I know you’ve been there. Your task list is overflowing, and you’re overwhelmed. You’ve got more to do than you can possibly complete in the time available. Perhaps you’re in a feast period in your creative career, meaning your project calendar is jampacked full of fabulous projects that you’re excited to work on. Which is great, except that it means all of your time is spent heads-down creating, with no time left over for the necessary administrative tasks that come with running a business. Or maybe life has gone sideways on you, and you’re dealing with time-consuming complications in your personal life, resulting in a tight squeeze on the time available for your business work, whether that’s creative tasks or administrative to-dos. Regardless of the reason, you’ve found yourself in a place where decisions need to be made. You can’t do everything. So what do you choose to do, and what do you choose to leave undone? How do you prioritize? How do you decide what really matters to you, and how do you make sure your actions reflect those values? Today, we’re going to look at some of those hard questions. We’re going to talk about where your priorities lie.

--

Hello, and welcome to the first week of April! This is Episode 49 of the Starving Artist No More podcast. I’m your host, Jennifer Jill Araya, and I’m so glad you’re here with me for today’s discussion of priorities within your creative work. It’s a topic I’ve been evaluating a lot for myself in my own work and personal life, and I’m excited to share my thoughts with you.

But before we get there, I do want to share a bit of news specifically with the audiobook narrators who are listening right now. This August, I’m hosting the Thriving Narrators Retreat in my home city of Cincinnati. From August 22-25, 2024, narrators will be gathering in Cincinnati to learn and grow together, to talk about both the business of audiobook narration and the craft of what we do as audio storytellers. Our faculty includes 11 amazing audiobook professionals, five of whom are also audiobook producers, meaning they can share the audiobook casting perspective with everyone in attendance. We’re going to spend time in craft-focused masterclasses, we’ll have entrepreneurship-focused seminars and workshops, and we’ll also have lots of time to enjoy one another’s company as we get to know each other as colleagues and as friends.

I am so excited about this retreat! I’ve been working with the faculty members for almost six months now to put together a comprehensive curriculum for the retreat, deciding what topics we want to cover and what format the retreat will take, and I cannot tell you how thrilled I am with the decisions we’ve made. I truly believe this will be a transformative learning experience for the narrators in attendance. You can get all the details, and register to attend, on my website, StarvingArtistNoMore.com. And if you have any questions about the retreat, please reach out and ask. You can send those questions to me through the contact form on my website. Again, that was StarvingArtistNoMore.com.

Ok, now that I’ve shared that exciting bit of news, let’s turn to the main focus of today’s episode: priorities within your business work. This topic very much stems from my own recent experience. If you’re a regular listener of this podcast, you probably already noticed that I’ve not had a new episode in three months. My last episode was from the end of December, and right now, as I’m recording today’s episode, it’s the first week of April. I took a three-month break from this space to reevaluate my priorities a bit and decide where I want to intentionally spend my time.

That reprioritizing process is something that I think is incredibly valuable for creative entrepreneurs. Our dual roles as artists and as business owners mean that there are always a thousand different things jockeying for our attention, and a million different tasks on our plates. The past three months, I was very intentional about choosing what I worked on, and in today’s discussion, we’re going to dig into how you can make those same purposeful decisions for yourself, how you can decide what really matters to you. In other words, how can you determine your priorities?

First, I want to acknowledge openly that I've not been as consistent with this podcast as had been my intention. My stated goal with this podcast is to release new episodes weekly. But I went three months – 13 weeks – with no new episodes. What’s up with that?

In short, I struggle with things in my business just as much as you do, even things I know I *should* do. I'm not some guru who has it all figured out. Yes, I have strategies, and yes, I feel like I have a lot to teach, and yes, I’ve seen my business coaching clients benefit from me sharing my experience and the lessons I’ve learned from those experiences, but I sometimes also struggle. Like you, I sometimes find it difficult to balance the “creative” and the “entrepreneur.” I’m right there with you in the trenches of being an artist businessowner. The fact that I have lessons to share and concepts to teach doesn’t mean that I don’t have challenges, just like you do.

Another part of my recent podcast absence is related what I acknowledged a few episodes ago, in Episode 44; consistency is hard! It’s not an easy thing to do something day in and day out, or even week in and week out. Being consistent is just a difficult thing to do.

