time management

it takes a certain type of brain to be a artist, to create something from nothing.  i don't want to get too deep into the stereotypes, but stereotypes exist for a reason.  wen an be easily distracted (look, something shinny!), are always on the hunt of inspiration, get discouraged easily, redo projects over and over that we aren't happy with, and can get so into projects that we forget clocks exist at all. 

basically, we have terrible time management skills.  

unless we’ve come from another industry where we’ve had this training either forced upon us or somehow managed to teach ourselves, we pretty much suck at it.  i don't want to imply that it’s just artists, frankly, it’s most people.  You may have known someone who has excellent time management and self discipline - they’re the people who get an INSANE amount done and have hobbies and families and seem to get to have it all - no, they just manage their time better than you do. 

what is time management?  its the illusive ability to govern oneself to magically getting everything done in a day or magically creating a 35 hour day when everyone else is stuck with 24

the first issue with time management is that we have astronomically incorrect impression of how long it takes us to do something.  how many times have you said, be back in 30, running to the grocery store and you show up back home an hour and a half later.  or start a project, get half way done and realized an entire day is gone.  or sat down to do emails and realize the great time suck called pinterest lured you in and stole three hours.  or worse, you gave pinterest those hours and called it “looking for inspiration” (which then translates to making myself feel crapy about my own work because it’s not as good as everyone elses) 

the second problem: