2nd or 3rd priority.
My 20% turned out to be painting.. surprise, surprise! Social media being the least rewarding.
However, I would like to keep pushing forward, add a couple of other activities to my priority action items, and see if they add any value. Thanks again!
Aruna, it is so cool and informative to hear the results you got for yourself. And I do find it delightfully refreshing to hear your 20% activity (the activity you do that promotes the biggest wins) is actually painting. And so cool to hear that the least effective thing you spend your valuable time on is social media. Wow. Wow. Wow. Me too!
But what will all the art biz gurus say? They will be on the fainting couch, lol! How will they all continue to make money promoting business classes for artists – if all us artists decide to spend more time gleefully making art and less time promoting it?!
Exactly, Thea! You nailed it with your point about all the marketing fluff out there. It seems like some are just taking advantage of artists who are desperate or unsure of how to make a living.
While those tactics might work in the short term, real, lasting success comes from strong work that can stand on its own.
That said, some level of marketing is necessary since art doesn’t sell itself. Now that I have a better handle on my art-making, I’m focusing on finding the right balance between creating and marketing. And I believe marketing doesn’t have to be spammy or cringe-worthy—it can actually be a creative and enjoyable process, just like you said and been doing it!
So glad you are finding more confidence and becoming aware that you have a wonderful sense of what your balance needs to be between creating art and putting art out into the world. Thanks very much for your comments, they are affirming.
One more thing that just occurred to me Thea, is that the method you offered can be fine-tuned. For instance, out of all the activities I’ve engaged in, focusing on my art creation and painting has brought me the most success. But this clarity didn’t come overnight—I had to experiment with various art-related activities and make mistakes before discovering what truly worked, and there’s still more to learn. The same principle can apply to my marketing efforts. I might try a range of strategies, but some will prove more effective than others. What works for one person might not work for another, as it depends on the situation and individual. Nonetheless, this method offers valuable insights.rs a simple way to look at and focus on the top 20% of activities that are yielding the max results!
I couldn’t agree more Aruna! There is a wisdom that is only born of experience, trial and error. yes!
And every individual artist is different. We all have an ideal balance that is not like anyone else’s. And our own unique inner fulcrums are not set in cement, they change as we change. And we do change -we change a lot, especially as we enter the second half or final third of life. We mature and need to honor a new set of inner dictates that lets go of approval, and that lets go of the hell-bent-for-leather type of sales and marketing froth. We begin to want to foster a wisdom-informed autonomy, a new exigency, a new firmer belief in our own deeply felt way of seeing and seeking.
Hearing about your thought process through this exercise is very enlightening. Thanks for sharing it with me and the rest of The Charmed Studio. I appreciate you.
Hey Thea – great to revisit this idea since you released an updated podcast on it! Quite timely for me, since I’m in the midst of repositioning. I find I have many practical matters distracting me and weighing me down – yet with this exercise I’m able to focus on the few truly important things. Thank you for …well… you!
Thanks for coming all the way over from podcast land to here to leave me this note. Much appreciated. Yes there are so many things we could focus on as we make a huge, important shift in our lives. Have you ever read Tim Ferriss’ The 4 Hour Work Week? As Steve Chandler says, ” That book can get you to see that your NOT-TO-DO list is even more important than your to-do list. DO NOT DO all that off-mission stuff that has been cluttering up your past days.” Each time I do this 80/20 exercise I see embarrassingly clearly how much stuff I do that has nothing to do with creative joy or service or health or prosperity….like in my case…Pinterest. Which no longer is creative or enlivening for me or my business since the algorithm/advertising changes. But anyway back to you. Kudos to you for being bold and re-evaluating what works as you reposition your life! You are an inspiration for me, as usual.
Thea, thank you for sharing this.I just completed the exercise.It was quite an eye opener! I have been feeling overwhelmed lately with non art related things. I would do them first and then ended up not having enough energy for anything related to art. Your article helped me change my game plan!
So glad you tried this out Sylvia and let me know. I had the same reaction as you, quite an eye opener for me as well. I was surprised to see that online courses ( something I thought of previously as a distraction from my work) proved to be the key to my biggest wins lately. If you feel comfortable sharing, what did you come up with?
I chuckled when I read your reply! I recently signed up for an online course in order to “get my groove back”. (I had been absent from SM for health reasons).It worked! I have taken many courses over the years ,never feeling that they were a distraction. Not only do I learn new techniques but they also inspire me. I just make sure that I do not “copy” the teachers style. That would be detrimental.
I will have to try this! It will be interesting to see what is on the page. Thanks!
Do try it, let me know if you come up with anything helpful for yourself. I was shocked to see that the geeky classes I was taking in SEO were really changing things in my life. You never know till you do the exercise as honestly as possible. It can be like a time management oracle. 🙂
This is wonderful for anyone trying to create! I really need this. Thank you so much. I will also pass it on to the many who need help with their priorities. Which is everyone I know!
Thanks Denise for the vote that the topic is relevant. Yay! I am not the only one lost in the woods of my own day. 🙂
Great stuff Thea! I need all the help I can get in discerning what info is worthwhile and what is not. Like expecting a tiny flow from a drinking fountain and then getting a firehose blast. Or two!
So happy you got something out of the post. I have been trying the part about frontloading my day with high priority work, and when I remember to do it, I feel calmer and more productive all day. You are doing great. Keep going with your important film project.
This is excellent!
I thought for certain I knew what my priorities would be. For the most part I was right, however I snarkily put “Attending social events” (ie networking) on my “time spent” list because there have been a lot of them lately and as an introvert I find them exhausting and time consuming. I greedily thought this exercise would excuse me from attending them.
Lo and behold (to my surprise) it had lines connecting to almost ALL my recent big wins. Whoa. Thank you. I will definitely view that particular activity in a different light.
Ha ha ha, awesome! You do get good info on what you dread Anvil. I put in some snarky/funny stuff like that too! And I was hoisted (or is it foisted) on my own petard as well! And check this out:
It was surprising and affirming to see stuff I felt guilty about spending money on (like good online classes) were connected to things bringing in big wins. The exercise is causing me to participate in those activities in a new way. With less guilt. Renewed vigor.When I am working on them now I’m like, “yeah this is helping me meet my dreams” instead of ” ooh I shouldn’t be doing this.( I just added that passage back in the post, I had a longer section on my results in there initially.)
Thank you for reading and affirming my experiences with it too.:)
Thea, this is a great post- better than the quad grid. Much more accurate and less subjective –
Quad Grid = (You put a cross in the center of your page creating 4 boxes. Write the words at the top of each box
Upper left box – Urgent & Important
Upper right box – Urgent & Unimportant
Lower left box – Not Urgent & Important
Lower right box – Not Urgent & Not Important)
Thanks,
Louise
So glad you liked it. Yes the exercise lets you uncover connections you haven’t consciously put together before. And the directions are sparse enough to not give it all away. By that I mean you can’t easily front load the system to get the answers you want as you can in other exercises.