No More Piss Poor Planning.

The science of this post: GOOD PLANNING PUTS YOU IN CONTROL OF YOUR TIME.

The difficulties of strategizing then executing plans and time management has always been one of the largest challenges for me. I've constantly struggled to correct the notions of being more timely than prompt, spending too much time on one thing and not enough time on another thing, allowing myself to get sidetracked by interruptions...

I won't downplay myself, I am super disciplined and admittedly a sucker of spending almost all of my free time on my artwork, whether personal or professional, but I have never quite been on a set schedule, which makes planning near to impossible.

So on my research to find the BEST way to begin to organize my time and life, I came across a great bulletlist of statistical studies and interesting facts that were recorded and documented by Dr. Donald E. Wetmore over years of attending seminars. The link to this list is here.

Of the list, it states that "The average person uses 13 different methods to control and manage their time." There is a said to be hundreds of different options for the time-seeking individual to attempt and yet only 24 hours available in a day. So which ways are the best ways and the ones worthy of practice? Who knows. I decided to hone in (a lot) on this subject:



SO HERE'S MY QUICK ANALOGY:

-I define the value of my time in a day by setting goals vs. requirements with the key being able to balance the time for both.

GOALS need at least these 2 things to be effective:
-Be practical/measurable so it is known when these goals are achieved.
-Lead to some sense of Self-Improvement

REQUIREMENTS need to be determined:
-Viewed and handled with higher priority than goals.
-Considered in advance to avoid delay of goals.

RELAXING needs to be in there too:
-Adding slots to do this will allow ample time to shave when
running behind schedule. This area can be the FIRST area to
be adjusted when goals / requirements on the list are not yet
achieved.

It is said that "1 hour of planning will save 10 hours of doing." And lately I've found myself taking a half hour out of my night to plot out a strict time schedule for my next day by following a military method called: "Backwards Planning".

The first step of Backward Planning is to list your tasks and then prioritize them. I try to give myself a small bit of leeway inbetween each task, because I've read now that it almost always takes twice as long to complete a task as what is originally assumed a task would take. Perhaps this is because deep down inside we want to be (or are) over-achievers by nature or perhaps this is where good planning becomes 'piss poor planning'? I don't know, but I'm sure it's fixable when finetuning planning as into skillset...

In any event, the advantage of planning a day backward is that each preceding action has a deadline set ahead of time and can be adjusted to coincide with the starting point of the first task.

I'll go into scheduling another time, because it all goes hand in hand.

Today, I experimented with Brush Settings in Photoshop while keeping an eye on some renders of 3D work that I am trying to finalize. Bobby Chui's class provoked me to play around with the brush settings-- something that is a MUST that I've never done before. I believe I've discovered my digital sketching brush, which I'm very excited about.

Tomorrow I will start to apply some of the technical tips that Bobby offered to my digital painting, as well as looking into finding my digital stroke -- to mimic the organic look of real pencil shading, whether this be through brush settings or creating a custom brush. It is something that has been bothering me about digital painting for a while, as well.

I also took Bobby's advice. I found an artist whose style and journey I would like to observe and I figured I would dedicate my next post to her. My artist of the day will be Carol Kieffer Police.

Keep checking back because I am a faithful to this capsule as a special requirement, if not as reoccuring requirement. ;)

And, again, thank you all so much for reading.