Reflect, Plan, Achieve: Mastering Your Artistic Year

Megan Wimberley: 00:00:00

Hi, friends, this is Megan Wimberley with Cowgirl Artists of America. And today I want to talk about something that can make or break your entire year, and that's getting organized and planning ahead.

This is going to be a short, mini episode, and we're going to mostly focus on the big steps.

So if you want to dive deeper in planning, don't forget, if you're a member, we have some great resources for planning, and we'll have some workshops and meetups in the coming months. Let's start with step Step one. Step one is looking back on your previous year.

What I want you to do is start with your accomplishments, whether it's the number of works you created, if you learned a new skill, you improve something what you sold, any shows or awards, anything that you feel is worth celebrating. And I would even encourage you to scroll back through your calendar or your social media to make sure you're not forgetting any things.

This can be such a powerful exercise because if you're a person who's driven and constantly going from one task to the next, next without pausing, sometimes you don't realize how much you've actually accomplished, and you can start feeling a little burned out and overwhelmed and frustrated. Pausing to look at what you've actually accomplished can really help to center you and remind you just how far you've come.

After you've looked at your accomplishments, then you're going to start asking yourself, what were the sticky points or hard parts about my last year? What do I want to improve? What are my goals for the coming year? What are my areas for growth?

And you're going to write those down and focus on finalize the things that you really want to focus on in the coming year. Once you get all of that together, we need to make a system where you can see your year at a glance.

This is really important for ensuring that you can actually do all the things that you sign up to do and that you don't get caught with unexpected deadlines or things that need to be accomplished. So I'm going to recommend the two systems that I have used, but you can certainly develop your own.

And I know artists have used other systems than this.

But the thing that I have found most helpful is to create a system where I can see my year at a glance divided by quarter, and with each month showing for that quarter. What I did initially is I started out with four whiteboards.

Each whiteboard stood for one quarter, and then I divided that into three sections for each month in that quarter. So example quarter one would be January, February and March.

Then using color coded markers, I, I would write down any important deadlines, important dates, or important milestones for the things that were existing on my calendar for the coming year. Things that I knew were for sure goals that I was going to do.

Now, if there's an art show that you always do or an event you always do, go ahead and put those down. But if you're not sure yet, or what art shows you're going to pursue, or events or opportunities you're going to pursue, don't write those down yet.

These are the things that are already established.

You're going to also want to include any sort of travel and you're going to want to include any sort of big things that are happening in your personal life or if, if you work another job, things that you need to remember for that. So the goal is that when you look at your calendar at a glance, you're going to be able to see, oh, that month is really busy.

I have a lot of things that month I'm going to be traveling. I can't schedule anything there. And it gives you this at a glance picture. You're going to want to color code this.

And typically you'll want to have a color for deadlines and event dates. You're going to want to have a color for milestones that are important that you need to track. And milestones can be things.

For example, say you are doing an art show or an art festival and you know you need to make five pieces of art. You need to have it framed by a certain day, you need your photos by a certain day.

Those are important milestones that you don't want to forget and you want to put them on your calendar because sometimes it's easy to forget that each thing we do has many steps for it. And you don't want to write down every single step on this at a glance calendar.

But you do want those big picture steps that you have to accomplish because it helps you see how busy that month is in your year. Another color you're going to want to have is for any travel. And having those three colors helps you identify your Do I have a big event?

Am I going to be gone? And what are my milestones? After you have done this, go ahead and start researching the art shows or opportunities that you want to apply for.

Make note of the deadline for the application and the event dates. You also may want to take note of any big prep work that you need, both for the submission or if you're accepted.

Once you've created Your list, order them by priority, what is the main one that you really want to do? And go down the list. Then you're going to have that paper with all your art shows and you will start with number one.

And you're going to look up at your Year at a Glance calendar and you are going to say, does this application deadline work? Does this work for me? Can I accomplish the things I need to accomplish to apply for this? If it is, when is the event? Does that fit on my calendar?

If it does, can I meet those milestones? Will I have enough time to prepare for that event? And if I can't be at the event, is it worth me applying for the show?

Or is this an event that really I need to be there in person? And you can ask yourself these questions with each one. And as you decide, okay, this one works, I'm going to add it.

Go ahead and add all of those things to your Go ahead and add all of those things to your calendar so that you can see your new calendar, because again, that event is going to come with additional steps.

And it may mean that maybe the number four on your list doesn't work anymore because the number one on your list got in and now you have prep work and those things bump against each other. But that's how you keep from over scheduling yourself or realizing that you've tried to make yourself be in two places at one time.

It's a little bit of a reality check for your calendar.

I did forget to tell you, the second system that I use for my Year at a Glance is a program called Figma that's f I G M a you can get a free account online. And essentially I just created a whiteboard system online so that I can access it from anywhere.

