Time 6 - Tracking

Time management for people working in creative fields can take more work. This difficulty comes from many places; some reasons could be that they are doing lots but often do not want what they want to be doing or what they count as work—creatives (people working in creative fields, e.g. writers, artists etc.). Performing on big projects that do not have deadlines and are very unstructured can also contribute to their difficulty tracking time. Also, no definitive rewards often wait until the end of the large projects, so there is nothing to work towards; instead, you need pure motivation. 

However, there are ways to keep yourself on track to complete a creative project. These are four things that may be able to help: 

1. Time is limited. Managing time, energy, and focus is vital in keeping track. Completing over four hours of creative work daily is rare. So cutting this into shorter periods with regular breaks is highly important. 

2. Make yourself your top priority. Waiting for an extended period of uninterrupted time so that you can commit to a project will take forever. Therefore you need to place yourself first by scheduling time into your diary as you would with any other deadline or appointment. 

3. Remind yourself that while it is not easy, it will be worthwhile. Considering how busy day-to-day life can be, pursuing passions outside of that requires sacrifices, which can feel challenging. But that is okay. Or you may only find small amounts of time to follow your passion. This is once again okay. Ultimately, if you genuinely care about the project, it will be finished, and the satisfaction will be well worth all the sacrifices. 

4. Note down how long things take. Keeping track of time can take a lot of work. But it can be eye-opening. Using tools to help you track your time can help make it easier to understand where your time is going.