Schedules are not something unique to drawing or game development – I’m sure many of you follow some sort of schedule, whether it’s strict, or deliberately nebulous.
Schedules are a pretty important part of my everyday life, so I figured I may as well talk a little about my experience attempting to use them, along with the pros and cons that have come along with it.

I’ll probably add some photos to this blog post eventually, but I got my COVID vaccine yesterday and I’m still feeling under the weather.
So, for the time being, this will just be a text post.

In General

I wouldn’t exactly consider myself a “Type A” personality.
When it comes down to it, I find myself bouncing between behaviors indicative of both types. I experience the neurotic, obsessive, and ambitious tendencies, along with the more relaxed tendencies.

I make an effort to follow a schedule in order to keep myself on track – lest I become lazy and just coast through each day without putting any legitimate effort towards my craft(s), or self-improvement.
I have a lot of things I’m trying to do on a daily basis, and without a schedule, it’d be practically impossible to remember everything.

That said, my efforts to follow a schedule aren’t always successful, and I experience some negative side effects as well.
Keep in mind that these are just my experience(s), and may not necessarily be applicable to everyone.

The Good

Staying on Track

Like I said above, following a schedule makes it easier to keep yourself on track.

I have my daily schedule downloaded as a PDF file, which opens as a startup tab on Google Chrome.
Since opening my web browser is almost always the first thing I do when I sit down to get work done, my schedule is always present in the back of my mind.

In this way, my schedule serves as a constant reminder of things I ought to be making an effort to do each day, like practicing art, or working on my game.

Habit Forming

Along this train of thought, schedules are an excellent way to build habits.
Since I’ve been drawing daily for ~450 days (as of today), it’s pretty hard for me to forget about drawing – I’ve gotten to the point where I feel as though I’m forgetting something if I get to the end of the day without drawing.

Even on days where I don’t feel like drawing very much (something I’ve been experiencing for the past few weeks), I still try to draw something.
This could be the smallest of doodles, maybe a single self-portrait – what matters is remembering to draw something each day.

In Summary

After following a schedule for a while, you start to memorize the general flow of each day.
I don’t need to check my schedule to know that Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are my workout days – it’s something that I’ve committed to memory due to habit.
These are elements of my daily practices that I attribute to my use of schedules.

The Bad

Stress

If you’re anything like me, following a schedule can also be rather stressful, at times.

I often find myself stressing about not being productive.
There are days where I beat myself up for not getting enough things done – maybe I didn’t do enough homework the night before, and now my homework for the day is cutting into my workout time.
Those situations can be fairly frustrating and discouraging. Depending on the rigidity of your schedule, small mistakes can throw your entire week off balance.

Not Enough Time in the Day

This concept is fairly closely related to the previous section about “Stress,” although I consider these two concepts to be somewhat separate. Stress is more of a general concept, while this one is more specific.
I often find myself feeling as though there’s just not enough time in the day.

In some ways, this is true – it’s not possible for me to fit everything I’d like to do on a daily basis into each day.
Even if I manage to fit all of my personal (work-related) goals into a day, what about spending time with my family? What about relaxing with friends? What about going outside, or watching a show?

Since sacrificing time is a necessity in many cases, it can be incredibly frustrating when I’m not able to find time for certain things.

I’m working on taking a more ‘Zen’ approach to this aspect of life.
That is, rather than feeling upset or frustrated over time I’m not able to spend working, I’m making an effort to appreciate the time I can find for getting work done.

Natural Productivity

Because I’m making an active effort to draw every day, it’s become less of a natural thing. This is a personal issue that I’m working on remedying.

I tend to feel very inspired when it comes to game design, because it’s not something I do constantly.
I only work on game design when I have ideas. As a result, it’s often more satisfying and rewarding to work on game design, because I only do so when I have a clear goal in mind.

Drawing, on the other hand, is something I make a clearer effort to do each and every day – even when I don’t really feel like it.
Realistically, this shouldn’t be creatively restricting – there are a ton of things I could be studying throughout each week.
However, the nature of my schedule means that I’m always trying to draw, even when I’m not feeling particularly inspired. This, at times, makes the act of drawing less enjoyable.

Conclusions

There’s definitely a lot of negatives I’ve experienced as a result of my attempts to stay more disciplined and mentally active throughout the day.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss the carefree days before I was concerned with productivity, where I would spend all of my free time with friends – either outside, or over voice calls while playing video games.

Still, I think my life has changed for the better since I’ve started following a schedule.
My life feels more structured, and as a result, I’d say that, in general, I feel more in control of my life.

I think creating and attempting to follow a schedule is well-worth the effort – at the very least, I think it’s something everyone ought to try.

And as always, thanks for reading.


Disclaimer

All information in these posts is my own words, unless explicitly stated otherwise. None of this information is quoted, nor paraphrased, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Any similarities between my own words, and the informative sources/hyperlinks provided is purely coincidental, unless explicitly stated otherwise.
In any case where I am using someone else’s words (or imagery), the source will be cited internally, with a link to that source provided either within the internal citation, at the end of the post under “Sources,” or both.