Continued from an earlier post.

So now that you have separated your tasks into actionable and non-actionable items, what do you do?

Try starting off a weekly review process. Every week, look at your calendar look to previous week. Were all of your art management tasks completed? If not, and they are actionable, take care of them now. This is a designated no procrastination time where you MUST discipline yourself to get those unattended tasks completed. Also, don’t forget this is also a good time to reflect on the things you DID accomplish. Take a moment to reflect on how good it felt to get those tasks completed.

Now look to next week. Do you have any art shows to prepare for? Any new painting ideas you want to flesh out? How about that new gallery down the street? Is next week a good time to visit the curator? Is it time for a mass mailing to your collectors? How are your taxes doing? All of these items should go through the process mentioned in my earlier post and placed on your calendar.

With the calendar out of the way, now is a good time to jot down your ideas. You absolutely must start a to-do list. I prefer to use an online service like Backpackit.com to organize my to-to lists and journal entries online. With Backpackit.com you can easily jot down all of your art list tasks and even share them with coworkers.

Now you should review, review, review. Review your actionable items (pending, waiting for action, current projects) and non-actionable items (maybe someday tasks).

Your pending action items should be reviewed and checked for any WIP (work in progress) material that could support a new action item to get a project in motion

The waiting for action lists can be monitored for completed actions and tasks, prompting any further action items.

Your current projects should be a major focus in your task management. Be sure to review the purpose or goal of this task and be sure to follow up with any additional tasks that follow. Did you finish a commissioned painting? Be sure to add a follow up task to prompt you to send a thank you note to your new customer!

The non-actionable task can be monitored from time to time ensuring that either the project is either close to beginning or not relevant to your goals any longer.

So you have a little bit to chew on for now. Go and get in to the habit of a weekly review process. The first review may take an hour or so, but eventually you should be able to hone your skills and complete the review process in less than an hour.

So go forth and get organized.

Be Sociable, Share!

•