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As a freelancer and an artist, managing time and creativity is one of the most important tasks. But also one of the hardest. Based on my own behavioural patterns, I have come up with a theory of how to better plan and structure my work.

I am a busy man, and I like it that way, but sometimes I find that I have so many projects, that it’s simply impossible to work on (or even plan out) all of them at the same time. The worst case scenario is that I get so confused trying to juggle these things, that I end up doing the only thing I should avoid at all cost: Nothing at all.

When I say nothing, I don’t mean it literally. Usually, I will end up reading a book, surfing the web or strumming on the nearest guitar for a bit. I may even play a little Playstation, but usually not for too long, because it’s one of those things that remind me, that I should be working on my novel, processing some of those stock photos for my portfolio or something else from that ever growing to-do pile.

So, I started thinking about Creative Capacity. I concluded that my brain has a limit to how many things it can devote thought processes to at a time, as well as a limit to how long these things can stay in focus. Sounds simple, but add sudden inspiration to that combination, and it’s not so simple any more.

I may be sitting here, writing this piece, when inspiration strikes or some solution to a problem I’ve been having, snakes its way out of my subconscious, and then what? Either I stop what I’m doing and start working on whatever it was that just popped up, or I stop to at least make a few notes somewhere, so that I won’t forget what brilliant stroke of genius I just had, and hope that I can find the notes later when I need them. In both cases, stopping what I was already doing plays a part, and with stopping comes the risk of even more distraction. Now, the best way to avoid this distraction, is to be open to impulsive inspiration and prepared to work it into my final equation.

I have found that when I am really into something, I can usually stay focused and disciplined about it for 1-2 weeks. After that things like what I described above start to happen more and more often, and the risk of losing track completely grows to dangerously high levels. Knowing my own attentionspan, or lack thereof, must be the first key to solving the mystery at hand.

From experience, I believe that I can do good work on up to two projects at a time (such as writing a novel and planning/executing a photo-shoot). This is based on trial and error from previous plans, that eventually failed for one reason or the other, and it is the second key.

Putting these two keys together, I can begin to form a pattern. I can begin to make plans, as long as I take the sudden inspiration into account. This is done by prioritizing (a topic big enough to warrant a piece of its own, at some later date – I have added it to my to-do list). But if we take two projects, they could be put into a workflow that looks like this:

Project A is first priority – usually the paid work for clients, looming deadlines or stuff that just cannot wait any longer – and there will be no excuse to stop working on this, until the two weeks are over. Project B, on the other hand, may be put on hold, if something more urgent presents itself. After a maximum of two weeks of working on Projects A and B, it’s time to stop and re-organize.

By re-organizing, I mean taking a new look at all the stuff in the pile and picking out which two should be the new Project A and B. This is important for two reasons.

First and foremost, because it allows you to jump from one project to the next in a structured manner. To me, this sort of frame is very useful, because it lets me stay on top of things and it helps me not to forget things I need to get started on. It also helps remind me of my long term goals, because it becomes clearer what to do next, in order to achieve them.

The second reason for re-organizing on a bi-weekly basis is psychological. By picking a new project to work on, I am forced to put the other one down for a while. By doing so, it becomes a personal cliff-hanger and the inspiration and want to keep working on it stays with me. That way, I keep looking forward to working on that particular project again, and after a while, I will feel like that about all of my projects – and if I don’t, it’s quite possibly a sign that the idea probably wasn’t that great to begin with.

In the end this is all just theory, of course. Thoughts in my head about how to manage my own creative workflow with the least amount of lost time and self-torture. Though I have been experimenting with bits and pieces of this in real life, I have yet to attempt full on planning of all my work. But it’s not because I don’t want to. I just need to figure out what all the projects are, before I can start prioritizing them. So, for now, I’ve put the making of that list in my to-do pile.

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