Maximizing success with Lists

As an artist it's always interesting to see how others try to stay organized, I am no Martha Stewart, I don't have a army of production assistants and all the time in the world to stay on top of my own crazy. Until now, or well it took this long to get out of the funk of loosing my job as a teacher back in April. Which is okay in a way. It's allowed me to reset, and re asses what is important to me and how I want to grow and progress as an artist. It's been nice to not have to work in After Effects, C4D or Maya. Dare I say I'm almost happy about that. Hopefully this break gives me the inspiration I need to make new digital art.

Lists are something I feel a lot of people turn to not just for organization, but for me as a visual person they are nice to see progress. In general I like to use Excel, but if you don't have access to Excel - use Google Docs. In an earlier post I had talked about The Jennifer Show and how they have shorter class list for performance, and several divisions.

24 classes not including Championship classes, in which eligibility is only available if you win or place (2nd) in the above classes. But since this show requires a little bit more effort than just jotting down an idea on an index card, and I need props - I NEED to make lists to stay prioritized.

The start of my show list - it's got some holes!

And since I've got a lot of touch ups, painting, and customizing to do not just on horses, but building props, dioramas, and making goodies...I've really got to have that visual. I found this template via Excel for To-Do lists, and I like it because of the progress bar.

I've tried to separate out small tasks with the big tasks. Just gathering, organizing and developing documentation takes hours. So keeping a running tally as to what I need to focus on now versus my future projects will keep me from wasting time...Until I see that really cool Lusitano, that then sends me into a equine color genetics spiral to verify if the original owner/trainer is right, or the Americans trying to sell that gorgeous stallion. Why doesn't anyone have a DNA test done already! But without knowing his pedigree he probably isn't a silver carrier. Aarrrg.

Living in Region 1 we use a tag saver's program, meaning you get a 3 digit shower number that doesn't change, and you control what numbers you assign your horses. The idea being you can just keep the leg tag on the horse versus making new 3X5 cards. I also like to use excel for this, and for the show holders looking up your horse, it makes it easy to search and find specific numbers real fast for results.

It's a living document

I plan on updating my Jennifer Show To-Do list every week, and hopefully seeing my progress - or lack there off, it will put a fire under my butt.

#thejennifershow #modelhorseshow #modelhorses