Making Comics in Your Free Time – Time Management Tips
on May 6, 2010 at 6:00 amMaking a comic or graphic novel is quite the undertaking. Making one while having a full time job and family is ridiculous.
Although it can seem like a daunting goal, there are ways to achieve a project of this scale in a reasonable amount of time. To make more sense of my following points, I need to first bring up Parkinson’s Law. It goes something like this:
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
In the years that I’ve worked freelance I can definitely say that this law was in affect. In fact I’ve had commercial storyboarding jobs in which I was given 3 hours to finish 26 frames. That amount was usually a full days work for a storyboard artist. I was also considered a fast storyboard artist in the agency that represented me. I honestly think I was considered fast because I was the only one to accepted the fast jobs. Other artists would just turn them down saying they were impossible. So, in turn, I became the fast artist. Any impossible storyboarding deadline would immediately get sent to me before anyone else. This was good and bad. Good in which it brought me plenty of work but bad because it was all crazy deadlines that drove me nuts.
The invaluable lesson this taught me was simple; work doesn’t need to take as long as the status que says it does. I applied this thought process to all my personal projects from that point on and because of it I’ve been able to accomplish tons of stuff in my limited free time. If I thought a project would take a full day in a studio environment, I would give myself three hours. And guess what? It usually would get done in three hours too. Maybe four.
It wasn’t until a month ago that I learned about Parkinsons Law. I never knew it was a specific term for what I was doing, only that it worked for me. I have to admit, if you work in this fashion long enough, you will be mentally drained of all your creative juices. There is a limit to how far it can be pushed. As long as I only apply it to my personal work every other night and not my full time day job then I can usually keep my energy tank full for when it really matters. My day job pays me to work at the status quo speed, which in a corporate environment is an extremely slow pace. So this works out well for me in my current situation. If I was still doing storyboarding at lightning speed then I would never have the mental energy to go home and do more, which is one of the main reasons I got out of storyboarding.
I don’t believe you can just jump in and start doing this from the start. If you don’t have a good understanding of anatomy and perspective and other fundamental skills then you will spend more time focusing on learning these things then you will on getting the job at hand done. So if your just starting out then take your time to learn your skill. I’m also not suggesting that you only focus on speed and only produce sloppy crap. It’s not a race. But if you can achieve the same level of quality in half the amount of time then why not learn to do it. We are talking about quality AND quantity here and I think it’s achievable. After all, my dream is not to spend 24 hours a day locked in a room doing my art.
Here are a few tricks and programs I’d suggest if you want to push yourself to get work done in a shorter time.
1. Remove distractions
This is important for me. If my office is cluttered with all kinds of other things that are more interesting to me at the time then I will space off and think about all the other stuff I could be doing. The internet is the biggest distraction of all time to me so one method of removing this distraction is by…removing it. Below is a link to a simple program called Freedom in which you can turn off your internet for a specific amount of time. It’s pretty awesome if your like me and want to check your email every five minutes. You can set it for the amount of time you think it will take to get your piece finished and the only way to get back onto the internet is to restart your computer… or wait until your set time expires.
Freedom – a great program to turn off the internet when you need to focus. There is a free donation version too.
2. Set a Timer
The best way to push yourself to speed up while staying focused is to get a simple kitchen timer and put it next to your desk. Think about how long it will take to complete a small task and then set the time to half that. You will be surprised how many times you will catch yourself getting sidetracked and then noticing your time is ticking away and jump back to work. Even if you don’t finish by the time the buzzer goes off you have at least started training yourself to think this way.
An alternate approach is to download a timer for your computer that will count down. I found a really good one for the Macintosh that politely beeps every 5 minutes to remind you that you’ve got work to get done. Trust me, if you do this long enough, you will be amazed at how much work you can generate in your free time.
The timer combined with locking off your internet can do wonders in crunch time. And lets admit it, the time we spend at home after work is definitely not long enough to be filling every second with more work. Remember, work expands to fill the time available for completion.
