Productivity for the Procrastinating Artist

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome to this video I'm Brook Cormier I'm a full-time artist and maybe you already knew that maybe you've watched my last video and thought to yourself wow this is quite the change of scenery and you're right because I'm currently in Florida you may know that I am in the process of moving to Vienna Austria so I'm basically just spending quality time with my family here in Florida before I get on over there so it's just been a very nice layover I thought that this little butterfly garden is just a beautiful place

to film I don't know what the sound quality is going to be like there's a bit of cars going on over here there's some golfing going on back there but it's just me and you okay so Focus so today I would like to talk to you about how I stay productive as a full-time artist I have been self-employed for eight years now and the biggest perk about being self-employed is the fact that hey you have a lot of freedom you have freedom over your schedule you have freedom over when you want to take your vacation

days you have freedom over for what time you wake up in the morning what projects you want to work on the list goes on and this is really awesome and I have definitely been reaping those benefits the last eight years but it can also be very challenging as a semil la person such as myself I am definitely a type B personality I have trouble with procrastination I am just like a little bit too laidback in some cases and I feel like that doesn't necessarily help when you don't have a boss who's telling you what to

do and you're kind of left to self-conduct to try to be as disciplined as you possibly can but you also like to sleep in I feel like step one in becoming a more productive person and more self-disciplined is defining your goals I have had many periods in my self-employed Journey where I have not had defined goals and I have really struggled to be productive because guess what what's the point of being productive if you don't know what you're working towards it's kind of they go hand inand when I first started painting full-time the goal was

just okay I'm giving myself a year to try to make enough money to become a self-employed artist to be a full-time artist and I was able to achieve that and then after that it was like okay I've achieved this goal and now I need to like move forward but I didn't really have any other goals in mind and it wasn't really until like last year when this is coinciding big time with my notion template that I developed last year where I was like girl please you need to get your together I just didn't know what

I was working towards and I would wake up in the morning and I would be like okay what's going on today and I would end up wasting a lot of time just dilly-dallying and not really knowing what I should be working on what I should be prioritizing so that is number one you need to sit down Define your goals I have used this template that I developed my digital studio is what I call it and this is kind of like where I keep everything together there is where I've really defined my goals I know what

projects I'm working on that is going to help me achieve those goals I have set out my priorities I have my weekly to-do list everything like that I'm not going to go too deep into that because I made an entire video about how I manage my business business and I'll leave the link in the description if you want to check that out but basically that has been like a huge help in keeping me on track and making me more productive and self-disciplined because I wake up in the morning and I know exactly what I need

to be working on I know exactly what I'm working towards what I'm trying to achieve and that's what you need so that's step one please take 10 15 half an hour a whole day a whole week figure out what you are working towards what is your goal and you may have several goals write them all down and then prioritize them what do you want to achieve first do it and to add to that motivation is so important in being productive because if you lack motivation you're not going to be able to be productive so when

you're setting your goals make sure that you're setting goals that are realistic because if you're setting unrealistic goals for yourself you're going to feel really unmotivated and crappy about yourself when you do not achieve those goals back in 2020 I decided to make a series and I set a goal for myself that I was going to finish this series it was 12 paintings it's called My 12- month series I wanted to paint every single month of the year as I saw it in nature and I wanted to complete this whole series within 11 months because

I wanted to give myself one month to kind of like put calendars together and stuff so that was the goal and that was a realistic goal for me because I was painting full-time and guess what I did I achieved that goal and I felt super proud of myself big old pat on the back at the end of the year I said yeah you got this let's keep going so just make sure that you set realistic goals for yourself very important another thing that really helps me stay productive is giving myself deadlines and due dates for

all the projects that I'm working on I find that I am a very deadline oriented person if I don't have a deadline for a project I am going to be procrastinating like heck okay I am probably never going to get the job done because I'm like oh well there's no due date so why would I you know what I mean that that has certainly helped me be more productive and that's something that I always do like in my digital Studio notion template whenever I make a new project whether that's something like oh I'm going to

make a YouTube video about this I put a due date on it so that I can hold myself accountable and I can make sure that I am staying on schedule so if you're kind of like me and maybe have a little bit of trouble with the whole procrastination thing try doing that set deadlines for yourself you know you've figured out your goals at this point you're setting up projects to achieve those goals give those projects some due dates and try and stick to them as best you can another thing I would like to add is

that I feel like you got to figure out and work within your own productivity Rhythm as I would call it and by this I mean finding out what time of day you are most productive and doing your most important work during that time of day so if you are a morning person get your butt out of bed and start working on that painting that you had in mind for me I am most definitely not a morning person and that is why I don't wake up early and trust me I have tried I've tried to be

a morning person I've listened to all those podcasts you guys about waking up super early and hitting the gym and drinking all this water and stuff and and I've tried to be that girl but I can't I can't be that girl I love my sleep I need a lot of sleep and when I wake up in the morning I'm grumpy okay I'm grumpy I don't want to really do anything I do force myself to do things but listen I just know it's not my most productive time so what I do is I save that time

