Where do you find the time?!

The Journal52.com prompt was "making time for myself".  How do you do that?!  It seems that every time I turn around someone has something else they want me to do! and never mind all of the projects and ideas I come up with for myself!  I wish I had a dollar for every time someone contacts me because I'm the high school art teacher with a project they just know my students would love to do and OH! you can make it a class project!  What do they think I do when they aren't coming up with something for me to do?  I know that what they really want is free labor and their project done by someone else...My students are not day laborers and barely know how to do what I have yet to teach them!  do you really want them to paint on your walls?!  (rant over) lol.  You can seriously neglect the part of you that is creative because you get excited over everything that comes your way.  Before you know it, it has been five years since you actually painted something from your own mind.  It is how art teachers get burned out.  You can not let that happen!!  I don't even suggest that you wait for summer to do those projects....summer goes by really fast!

This is what I do.  I schedule myself a weekly date.  Two hours after school.  I don't let anyone know where I am (I do let them know I'm safe but I don't let them come see me).  If someone ask, I'm already spoken for or I have an appointment.  I don't have to justify what I am doing.  My time is just as important as theirs and they should respect that.  I already have a plan and a list written down so that I am not wasting any of that two hours trying to figure out what to do.  I prep ahead of time, Gesso, draw...what ever I can so that all I have to do is just step up to the plate and start working.  I also leave something new to do or a little of the project undone so that the transition for next week is already started.  I have been known to have about 4 projects going on at the same time in different stages so that I never have the "artist block" that can happen when you are in between projects.  I will even do a series if I can not think of something new to do.  Making time is just prioritizing you in time.  There are only 24 hours in a day...You have all of the time there is and you are the one who determines how that time is spent.

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