Organizing My Work Schedule As A Full-Time Artist

I feel like I need to preface this by saying, go listen to my Art Crisis Podcast. But let me also say that if you cannot stand the sound of my voice, this is a good alternative to the episode.

✨Personal Work, Professional Work, and Everything In Between

Have you ever wondered what artists do with their time? I do.

I wonder what other creatives are busy doing, if they're sipping champagne or hot coffees and daintily dabbing at their next project. I wonder if they're barking at an assistant to book them a flight to Paris ASAP because they cannot miss their next debut. I wonder if they're as busy as I feel like I am or think that I want to be.

And I don't know who's life I'm imagining at this moment, but it's certainly not mine. I'm sitting in the dark with melted Custard repeatedly questioning why my elbows are sticking to the kitchen counter. WHY IS IT SO STICKY?!

But if you can ignore Meryl Streep and the sickening feel of a gummy counter, we can talk about something meaningful: the main ways I've broken down my work schedule in the past and currently to help me stay sane and feel professional.

And yes, it's true that I mostly paint these days. But there's different types of paintings that I make and for different reasons. That's what I want to get into because they hold the key to why every artist does what they do and how they discover what will get them their next paycheck.

🪣Introducing The Buckets:

• personal work

• professional work

• client work

• growth work

• content creation.

That’s basically how I map out everything I do as a full-time artist. And just to be clear from the start: if you're not aiming to have your creativity pay all your bills, you don’t have to juggle all of these. This structure is for artists who are trying to make a living from their work, and even then, it’s flexible.

📔Personal Work

This year I started junk journaling, and honestly, I think it might be my favorite creation yet. It’s become a refilling activity when I'm not stressed about the final product. MOST weekends, I feel energized, creatively recharged, and just good when I do it. I can only handle doing it once a week I really think that helps too.

Now sometimes I get that little voice in my head that says, “Should I share this?” I get excited and want people to see it—but then I catch myself.

Because as soon as I share it, I’m inviting in expectations.

I don’t want that for this part of my practice, this work is mine. It doesn’t have to be good or bad and a lot of it is really personal. Sometimes I write notes about people or cringey interactions I have. Some pages are really cool, and some are just a hot mess. But it's become about the process.

And I’ve realized I don’t want outsiders in this space. I want to savor it without everyone and their mom knowing what I'm thinking about. Even though junk journaling is super trendy right now (adult diaries, anyone?), I don’t want to turn it into content. I don’t want to monetize it or shove it into my stories. I want it to stay sacred.

I want to selfishly keep it all about me.

And of course, this reflection has made me think a lot about how I show up on Instagram—how I want to be there, if I want to be there.

It’s May, and I’ve gone back and forth so many times this year about scaling back my presence and about what I want that space to be. It’s been a bit of a crisis, honestly. But I think it’s a necessary one. I'm learning that asking hard questions is how we grow as artists.

Well... not just asking, but making yourself answer them too.

Every artist needs a personal project. Period. You are not the exception. You need something you make just for you. It reminds you why you’re an artist.

We’re not machines. We’re not meant to create perfect, finished pieces over and over at internet speed. Personal work allows us to evolve, and evolution is essential for longevity in a creative career.

But here’s the tricky part: personal work is always the first to go.

When life gets busy or I’m stressed out, my “pleasure crafting” disappears. I’ve got frames to build, tents to set up, shows to prep for... and the work that refuels me gets left behind. The irony? That work is what holds up everything else.

So here’s your reminder (and mine): schedule personal work.

If you’re Type A, get your planner out. Look at the next five days. Make sure one of those days has time carved out for you to just mess around in your studio. No goals. No pressure. Just play.

☕Professional Work

This is just a fancy name for commercial work aka the stuff you make for other people.

For me, it’s what I think of as the job part of being an artist. It’s still me, but it’s like the cousin version of me—related, but with a little distance. My personal work is my child. My professional work is my cousin. I would never date or marry a cousin. You like them, but there's a healthy distance.