Weird, I just learned about Parkinson's law last week, it is so true. I had three days to do a job it usually takes me 1.5 days to do and sure enough, the job took three whole days to do. I heard about this thing called onomatopoeia day (May, 3) that some webcomics do the day before it happens and I was able to make a (simple, but longer) page, from concept to posting, in five hours when it would usually take me at least twice as long.
Another point is that for the four years that I was in college I had nothing but free time, I wanted to write but never did. It took having a family and full time job to begin writing. I guess that the less free time you have, the more valuable it becomes, the more you want to put it to good use.
I disagree about distractions though, I thrive in a cluttered office and do nothing in a clean one.
That’s an interesting point about the less time you have the more valuable it becomes and you put it to better use. I was the same way, when I was single I had tons of time and spent most of it just goofing around. Now that I’m married with a kid, I really have to focus in my free time and I get so much more done now then I every did before. Strange. It’s all about focus.
Haha, that’s funny about the distractions. I guess that part of my post is more or less what works for me. Lots of my artist friends love clutter and too much happening. I don’t see how they can do it.
I am another casualty when it comes to the free time thing. All through-out highschool I had a webcomic which I had ample amounts of time to do it, and yet I never took it seriously, so in turn, never updated on time. Now I’m doing a Webcomic and Writing and running my own business while being Married and have a 20 month old son, but it took having my son to get down and serious about what I was doing with my free time.
Good tips!
With all of my hopes and dreams hanging upon the completion of my creative goals, I really need to take these things to heart. I've always been impressed with Kazu Kibuishi and the output he's been able to achieve through streamlining his process.
The real trick to finishing a graphic novel project is efficency while still maintaining quality. My current aim is to cut out of my life all distractions that are time wasters. All of these little things add up.
Agreed, and you are right about Kazu. He can really crank through pages when he needs to. It’s really amazing. I read one of his Twitter feeds that said something like, “I just finished 10 pages this morning.” I was like WHAT!?
I sometimes take my computer somewhere there is no internet to achieve this :) Moreover, I made a playlist called “Zone” with all the songs that I noticed had a certain effect on me while working. I’ll set myself up somewhere with earphones and that list on loop, and I can get so much work done this way with almost hypnotized efficiency.
Even more radical, when I’m working on writing or penciling, which I don’t do on the computer, I just take my sketchbook and get out of the range of anything distracting, lol. But I can’t force myself to do that, it only works if I’m in already in the mood, really.
Yeah, I actually have some “Zone” music my self. Especially trance music like Crystal Method or something really helps me zone out for hours to get work done.
That Freedom app looks like a good idea! But part of me is scared to use it and be so locked away!
That’s an old axiom in the building trade, I can tell you. We have to hound each other mercilessly to get things done on a proper schedule. Basically, it’s a restatement of the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns (my father was an economist) – each unit of a thing you invest in something adds less and less value to it. It’s all a matter of finding the point at which you no longer feel like investing time or effort in a thing.
Of course, that doesn’t take account of the pressure angle – working well against deadlines is key, even if those deadlines are self-imposed. Frankly, I time out my comics drawing sessions with episdes of spy dramas and Star Trek. Two episodes makes a pretty decent stretch of comics drawing. The balance there is to make sure they’re episodes I’ve already seen a million times, or I’ll want to watch instead of drawing!
–M
Hah, That's a great timer! But if I did that then I'd just stop and watch. But most of my friends love working while watching movies or something. I just can't get my brain to focus like that.
So true! This is an amazing blog, keep it up.
A timer? Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?
I’ve been using artificial deadlines with rewards. (ie. If I can finish this many pages in two weeks I’ll treat myself and eat out).
But actually, I count on distractions and the net to keep me keep on track. “watching baseball” or internet radio/ podcasts, etc. all keep me in my seat. …and as long as I’m in my seat, I might as well be drawing. ^-^;
It seems like there are many artist who thrive on the commotion of distractions to keep focused. There are very few things I can do with commotion in the background. I even prefer to drive without any radio, mainly so I can think. Pretty boring right?
Great advice my friend! …now if we could only do it.
The key to weekly webcomics, blogging, online business etc is CONSISTENCY.
