How to Stay Focused as an Artist in the New Year — and Actually Finish Your Work

by Damian Osborne

Struggling to stay focused as an artist? This is how I’m changing my mindset for a better workflow and to get more paintings done. This essay isn’t just for artists though. It applies to everybody!

Setting the scene:

It’s the first day of the year as I write this (without A.I.) and I’m feeling all the lethargy and depression of an overindulgent and undisciplined Festive Period.

My wife’s elderly parents have been staying with us for the last two weeks. Her aunt, uncle and cousin also came to stay for a few days. The social obligations and increased daily chores (because there are more people in the house) have made it almost impossible for me to focus on my art.

I’ve had people tramp up the stairs to my attic studio uninvited on three occasions during this family visit, but I felt I couldn’t say anything for fear of creating an awkward vibe with my wife’s family.

My studio is my personal sacred space. It’s like an extension of my mind and I hate exposing it to anyone. Especially to people who don’t ‘get’ art.

While my wife’s half-deaf dad fills the house from the spare bedroom with blaring sports re-runs from the early 2000s because he can’t find a current game to watch, and there are constantly people on the couch in the lounge watching cooking shows and drinking wine, I try to find refuge in my studio.

But the heat up here in the middle of summer is unbearable, and I can’t think straight. It’s a lot. I just want my house back and some damn peace and quiet!

I really need to get out and start exercising too because I haven’t been to the gym for three weeks and it’s making me depro.

Asking yourself hard questions: How are you going to stay focused as an artist?

Last night, on New Year’s Eve, Janine and I sat alone on the deck outside under the fairy lights, drinking bubbly and beer while I made a fire and braaied some meat.

We decided that it wasn’t worth it to go out and be around people who can’t handle their booze (most people generally) and run into traffic cops who seem to emerge only during this one time of the year. I was grateful for the quiet evening in the garden and that her folks had retired to bed early.

I’m also grateful that my wife is one of the most insightful and reflective people I know. I really struck it lucky with her because she has this uncanny gift to cut right through my bullshit (is it maybe just a woman thing?) and to push me to grow personally and as a husband.

She has this habit of asking me difficult questions, especially at the end of every year. She expects a report on my highlights and lowest points for the year.

Then she asks me questions about my professional achievements and failures, what my goals for the new year are as an artist, and how I am going to achieve them.

I generally hate these questions because I just want to drink my beer and stare brain-dead into the hypnotizing fire after dealing with people being in my space the whole time.

But I know that they are important questions that I should be asking myself and that she’s not going to let me stare at the ground for 10 minutes and grunt a non-committal answer.

I realised I had been seriously lacking in the focus department over the last year. There are always going to be distractions and setbacks every year, but my motivation and concentration had really started waning badly.

And though I felt like I was working hard and exhausting myself, it was on things that are probably not the highest priority for my art career.

External vs internal locus of control

After that jolting conversation, I decided to write down my intentions for the year and the simple daily things that I need to do or not do to get there.

Time management is crucial to remaining disciplined and focused. So is the space that you work in. I generally wake up around sunrise anyway just to have a moment of peace and privacy before the shit-storm of life hits and the heat of the day makes trying to stay focused as an artist untenable.

I have an attic studio and it’s great. In the middle of winter. But for the rest of the year, it’s oppressively hot and horrible to work in. It was lovely and private when I first set it up, overlooking a bit of forest from my window. I had no idea there was a house over there.

But then, almost as a sick joke, the neighbour across the road cut all that bush down (it was about 6 months of daily chainsaw, weedwacker and bulldozer noise) and now I look straight into their yard and hear every conversation because he’s one of those beer belly guys who likes to walk around shirtless in the garden and take very loud and very long business calls on his cell phone.  I can even hear the guy on the other side of the line!

They run a horse rehabilitation business next door, so while it’s nice to watch the horses from my window, there is also a ridiculous amount of industrial and workshop noise, plus bulldozers, forklift vehicles, trucks and horse trailers. They also love riding their quad bike up and down endlessly for no purpose on the road between our houses.

