The Artistic Mother

I've always had a difficult time with scheduling. Since we've homeschooled for many years and my husband has an unusual schedule, things have always been hit-and-miss around here. This has especially been true when it comes to my artmaking, writing, etc. I'm interested in so many different things and it's nerve-wracking trying to fit them all in. So I've tried different "systems" over the years. One is to schedule by the day of the week---divide your activities according to the day, i.e. if it's Tuesday, it must be painting day. Another is the school-day breakdown---writing from 9 to 11, painting from 1 to 3, etc.. These never worked for me. I'd be gung ho for a while and then peter out. After I read Barbara Scher's book Refuse To Choose I implemented some of her suggestions for a "scanner" (someone with many varied interests). These included a chart like the colorful one above. You write out what you want to do and when you've done it, you color in a block. This helps you see what areas you are neglecting to get done. As you can see, according to this chart from three years ago, I neglected a few! A week ago I found Shona Cole's book The Artistic Mother at B&N. After reading it, I decided to adapt her "12 week workshop" into a schedule. I headed the schedule with my three main interests--- writing, painting, and sewing---and put down what I would do in each area each day. This was working very well (four days into it!). However, I just found out today that Trudy Callan is forming an Artistic Mothers group. Bloggers will work through the 12 weeks together and post about it. I think this will give me the accountability I've been lacking in my "freelance" life. If you'd like to join just go to Trudy's blog and sign up. It's starting March 6.