What Your Time Is Telling You

The man who doesn’t have time to meditate for 10 minutes likely needs to meditate for an hour.

Peak performance requires lots of space. Space is not something that the universe or our family gives to us. It is something that we have to choose. This is true of physical space, we all need a studio to practice, and equally important is time.

It is hard to keep an eye on time. Time either seems to move so slow it occupies all of our awareness or it moves so fast everything disappears. Knowing where your time is going is a critical step towards intelligent sustainable practices in art and business.

How much time are you getting each week to do the thing you love?

If you are a rare human that has chosen to pursue their vocation, your work likely includes doing something you love. BUT operating a sustainable business, and life itself, takes a lot of hats. You are a cheerleader/marketing director, you are a friend/sales man, you are the fix it guy/admin, and there is actually doing what you love. If you are not giving regular time to the thing that energizes you, it is possible work will consume you. 

A critical question to ask ourselves in pursuit of thriving is: How much of my time is going towards the thing that got me into this business in the first place? An important metric to look at regularly as an artist is time in the studio.

The studio lights need to be kept on in order for joy to be experienced. Money is required to minimally sustain a business and even more money is needed for a thriving one. We also need to keep an eye on our billable time.

What billable time can tell you

Billable time can tell us what we need to do. It can reduce stress even if it is low. If we are short on billable time we need to find more. More is likely found through additional relationships. We either need to work on our communications (marketing) or building relationships (sales). We may just need to communicate more, we may need to change who we communicate with, or we may need to change our process for connecting once we have communicated. 

Our billable time can also tell us if we are approaching overwhelm. There is a capacity to your billable time, especially if you are responsible for all aspects of business, which many artists and small studios are.

Simple awareness is the start

Simple awareness is the start of real intelligence. Regularly keeping an eye on a few simple metrics can tell you a lot about your business and your well being.

If you need help documenting your time or defining what your capacity is we are here to help you with your business. We have a collection of professional development archives and we are always open to getting a coffee with interesting people.