When you first enter the creative life, one of the things you might struggle with the most is how to “get it all done.”

Because the creative life comes with running a business, you may find your life a little less structured, and a little more busy than it used to be. Little tasks like laundry or dishes can seem impossible to get to. And what’s more, after you’ve done everything, you may find yourself too tired to get any actual work done on your business.

You Can’t Get It ALL Done

The truth is that there is no way to get it ALL done. You have to compromise. The creative life is all about finding balance. You need to find balance so you don’t overwork and burn yourself out. But you need to find balance so you can work, and also accomplish the little day to day activities that need to be done. You need to find balance so you can still enjoy your life while you’re living it. And you need to find the balance without driving yourself nuts trying to find balance.

The key is scheduling. But not just any scheduling. You need to find scheduling that works for you. There are a lot of methods out there, but not all of them will work for you. And the bottom line is, you’ll never get it ALL done. You will have to consolidate and put some things on the back burner from time to time. You’ll probably also find that different times of day are better for different types of work.

Find Your Own Schedule

In my own life, I prefer to do all the “little things” first. For example, when you run your own business, emails are a part of work. You can’t just leave them unanswered for days unless you’re trying to lose customers for some reason (generally not a good thing in a business…). So I like to do those first if possible. I get through them so much faster because I have “computer energy” in the morning. (My mornings of course are a little later than most people’s because I work in the wee small hours of the morning doing other things. It’s just the way my body works better).

This is strongly advised against by almost every time management piece I’ve ever read, however. They usually suggest you get your projects done first so you feel like you’ve accomplished something. Then do the little stuff later. I can see how that’s a great idea, and I’m sure it works for many people. It just doesn’t for me.

Know Your Own Energy

We all have different types of energy and my creative energy is usually later in the day. While my “work” energy is earlier. So I prefer to get all that little work out of the way, so I save my creative energy for big projects later on. With the little things out of the way, I don’t have to worry about getting them done and can put my full focus on my project.

Of course that only worked once I’d started consolidating my schedule. When I had too many “little things” on my schedule, I was usually out of energy by the time I got to the creating portion of my day.

It took me a lot of years to find my perfect schedule, and I’m still tweaking it. I tried every method of time management out there, and none of them worked for me. Even block scheduling failed miserably, because I simply didn’t have enough time blocks in a day to get everything done. Finally I developed my little consolidation method.

Consolidate, Consolidate, Consolidate

The bottom line was that I just had to pare down my daily to-do list. But that was easier done than said. I was already down to the bare minimum and there was nothing else I could take off. But eventually I realized, I had to do everything on that list, but I didn’t have to do everything everyday. So I combined my daily tasks into groups of 3. Laundry, washing dishes, and housecleaning became one group. Emails, organizing, and “administrative” work became another group. So instead of doing all six of these tasks each day, I now just do one from each group each day.

It’s a huge time saver. It’s a lot easier to do two batch of dishes one day, and two batches of laundry the next day than to do one batch of dishes and one batch of laundry each day. Changing gears slows you down. So doing double of the same task, while eliminating another task is actually faster. It’s also less draining on the mind, because your brain doesn’t have to catch up with changing tasks. Therefore it leaves you more creative energy for later in the day.

The biggest thing for me, however, is flexibility. I can’t make one schedule and stick with it. I have to be able to be fluid with my schedule depending on what project I’m working on at the time. The time of the year also changes my daily schedule. As a farmer, my schedule is completely different in the summer than in the winter, so I have to account for that.

Make a Planner

No matter what your ideal schedule is, however, one of the things I can’t stress enough is to get yourself a planner. It doesn’t matter whether it’s one you make yourself, or one of the many pre-made planners available. It really does help organize your head, and an organized head is absolutely essential when you’re living the creative life. (And it’s not a bad thing to have if even you’re just living a “normal” life too 😉 )

I used to be one of those people who didn’t think I needed a planner. I had all my appointments written on the calendar. All my different to-do lists were on my desk. I had my yearly business goals on a file in my computer etc. I had my video posting schedule mapped out in another file, etc. But I still found everything overwhelming.

So last year I made myself a planner and life flows so much smoother now. It’s not that I have any new information or schedule changes in the planner. It’s just that the planner gives me ONE place to keep everything. It frees up my head, so I feel less drained. Because of my crazy life, I had to design my own planner. (I’m still tweaking it, but watch for a tutorial coming in 2019).

In particular, I needed a planner that I could erase and rewrite since my schedule can change so quickly. I accomplished it essentially with a combo of page protectors, dry erase markers, and Google Calendar. (And as a bonus, that means it’s reusable every year and therefore eco-friendly). But whatever type of planner you use, find one that works for you, and use it. It’ll make your life so much easier.

So do a little experimenting, and find what order works for you. We all have the same amount of hours in a day, but the order you do things in really is a huge factor in how much you accomplish in your day. Find what works for you, and then stick it in that planner! You still won’t be getting it “all” done, but you’ll feel like you’re getting a lot more done. Not just spinning your wheels.

Written by Amber Reifsteck, The Woodland Elf

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