But, truthfully, my recent lack of podcast episodes has a lot more to do with me intentionally choosing other priorities. Rather than focusing on this podcast, which I share for free, I chose to spend my time in other ways over the past three months. That doesn’t at all mean that this podcast is unimportant to me or that I don’t think it’s valuable. I know it is! Every single email and comment and message that I get from artists who find great value in this podcast brings me immense joy, every time. But at the same time, my time is finite, and especially for the first three months of this year, I had to be very intentional about where that time was spent. And the podcast didn’t make the cut.

Productivity consultant David Allen said, “You can do anything. But you can’t do everything.” The first three months of this year were an example of me learning this truth on a deep level. I can’t do everything, and in order for the important things to get done, I need to be clear about my priorities.

My plate has been unusually full recently for a few reasons. First, my recording schedule since the beginning of January has been really full! I’ve been enjoying a bit of a feast period in my business. My primary creative work is as an audiobook narrator, a job that I absolutely adore and that brings me great purpose and joy. And my audiobook recording calendar so far in 2024 has been more abundantly full than I’ve ever experienced before. Having a full project schedule like that is a wonderful thing. I know a lot of narrators have been experiencing slow periods recently, so I absolutely want to make sure I acknowledge that my busy recording schedule recently is a huge blessing. I am grateful for it. But, it does bring complications all its own.

Namely, my jampacked recording calendar has meant that I haven't had as much time to devote to my side projects, including this podcast, as is normal for me. Because it is primary creative work and creative outlet, audiobook narration will always take priority for me over this podcast. Perhaps even more than that, my creative entrepreneurship coaching clients and the commitments I make to the artists in my Thriving Artists Academy will always take priority over this podcast. And on a personal level, the needs of my family will take priority over this podcast.

This podcast absolutely matters, too, but in my priority list, this podcast won't ever be more important than my family, my coaching clients, or my audiobook work. I've had a lot on my plate in terms of audiobooks and coaching clients so far in 2024, and I’ve enjoyed some wonderful family time, too. As a result this podcast just didn't get my attention.

I also want to be honest with you: some of my absence from this space also has to do with my health. I’ve shared before on this podcast that I have a chronic pain disorder, and I’ve been dealing with a bit of a flair-up with that condition for the last six months or so. I’m working with my doctors to return to a place where pain doesn’t impact my daily life quite so dramatically, but I’m not there yet. So, yes, my busy (and wonderfully full) project calendar is part of why I’ve not been as present here as I like to be, but some of it has been because I’ve been sick. On days when I’m in pain, I don’t have a lot of spoons to go around. (And if you don’t get the spoons reference, here's a link that explains it. It’s an analogy used frequently in the chronic disability community that I find very helpful.)

So, the result of all of this – a full project schedule, a full roster of one-on-one entrepreneurship coaching clients, a vibrant community within the Thriving Artists Academy, active planning for the Thriving Narrators Retreat that I mentioned at the top of this episode, commitments with my family, plus a flair-up in my chronic pain condition – is that I’ve had a lot of important tasks that all required my time. When faced with that onslaught of items that are all important and urgent, I could either sink under the weight of the overwhelm. Or I could get clear on my priorities. And very intentionally, I chose to do the latter.

Merriam-Webster tells us that a “priority” is “something given or meriting attention before competing alternatives”. A priority is something that matters over other things. A priority needs my attention first, before something that isn’t a priority.

The word “priority” is also singular. Multiple things can’t all be a priority for you. If you have twenty projects that are all “priorities,” then none of them actually are a priority for you, because you can’t do everything before you do everything else. If twenty individual tasks each require your first-focus attention, then none of them actually get that attention, because you can’t do all twenty at once. If everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority.

Inherent in the definition of what a priority is, is a sense of ranking things in terms of how important they are to you. My priorities are absolutely ranked! Sometimes that ranking changes based on circumstances or specific commitments or due dates, but there is always a ranking. And there are always projects at the top of that ranking and projects that are somewhat lower down. And if I only have enough bandwidth on a given day or week to pay attention to some of those projects, then the ones that aren’t as high on that priority ranking just aren’t going to get my attention. That’s why I took a three month break from this podcast: other projects and commitments were higher on my priority list.