So long story short, I need a better space to work in. The neighbours may not respect the environment or the noise pollution (even on Sunday mornings), but they aren’t going to change and I need to focus on my own locus of control instead of being pissed off everyday. I could install air conditioning or wear headphones all day, but that’s not really a sustainable option for me.

What bothers me may not bother you. You have to find your own way of giving yourself the best chance to produce your best quality work and be the most productive.

I’m going to set up a new studio so that I can really focus and get to work. I told my wife Janine that I’m locking the studio door, putting off my phone, and she can just pretend I’m dead.

Good habits begin with proper time management

Also, I realised that time management begins from the moment I get up and enter the studio in the morning. Though I tend to faff around a bit while finishing my coffee and my brain is still grinding gears before the engine starts, there are still little disciplines that I should maintain from the start.

Starting the day right, like a ritual, is crucial for building momentum. It’s important to set up your own morning rituals in order to stay focused as an artist throughout the rest of the day. I had to think about this very carefully and I’m still refining it for myself.

You may have a meditation ritual, sweep the studio floor or clear your desk every morning before you begin. Maybe you sit in the garden listening to the birds with a cup of tea. The first stage is just as important as the ‘main’ work.

As I said, I usually wake up before the sun. An early start is important. It gives me just that extra bit of time. Janine says I shouldn’t have coffee first thing in the morning, apparently. She loves to start sentences with ‘…the research shows…’ which I usually poo-poo. But I’ll give her suggestion a go.

The point is, I know I’m easily distracted. Maybe I just shouldn’t put on my computer first thing in the morning until I’ve done some stretching and meditation (if it’s not a gym day) and gotten an hour of drawing or painting in. Otherwise, knowing myself, I might start working on a new music composition or try to fix something on my computer and end up reading Linux, Reddit or Github forums for 2 hours.

There are times in your day that are more conducive to production than others. It could be based on your daily mental rhythms, obligations, environmental factors and other people.

There will parts of the day which are busier or more distracting than others; times when the neighbours are particularly active and disturbing. Or when you need to spend quality time with your spouse or family. Or you need to go get milk or cat food at the shop or clean the mess in the kitchen.

Janine says I should really just think of the year as containing 11 months. Because the Festive Period is always a total write-off. So I need to factor that in to my goals or plans for the year.

Focus on the most important task first. Answering emails or posting on social media at the most productive point in the day when you should be painting is really just a cop out. You feel like you’re being productive picking low hanging fruit, but really you should be doing your most important or main task at this time.

I tend to forget that my energy or focus isn’t always uniform throughout the day. That’s why it’s really important to know thyself. Know your habits. Listen to your body. It’s generally dumb to be working until 2 am every night because this isn’t going to be productive long term.

Downtime doesn’t always equate to unproductive time. Especially as creative people, us artists should set aside time for reflection, reading, inspiration or nourishing the imagination.

Trying to do too much at once usually results in lower efficiency. I’m prone to writing long to-do lists and expecting myself to do them in ridiculous time allocations.

You can’t be efficient if you’re working on a painting, then scrolling through your phone, then trying to get your printer to work, then editing a video, then chasing the fighting cats out of the house, then opening the gate for the delivery guy, then noticing your plants outside need water so you water them, then making a snack in the kitchen. All these little things add up and eat into your time.

At the end of the year, you look back and wonder what the hell happened in your life because you have nothing to show anyone for it. Yes, you will have to make breakfast, clean the kitchen and pack/unpack the dishwasher. But these are things you need to factor into your time. When it’s time to paint or time to write or post on social media, do only that.

It usually takes around 15 minutes of doing one thing to get into a flow state. Don’t break up that valuable time slot of concentration.

Hold your time and space sacred. Tell others when you are not available and to respect these boundaries. People shouldn’t be traipsing through your studio uninvited or asking you for favours during your work time. If you figure out how to get this right, please let me know!

