You can come back strong in the new year by taking time to know exactly what you want to achieve.
I took a scheduled break for almost 2 months so I could fully enjoy our summer Christmas and vacation. I am come back strong in the new year only because of making time to envision my life over a year ago.
The scheme I’m showing is how I’ve been able to continue creating my eight Rhema Derivative works after an incredibly busy Christmas and summer break. These works are part of my 52 abstract works to finish by 31 May 2024.You can see all of my works so far by clicking here.
I highly recommend you read the previous post to learn how I got to this point by clicking here.
I had to look back to come back strong
October 2022 found Bill and me emerging from a 10 month grind of living in the midst of chaotic home repair. I had to close my art studio in order to full-time project manage the repair and restoration of half the floors in our home. Click here to read, “When Life Gets in the Way of Creating” to learn more.
As we were tidying our renovated home, I became eager to come back strong for my best life personally and in the studio. Looking at the prior year helped better determine the direction for a better chance of reaching wanted to get to by the end of 2023.
With my 2022 Looking forward Annual Reflection in hand, (click here to see how I did this) it was time to look forward to 2023 to create my Yearly Plan.
(Continued below)
Design studio time for a
productive year
Five part series by Beverly Claridge.
Click a box to read or watch video.
Crafting a Yearly Plan
Our overall focus for the year was restoration and personal renewal. All that we aimed to achieve would defer to that aspiration.
The next 12 months we wanted to complete the final touches for our home inside and out. My professional aims were to grow a private community on my website and create lots of art, which was part of the inspiration for my 52 in 52 pursuit.
Faith and love would inform our decisions and actions, whilst restoration and thriving would be key to the success of 2023. The major challenge for the year would be to restore my art career.
Turning overall aims into smaller tasks
Then I had to ascertain how I would complete my aims, breaking them down into smaller tasks chunks and disbursing them over the different quarters. For example;
Because we’d be on summer holiday mode until late January, one aim for Quarter 1 was to finish our future TV room. I also needed to think about how I would relaunch my channel and refurbish my website,
Relaunching YouTube and my website were the principal aim of Quarter 2. For some crazy reason I thought it would be reasonable to make 16 works of art, whilst editing videos and redoing my website. I was really happy that I had 5 videos up my sleeve at the time I relaunched YouTube.
My aims for Quarter 3 were to relaunch the Charles Bargue video series I had put on hiatus after I got kicked off the Metaverse. Creating works for Invercargill Licensing Trust Art Awards show and for the 2024 Queenstown art show would begin that quarter. And, I would continue working on the interiors on weekends.
Quarter 4 in New Zealand is the end of the school year and business year, so Bill and I would take our Christmas and summer break in mid-December. There’d be lots of graduations, weddings and year end get togethers. Therefore, I wanted to have our interiors completed and lots of art created.
Quarterly Planning
With my newly created general Yearly Plan I could forge ahead onto more specific quarterly plans. Because our first quarter largely occupied with summer break in New Zealand, I’m showing how I planned the 2nd quarter.
Firsts I transferred my yearly goals, adding another goal to relaunch my YouTube Channel and the objectives from my yearly plan. Then, I transferred our son’s visit, holidays and term breaks.
Determining monthly pursuits
Next, quarterly goals were broken down into smaller chunks and then distributed over April, May, and June.
For April I would relaunch my channel, finish 4 artworks, start and email program, and think about the work I wanted to make for the ILT Trust Awards. Plus, I wanted to paint the TV room and bedroom hall weekends.
In May, I planned to complete 4 more works and actually begin making the ILT work, and, on the weekends, work on the TV room and bedroom hall. For June I would lather, rinse and repeat. There’d be no concern over the less populated grids of May and June because extra space would be for bringing unfinished and emerging projects forward.
Major steps or milestones were determined by breaking down the quarterly goals into smaller achievable chunks. Then I considered what benchmarks could be achieved to show progress each quarter.
The quarterly reflection on the next page would be used to acknowledge successes, challenges, and ways to improve what happened.
Monthly planning helps you come back strong
Knowing what to do each month is crucial for me. I recommend making the extra effort to plan your time in the studio to this point, at a minimum. I find knowing exactly what I want to achieve helps me come back strong into the studio in late January. I often don’t take it beyond monthly and quarterly planning until I get to the second quarter.
Remember, you don’t have to do this perfectly. Forecasting your time in the studio is sort of an art in itself.Therefore, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t do it perfectly. In fact, you won’t. Not every idea that comes into your head works well for you when confronted with the realities of your life. That’s okay. You can later assess if it’s important to pursue an idea you’ve postponed.
The point is have a firm idea of where you want to head. Then, every day take one action towards that in the studio.
Come back strong:The reward
These Rhema Derivative works were started way back in early September 2023 alongside other work I was completing. The progress was spot on per the plan that I crafted back at the end of 2022 and early 2023.
Returning to these works in 2024, after a scheduled 6 week break over our summer time Christmas and vacation, brought fresh eyes, sparking fun, offbeat ideas for finishing them. I’m really surprised and delighted with the results. What do you think?
Rhema Derivative series
The inspiring Rhema Meditation Series
Watch "come back strong in the studio"
Next blogpost I’ll show you how these quarterly and monthly plans can supercharge studio progress by crafting your weeks and days. Be the first to know when that video goes live! Join my email list by clicking here.