of day to do the things that I don't really want to do the the things that aren't that important but kind of like things that I have to do for example answering my emails or kind of like updating my sales and expenses kind of things that are more or less mindless don't take a lot of mental energy don't take a lot of intense Focus I do that kind of stuff in the morning so I wake up I've got my morning coffee and I get those things done I also don't like doing those things they are

not my favorite part of the job I think that is a I think that's a productivity thing called like eat the frog or something where it's like you get the thing that you don't want to do most done as soon as you wake up or something like that don't quote me on that but I'm pretty sure that that's what that is and so I guess I do that yeah and then I know that my productivity hours my most productive hour hours are from probably like noon like 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. or later so it's

kind of like afternoon afternoon is when I'm like okay I'm awake let's do this and that's when I do my most kind of intensive work so that would be working on a painting or editing a video the stuff that kind of takes takes the creative juices that you need to get the job done so that is what I do during that time I would recommend you try to identify those hours for yourself see what when you feel the most productive and get the most important things done during that time don't force yourself to you know

be productive in hours of the day where you know you're not going to get good work done you know if you're tired as hell in the morning and you sit down and do a painting do you think that painting is going to really be that good you know what I mean so just think about that a little bit it's worth pondering it's worth kind of considering when you feel most productive and just getting the job done in those hours also you guys taking care of yourself is so important in being productive and you're probably like

yeah okay Mom we know we know we need to eat right we know we need to exercise and like meditate and like all that stuff yes you know what you do and trust me I am no stranger to neglecting these things when I feel like I am too busy and I feel like when I have a lot of work to do probably exercise is the first thing that I am knocking off of my to-do list it's like oh I have all this work I need to do this week I have all these projects coming up

blah blah blah I'm like I can't can't go to yoga I can't go out and have a walk I have no time for that and guess what by the end of the week by the end of two three four weeks of just neglecting my exercise I feel like a dumpster a big old dumpster it's not a good way to be living your life and I'm constantly reminding myself this I'm constantly telling myself that I need to continue to just try to prioritize my physical and mental health because I think when it comes to stuff like

burnout that's how that happens is when you're neglecting your physical and your mental health and it's not it's not possible to be super productive and get everything that you need to do done and be like so self-disciplined and like get like you can't do all that stuff if you are feeling very down in the dumps if you are feeling not good in your body if you're feeling not good in your mind if you're eating like crap and consuming too much social media and yada yada yada so yes I am going to be your mother and

I'm going to tell you prioritize your health it's important okay and yeah I need to take my own advice a lot of the time but I am trying to prioritize that more this year and I feel like it really has improved my productivity for example like here while I'm in Florida right now sitting in this beautiful butterfly garden wow I came into this um vacation I guess you could call it with the mindset of okay priority number one is spending quality time with my family I just want to soak up every last bit of quality

time with them as possible before I move overseas but if I'm feeling like it I am going to get some work done I'm going to you know allow myself to do the work if I'm feeling like I want to and since I've been here I've been spending so much time outside like in the sunshine you know I'm getting all this vitamin D up in my myself and I'm getting so much exercise because I'm like going on walks with my family and and playing pickle ball like every single day and I feels like I've come alive

again I feel so much better being outside being active and I feel like I've been super productive workwise this trip like I've edited two videos I've been like you know I'm filming right now it's currently like a Saturday and I'm just like you know what I want to film it's nice weather it's a beautiful setting I'm just going to sit and have a chitchat with my with my fam my YouTube fam and I think that I've found that a lot in the past where if I'm feeling good mentally and physically the work seems to come

a lot more naturally so if you are feeling like you're in a bit of a slump and you're feeling super unproductive and like you have no discipline consider just making sure that you are checking off the activity list as in getting yourself out and active and eating well and all that kind of stuff because I feel like it'll help I mean it's helped me so I hope it helps you too so you guys to end off this video I guess I just want to say that I am not perfect I'm not a productivity in self-disciplined

Queen who is just slaying all the time it's not true but I feel like over these past 8 years of being self-employed and painting full-time I have picked up you know know some insight on on uh how I personally find when I'm most productive and when I can really see progress in myself and to reiterate Define your goals I think that's the most important thing you need to do is Define your goals so you know what you're working towards and what else did I talk about I can't remember you're going to have to re-watch the

video If you I can't give you the the summary at this time you may have been thinking this whole video that I brought my tea with me but listen it's a Saturday evening and my sister-in-law made me a margarita to go so I've just been enjoying that a little bit but if you are sitting at home and drinking tea while you watch this video I love that I love knowing that we have been sharing a beverage together guys it's been a pleasure hanging out with you if you have been working on something or just doing

anything while we hang out today let me know in the comments what we've been doing also if you have any insights of your own on how you stay productive I think it's really helpful for all of us in this little community that we've built to share those insights and so that we can learn from each other and I love when people like have conversations around this I think that it all helps it helps us be better and yes I really thank you for being here thank you for watching let me know if you liked the

video if you did like the video you know what to do give it a thumbs up subscribe to my channel I'm going to be doing a lot more videos like this this more easygoing podcast style where we're just sitting chilling and talking about all things artist life I hope you have an amazing day thank you so much for being here I'm Brook Cormier and I'll see you next time [Music]