Time management is something I am always trying to be better at. When I was in high school, I procrastinated often and did my projects at the last minute. I find it funny that I still maintained high grades; however, my bad habit of doing things late stressed me out. I hated how I would stay up the whole night just to work on some stupid essay. Or how group projects cut into my precious time when I could be doing lots of other things with my life.

In college, I became more proactive in creating better schedules. This caused me to turn in my projects days before the due date. As much as I improved, I’m still not perfect with this newfound habit. Sometimes, I just get so busy to the point where I don’t even have the time or energy to work on what is really important. 

I feel like that does happen to everyone at some point, but it annoys me when I find myself staying up at night and trying to finish something last minute. 

My past experiences in school taught me that time management is important in creative work as well. When I attended college, I would work for hours on these hefty design projects or create hundreds of frames for animation videos. If I didn’t take the time to try to better my time and organization, I would have had a very difficult time completing those assignments.

With these thoughts in mind, this is why I wanted to share 3 ways a creative (or anyone) can improve their time management. These tips don’t only have to be applied to creative work. It can be useful for a 9-to-5 job or for those who often have too much on your plates.

Here is a list of 3 ways a creative (or anyone) can improve their time management.

Do things early in the day

So for my first tip, it’s best to do things early in the day. I’m not really a morning person. I feel that I work best at night. 

Despite that, I usually try to get up early in the morning and start tackling important work right away. Working in the mornings or in the early afternoons makes a huge difference as opposed to working at night.

For me personally, I learned that I have the most energy around the late morning. Especially after I eat breakfast. My brain is fully awake, and I can work on projects without getting tired easily or disheartened.

It doesn’t mean that I can’t do work at night. I can, and I have done so before. But at night, I feel more tired since my brain and body feels the need to relax. I noticed that when I work in the morning, I can finish my tasks quicker. When I work at night, I find that I work on those same tasks for longer periods of time since it’s harder for me to focus.

It is more convenient to start and finish tasks as early as possible. The sooner your work is done, the more free time you have for later.  

This method is so useful in getting rid of procrastination. Starting a task takes seconds, and it is so much easier to complete it once you begin. Honestly, procrastination is very stressful to think about because you know you have an important task that needs to be done, and you worry about it until or if it ever gets done. This is why I highly recommend doing things early in the day.

Get someone to remind you when you need to do something

For my second way that a creative can improve their time management, have someone, like a family member, friend, or significant other, remind you when you need to do something. 

You don’t necessarily have to hire them as your assistant, although you can if you want to. I just think it helps to have someone there to support you and keep you on track with your schedule. 

I know that we can download apps on our phones, write to-do lists, and create calendars. Which I think all of them are very helpful. 

But it is so much more powerful to have someone you love actually tell you to get your butt out of bed and do something with your life. It may sound harsh, but this is literally what my closest friends say to me.

Part of my daily routine is that I have a friend who wakes me up, usually in the morning. He just yells at me to wake up and then ushers me to get ready in the bathroom. After my bathroom routine, he pretty much goes over the most important tasks I need to do for that day. Like for example, he will say something like “Nicole, you got a meeting at 10am. It’s 9:37 right now. Get ready.” 

Honestly, my friend does that because he’s a butt that loves to nag me. I know not everyone has friends that are willing to do that everyday. But if you can get someone to be your live calendar, even if it’s for a while, then it will be a huge lifesaver.

What is interesting about this is that it’s hard to say no when someone is holding you accountable. Before I would rely on setting alarms to alert me to get something done, but it was useless for me. I did not take it seriously since I just pressed snooze or deleted the alarms.

But when my friend tells me to do something, sometimes I will complain to him and try to argue back that I don’t want to do anything. Then my friend would say something like “If you don’t do this today, then you’re gonna have extra work to do tomorrow. Or Nicole, just do it. Don’t be lazy. Just do it and get it out of the way.”

My friend is also very headstrong, so it’s also another reason why I can’t say no. Having someone remind you when you need to do something does help improve time management from my experience.

Do things at the same time

My third and final tip that a creative can improve their time management is to do things at the same time.

So I’ll give you an example from my daily life. I haven’t really planned this, but I usually get up at 8 or 9am.

In the first hour after I wake up, I just look at my phone and play Pokemon or do some reading while laying in bed for a little bit. Then I would just use the restroom and do my morning routine. After I wash my face and do all of that, I would then get a bite to eat at about 10am. After breakfast, it’s usually 10:30am and that’s when I start doing work for my blog and for whatever else needs to be done. 

I’ve been doing that consistently lately, and now it’s become a habit. I prefer to do my work during that time because I feel like it’s not too early. A lot of my friends actually get up earlier than me, even at 4am, just to get their day started.

After you experiment with doing tasks throughout the day, you will kinda get a feel for what times you think are best for you. 

In order to create a habit of doing something at the same time, you would have to think of a task to do and create a time frame of when to do it. But sometimes you don’t know how long it would take you to do something. So you would have to try it out and see how long it takes you to do that specific task.

For example, let’s say that I want to create a habit of writing a chapter for a story. For me, it usually takes me about 2 hours to write a full chapter. After knowing the average duration, I would probably set a time of about 2 to 4:30pm. That time is something I could do consistently because I still have enough energy to do and complete that task. I also added in another 30 minutes in that block of time so that I can give myself breaks in-between and not feel as burned out while writing.

Trying to do things at the same time is a good habit to build and a very effective way to create more productivity.

Thank you for reading my blog post about 3 ways a creative can improve their time management!

If there are any other tips that I have not talked about in this article, feel free to share them in the comments below. Time management is a really valuable skill to have, and there are so many different methods that can help other people. I’m curious to see what ideas you guys come up with.

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💜 Nicole 💜