Time Is Your friend, Not Your Enemy
Inktober sketch from 2019
Just over a decade ago, in 2014, I had an idea for a comic book. I was excited. I've loved comics since I was a kid, and I always wanted to create one.
I took three weeks off work and started writing and drawing. At the end of those three weeks I had completed three pages in a A4. Not too bad, but there was obviously still a long way to go, as I envisaged the book to be around eighty pages long.
But the time was up. I had to get back to paid work, so I put the project to one side. I didn't know how I would ever find the time to complete it.
I couldn't afford to keep taking weeks off work, even though I was running my own business. I could choose my hours freely, but I still had to be productive and create the assets my customers paid for. Taking weeks or months off was simply not an option.
And so my comic book idea was put aside, as many such dreams are, faced with the stark realities of life.
I didn't have the time to work on a project as ambitious as a complete comic. I had bills to pay, so the need to earn a living had to come first.
I could work on the comic book once I retired, although that would likely be decades away. Would I still feel inspired by an idea from years ago?
In all likelihood, this comic would never see the light of day.
And so, for five years, the idea was left in limbo. It still nagged me at the back of my mind, but I didn't have the time to devote to it.
Then, in 2019, someone on a forum said they were going to participate in a yearly event called Inktober. Hosted on Instagram, people would post a black-and-white ink drawing every day, for the whole of October.
It looked fun. I wanted to take part, but of course I was short of time. I was running my business full-time, and I had two young kids (and a dog I walked for an hour every day).
So I found the one tiny chunk of time left in my day. It was around forty minutes, just before bedtime. Usually this would be my downtime, spent watching shows or scrolling online.
I used that time to participate in the Inktober challenge. I didn't quite pull off the full thirty days, but in those weekday evenings where I could find the time to draw, I rattled off 23 finished pieces.
Weekends, interestingly, were out. At the weekend I was always too busy spending time with the family, and there was no way I was going to sneak off and draw in the evenings. But weekdays were fine. Everyone was doing their own thing.
And I was proud of the drawings I created in that challenge. They were pretty good - especially considering they were all created so quickly, in a short thirty to forty-minute window just before bed.
I thought I might be too tired to draw well at that time, but when I sat down to draw I found that the short session was perfectly manageable. I wasn't tired, I was inspired. I was having fun.
So, at the end of the month, I looked back and took stock of what I had achieved. Twenty-three drawings that wouldn't have existed, if I hadn't found a way to make a little time in my day.
And then of course I realised that this was how I could finish my comic.
All I needed to do was to keep this routine I had just devised, and use it to draw the comic book. On weekday evenings whenever I could.
And so I've done this ever since.
Four nights a week, if possible, I sit down and draw for thirty minutes.
Some nights of course, it's not possible. Something comes up: a birthday, a social engagement, or whatever. No problem, I just get back to it at the next opportunity.
And now my comic book is halfway to completion. Forty-five pages of A4 are fully drawn.
Some nights, I have to work on the story rather than drawing; other nights, I need to do boring stuff such as laying out the panels in Photoshop or adding the dialogue. Those jobs need to be done, but of course they slow me down.
No matter. Week after week, month after month, year after year, I stick to this routine. It's easy.
And one day, this comic book I always wanted to create, will be finished.
I did have the time. I had it all along. I just needed to look for it in the right place.
Initially I imagined I would need to take time off work and spend a few months completing the comic. And of course that was simply not viable. Most of us need to work to pay the bills. A hobby project of this magnitude is simply out of reach.
Except that it isn't. Once you accept that you can do very big things in very small chunks, everything changes. You can use time, rather than feel pressured by it.
Because time passes, and this is a superpower, once you know how to use it.
Once I started working on it in the evenings, I saw my comic as a ten-year project. Five years in, I'm on track.
Ten years will pass - whether I work on the comic or not. But if I stick to this simple routine, at the end of those ten years I will have completed an eighty-page comic book, with no funding and no need to take time off.
So I can use the passing of time to achieve something almost miraculous: a truly ambitious personal project that would never see the light of day any other way. Just by spending thirty minutes on it, four evenings a week.
When you look at it this way, the passing of time is an incredible tool.
Time when used this way is an ally and a friend. Not the enemy we usually see, bearing down on us with pressures and deadlines. Time, when used this way can make almost any dream come true, and bring any project to fruition.
So if you dream of creating something, some personal project that is meaningful to you, learn to leverage the passing of time, and make it happen.
You might think it's too hard, or that you don't have the discipline, but I can help you find it. I talk about this in much more depth in my Kindle book: Be The Artist You Want To Be. Available from Amazon.