Because I started finding that sometimes I was out traveling and an opportunity came up or came to my attention and I didn't have my year at a glance. And it's so hard to go into my Google Calendar and see what my year feels like.

I really needed that gear at a glance and so that's why I switched to Figma. But both of those systems have worked really well for me. And it's really the same system. Just one is digital and one is analog.

So the next step is going to be setting up your calendar. And when I say your calendar, what I mean is your calendar app. And I do recommend that you get a calendar app.

Again, as I said with Figma, this allows you to always have access.

Most of us have our phones on us all the time or they're pretty easy to get to and worst case, if we didn't, we could still log into those accounts and see what we need to see. I personally use Google Calendar, but there are a lot of calendar apps that you can use.

Just make sure it is robust and does what you need and you can set up notifications for it.

You're going to look at your calendar and any reoccurring things such as monthly newsletters, marketing tasks, administrative days, financial check ins, anything like that, or anything that you do big annual events, maybe you do a July print release. You're going to put those things in there along with any prep work time. So for example, maybe you send your newsletter the first of every month.

You're going to need to also schedule in time to write your newsletter and you're going to go ahead and do that for all the reoccurring yearly, monthly, weekly, daily tasks. And then you are going to look up at your Year at a Glance calendar.

So the Whiteboard system or Figma or whatever you're using and you're going to go in and you're going to add your application dates and when you're adding those application deadlines for shows, make sure you also add when the event is. That helps. And I would add your travel time and any prep work as well. And you want to color code all these things.

So for example, when I apply, when I put an application deadline on my calendar, I put that in red, but then I immediately go and put the event dates in yellow. It's yellow because this is like a warning, you might have something on this day, once I get accepted, I will turn that to red as well.

Or if I don't get accepted I can delete that. And I know that that frees up my calendar. You also want to update your Year at a Glance calendar as well.

Because if you didn't get into something, maybe the event was in April and now you can erase that. You can erase the prep work and you know you've got time freed up. So if another opportunity comes up, you'll know that that time is there.

Or maybe you go back to your list of arches and realize, oh, I can add this one in. But that year at a glance is so important for not over scheduling yourself and making sure things are accomplishable.

And then your calendar app is so important for the nitty gritty of how you are going to accomplish your goals and setting that time aside.

Now I want to add another little tip here and that is to go ahead and schedule in things like rest Time, exercise, time with family, those sorts of things. If you struggle to have time for yourself or spending time with your family, maybe you get really distracted with your work.

Whatever it is, is schedule that time in because it helps hold you accountable. Maybe you're wanting to get in shape.

You know that you sit inside at your easel too much, or you're constantly doing your work and administrative tasks. And it's so easy to be like, oh, I want to work out, but I don't have time.

What I started doing because I had that problem is the first thing I put in was exercise time. And that was really hard because I in my mind thought, no, I need to be working on these things.

I that have deadlines and make me money and are my career. But the reality is I have to recognize that my body is the only way I can function in the world and do my art and do all these administrative tasks.

So I need to prioritize taking care of it.

So the point is, anything you want to prioritize that you want to make important, go ahead and block it out in your calendar because it saves that space. You can't just go in and schedule something else because you'll see that something else already exists there.

So the last little tip is, as you go throughout the year, you've got your plan set up, but be flexible enough to adjust, but also make sure that you're holding yourself accountable to your goals. That can be such a hard thing.

As a business owner, it's easy to either go super focused and not give up on something, even when we start realizing, oh, this is probably not the right path for me right now, but it can also be so easy to not honor your schedule. You, you've got to remember that if you set up a system and you don't use it, it will not work. You have to use the system you set up.

So with your Google Calendar or whatever Calendar app you use, if you don't go in and check it each day and sometimes look forward to the next week and to the next month, you will not. Your system will not work for you because you are not using it.

If you are using it and you find that things are still, there's still some sticky spots, things are coming up, maybe you've missed a deadline or whatever it is, then you need to troubleshoot. How do I address the system I've created because it's not working for me the way that I need to work for it?

And again, if you're a member, if you come into a problem like that, a great thing to do is go in the member space and ask other people what they are doing and if they've encountered the same problem. We get so much wisdom from each other. So I really do wanna encourage you to take advantage of being a part of your community.

So planning your year is not about creating something rigid that cannot be flexible at all. But it is about creating clarity to empower you and give you the time you need for your creative space. Space, your creative work, and for your goals.

When you plan ahead and when you plan especially realistically, you reduce stress and protect your time. You create space for both opportunity and rest. I hope this gives you a few simple, actionable ways to organize for your year.

And again, don't forget, if you're a member, you can find even more resources about planning in the member space. If you aren't a member and you want access to those resources, our membership opens up for the entire month of December.

So we hope to see you there in the member space.