This work is very important, it's often the work that aligns with what’s selling in your market. It’s what you want to get paid for—portraits, packaging, patterns, whatever your thing is.

And you have to think big picture when you're making it: where do you want your art to live? On products? In stores? Mass-produced?

If you're still figuring this out, here's a quick journaling exercise (yep, homework time!):

1. What kind of work do I want to make?

2. Who would love it?

3. What companies or shops sell this type of product?

   
   

These are the questions you can ask yourself to help you determine what you need to make, how much of it, and where you'll be presenting it. Most of your time will be spent in this bubble

🤝Client Work

.Client work is anything you’re hired to do for someone else—commissions, wholesale orders, packaging design. If someone else is paying you to create it, it’s client work.

This kind of work can be amazing. It teaches you about boundaries, communication, managing expectations, and protecting your time. I remember starting out doing $50 five-by-seven pet portraits and asking my mom and friends to plug them. (Shoutout to the hedgehog portrait that started it all!) It's important to note that working with others will take more time and energy, so be mindful of how much of it you take on!

And this is where balance becomes really important. Personal, professional, client—any one of these can eat up all your time if you’re not careful. I’m not here to tell you the perfect balance, because that’s something you have to find for yourself. Just be honest about your season. Know when you need to pull back, when you can push forward, when to say yes, and when to say not yet.

You are living your life as a creative person with other responsibilities—family, partners, kids, or even just yourself—can feel like a constant juggle. Sometimes things are out of whack.

That’s okay. Most of life is intentional imbalance.

As long as what you do is an intentional choice, you’re still in control.

🌱Growth Work

Here’s a newer category I’ve been leaning into: growth work. This is the stuff you do to stretch yourself. It’s not directly profitable, but it’s so necessary. It’s skill-building. It’s exploring new mediums. It’s applying to that residency even though you’re terrified. It’s watching tutorials, trying techniques you’re bad at, getting your hands dirty and being okay with not being great at something—for now.

Growth work is how you level up. It’s also how you keep from burning out, weirdly. Because when everything else feels like obligation, growth work is where you get to surprise yourself.

I’m trying to be really intentional about keeping this in my rotation—even just once a month. It’s not about producing something for a gallery or your online shop. It’s just about making yourself better. Think of it like cross-training, but for your creative muscles.

(I love that analogy but I'm not sure it makes sense... my workout is making sure I get my 10k steps a day).

📲Content Creation

This one’s complicated. Or maybe that's just a me thing and my relationship with content is complicated...

Wherever you're falling, we all know it’s important—especially if you’re self-employed—but it can easily take over if you let it.

For me, content creation includes things like photographing work, writing captions, recording process videos, prepping newsletters, blogging (hi), and just generally keeping the lights on in the social media world.

And let me tell you, I want to let the lights burn out daily.

Here's how I mostly stay sane: I try to treat content like packaging, not the product.

My work isn’t content. My work is my art. The content is just how I share it. And I want it to feel like a true reflection of me—not just some trend-chasing, algorithm-pleasing performance. 🤢

It also means I try not to spend more than 15 minutes making content. I just cannot. If I'm making content, I'm not making art. And I deeply need to be making art these days.

I try not to blend it into my creative time, because that’s when everything starts feeling performative. I am not creative when making content. Sometimes I am funny, but that's not the same thing.

When I’m in the studio, I’m in the studio. When I’m doing content, I’m wearing my little marketer hat which weirdly resembles a party pooper hat. Don't know how that happened.

Balance is so important to me... or intentional imbalance. When you're working for yourself, everything feels so weighty and life altering. It's difficult to trust your gut and find your path when you don't give yourself much room to get it wrong.

So—if you're in a season where you're questioning everything, just know you're not alone. Pause. Breathe. Ask yourself: What kind of work do I need right now? 

Then go do a little bit of that.