Systems vs output focus

There’s a big difference between being goal or output focused and putting good systems in place for yourself to increase productivity.

My goal for this year is to set up a new studio and to get 30 medium to large good paintings under my belt. This is probably already over ambitious. That is the output that I wish to achieve. It will be insanely hard work. It’s like training to run a marathon and expecting to win. Or like me practicing one Bach violin partita until I can play it flawlessly.

A systems focus on the hand, is like being a runner and running everyday because it’s part of your life and your identity. The marathon isn’t such a big deal. It may be one of many races throughout your life.

Or like me practicing violin pieces of varying difficulty levels, doing shifting and scales practice, getting more familiar with higher neck positions and mastering different bowing techniques. Then when it comes to my favourite Bach partitia, it really isn’t such a big deal anymore. And I can easily sight read and play a Telemann or Handel sonata or another Bach partita if I want on the same day, instead of having to start all over from scratch. I accelerate my learning and my skills and my efficiency this way.

Kicking my arse into gear to stay focused as an artist

Your systems are going to be different to mine. But if I want to achieve the pretty crazy goal of having 30 paintings, plus setup a new studio this year, I’m going to have to be strictly intentional about it.

Maybe I’m just setting myself up for embarrassment here. Oh well.

So let’s say I have 11 months to work in. Sorting out the studio is probably going to to take another month at least.

I’m converting a 3 x 6 metre outside room that needs to be sealed against invading animals and plants. There are literally liana creepers such as the Pink Trumpet Vine (Podranea ricasoliana) coming through the gaps in the roof corrugations and I’ve discovered four different species of geckos living in the room, the usual rats, mice and shrews, paper wasps and sundry spiders, occasional dead sparrow or Cape White Eye, and even found a large adult Red-Lipped Herald Snake just chilling in there too.

The snakes don’t bother me except when they leave a mess with their shedding skins, but the geckos and rodents bother me the most because of their droppings everywhere on everything…

But I shall just work for an hour on my paintings in the evenings during that time.

So 10 months then. That’s 3 paintings a month. If I want to practice music for two hours a day, then I can probably get about 4 hours a day to just focus on painting. The other hours of the day would be general things like gym, making breakfast or supper, composing music, working on a video or writing etc. But those 4 hours of painting are what my life needs to revolve around for the next year.

Four hours sounds easy, but concentrating for that long is actually harder than it sounds. There are so many attention-grabbing distractions in our lives these days. You need a lot of self-discipline and mental toughness.

I always scoff when people say being an artist must be so relaxing. Can you focus for a straight four hours in your job without scrolling through Facebook or Tiktok feeds?

Ok so I shall try to stick to only a 5 day working week because there’s always stuff to do on weekends (DIY house stuff, shopping, social obligations – meh – etc.) So a 20 hour working week. Times an average of 4 weeks a month equals 80 hours a month, times 10 months equals 800 hours, divided by 30 paintings equals an average of 26.6 hours per painting. I hope that’s enough time. Let’s see.

So that’s setting up my time allocation. Other systems focus ‘rules’ I should consider are things like:

I will not bother with any commissions under a certain financial bracket because they are simply a waste of my time at this point.

I must make sure I first stretch and prime all 30 canvases beforehand. Do I have enough linen or cottonduck canvas? Have I got enough primer or linseed/walnut oil or titanium dioxide pigment, brushes, or empty paint tubes for making oil paints?

Do I know what I’m going to paint for all 30 paintings? Is my workflow set up properly? Do I have good lighting and airflow through the studio? Is my music and computer set up properly so that I don’t have to faff with the internet or bother with trying to get my favourite playlists to play while I work? And so on.

I hope all of this was helpful even though I’m writing this from my personal POV (I recently learnt what POV is — Janine told me, LOL!).

So I hope you can apply this systems vs output thinking into your own working year. Let me know what systems have helped streamline your workflow and how you stay focused as an artist in the comments below. All the best.