Far too many people get distracted checking e-mail, twitter, facebook instead of doing true work. If you set a schedule and stick to it as if you were in a job with billable hours, etc – you'd be amazed at how productive you become.
When I started El Cuervo I made sure a stuck to a strict guideline. My goal was to have two updates a week, but have a buffer of a week to two weeks worth of comics to ensure a 'safety' zone in the event I have to go out of town and can't update. That means approx 3-4 comics a week. There's been a few emergencies, and my buffer has dropped to 1 week – something I'm not pleased with, so what do I do? Buckle down and get back on schedule.
At idrawdigital, I put out a tutorial every tuesday. The other days I post are merely info posts or downloads, and come when I have available time and resources to share. But the tutorial ALWAYS comes out on Tuesday no matter what.
It's all about planning and not allowing yourself to waste the valuable time you have. As soon as you realize that every second counts, you start to make better use of it than sitting down in front of your screen watching YouTube vids or piddling around pin procrastination.
Good post J.
Thanks for chiming in Drezz. Your comic is coming along nicely and I always wondered how you kept up your blog as well. You've got lots of things going on my friend. Thanks for the comment!
Great post again, Jason. I've actually been wondering how you manage to do what you do in your free time. From what you've mentioned, we're in the same boat, full time job, young family… it's really hard to split your free time with some activity that you do away from family. So you try to keep to a schedule? Every second evening during the week, and then spend the weekends with your family?
Pretty much, although it's not really a strict schedule as far a which days I work on it. Some weeks I just need to get away from it and not think about it (like this week for instance). Other weeks like last week, I was able to work on it almost every night because I had the energy and drive to do it. I try to avoid forcing myself to work if I'm feeling burned out too much otherwise I just get more burned out. If I can get away from it for a bit then it always helps me to get more accomplished when I do focus on it.
Luckily this blog is a way to take my mind off the pages and focus on other things. So if I'm tired of working on the graphic novel then I can work on a blog post one night. The weekends are pretty much for family only. Even after we put our kid to bed around 7:30, I like to spend the time with my wife and catch up on shows or movies on the weekends. Recharge.
Now, don't get me wrong, most of reMIND was developed before I got married and it took me a long time to refine the story and develop the style. Now that it's figured out, I can just focus on cranking out what's needed to be done.
So in other works, I don't stick to a strict schedule very good as far as when I work and that's why I really need to focus when I do work. As long as I get my pages and posts online (on schedule) then I'm happy. But I also have a good 3 month buffer (almost).
Hopefully that helps instead of just confusing the subject more.
I'm glad that I've found your blog/comic Jason! I think I remember some of your postings on the PencilJack forum (sorry if I mistaken you for someone else, I hope thats you). I love your graphic novel and the style that you have going thus far…but more than your comic, I LOVE how you're chronicling the process that you're going through in order to create your novel. Even though my comic isn't in the same category as yours, I plan on making mine (and a subsequent story I have in mind) into a graphic novel, and its great to see others who share that same mentality. Phenomenal stuff Jason!
And you have a new reader! Keep up the great work!
A good “getting to work” or “staying on task” tip is to get an annoying older sibling who did the writing for your project to keep nagging you.
Though seriously, your advice is always so helpful to me. Thanks for sharing your ideas and tips!
AHHHHH This is soooo cool! Honestly I'm sure that all of your advice will help me. Squee! Thank you so very very much!
Great post Jason. Time management is a biggie. I supposed that's why M. Night shaymalan locked himself in a hotel room and came out with the sixth sense. Why writers are known to retreat to a remote location to write their novels. Time is always the enemy but pro-actively facing it is the key. Knowing your weaknesses and what your distractions are can mean the difference in turning that corner.
Definitely, if you push yourself, you can surprise yourself. I just finished page 8 of my comic in 6 hours (6 panels), and that includes everything from planning, sketching, to coloring and type setting.
I know I could have done it in 5, but I kept pming a friend.
Thanks for the information. Your blog message is genuinely helping me to learn the things about it. Will keep up with you