Choosing, and then following, your priorities isn’t about limiting yourself or keeping yourself from the things you enjoy and that you want to do. Rather, it’s about making sure that your actions live out your values. It’s about making sure that you actually do the things that matter to you. I’m going to share again that quote from David Allen, which I find so powerful: “You can do anything. But you can’t do everything.” And if we can’t do everything, then I think it serves us to get clear on what we do actually want to do.

For me, when it comes to my creative work, my priorities are always going to be represented by the six areas that I know contribute to the overall health and thriving of my business. I call those the “Six Components of a Thriving Creative Business,” and I talked about them in detail all the way back in Episode 16, so if you want detailed info about each of those areas, I highly suggest you go back and listen to that episode.

But as a brief overview, the Six Components are exactly what I just said: they are the six areas of any creative business that, if you take the time to make sure they are high on your priority ranking, will allow you to build a thriving creative business that fulfills you holistically: personally, financially, and creatively. Those six areas are (1) a systematized process for marketing and networking, (2) well-managed finances, (3) consistent focus on working within your creative & financial sweet spot, (4) sources of asynchronous income, (5) habits that support you as an artist and support the needs of your business, and (6) a commitment to ongoing artistic growth.

When I think about my priorities, activities that support each of those six areas are always going to be pretty high on my project and task list.

First, for marketing and networking, while I didn’t release new podcast episodes, I did travel to LA to attend the Audie Awards gala, which is the major award for audiobooks, and I presented as part of three different in-person workshops while I was there. I then headed to Atlanta to serve as part of the audiobook faculty for VO Atlanta, and I presented five different sessions during that conference. In other words, I was present in-person at numerous of events over the past three months, and my email marketing reach outs, one of my primary marketing strategies for reaching the casting directors who hire me for audiobooks, continued as scheduled. Yes, this podcast is part of my marketing plan for the coaching portion of my creative business, but it’s not my only marketing and networking avenue, and so while I was absent from this podcast for the past three months, that doesn’t mean I wasn’t marketing or networking. My marketing and networking processes looked a little different than normal over the past three months, but they were still happening.

Next, in terms of well-managed finances, I’ve talked before about my process of managing my business financial accounts on the 1^st and 15^th day of each month, or on the weekday closest to those dates. On those days, I balance my bank accounts, pay any business or personal bills that came in over the past 15 days, send out any invoices for projects completed during that time, and generally make sure that my business finances are a well-managed resource. If it’s the first day of the month or the 15^th day of the month, this task is always going to be my #1 priority! It will always take precedence over other tasks.

The third component for a thriving creative business is a focus on working within your creative & financial sweet spot. If that term isn’t familiar to you, I suggest you go back and listen to Episode 7 of this podcast, which is all about what it means to work within your Creative & Financial Sweet Spot. But the basic concept is that you want to focus on the kinds of projects that both bring you creative fulfillment because you enjoy working on them so much from a creative perspective, and that pay you your very best rates. Working within this space in your business is an incredibly powerful place to be, and anything you can do to increase the percentage of projects that fall within your sweet spot will be a helpful move for your creative business.

For me, over the past three months, I’ve been carefully curating the projects that I accept to make sure they fit solidly into my sweet spot. I’ve made sure that I had space for those exciting last-minute projects that occasionally come my way, and I’ve been selective about what I accept so that I know I’ll have plenty of time to do my very best work on every project I approach. As I mentioned earlier, actually doing the creative work I love so much will always be a high priority for me, and the past three months have been no exception to that.

Asynchronous income is the next component of a thriving creative business, and again, if that term is a bit unfamiliar to you, then take a listen to Episode 8 of this podcast, which digs into what asynchronous income is and how you can incorporate it into your creative business. But, to give you the 10 second recap, what I call asynchronous income is what everyone else calls passive income, but I really dislike the term “passive income.” It implies that this kind of income is, well, passive, that you don’t have to do anything to get it, that it just comes to you on its own, passively. Nothing can be further from the truth! No matter what type of “passive” income you work to develop, it will not come to you without work. Unless you’re independently wealthy, even if you’re investing in the stock market for your passive income, you have to first do enough work to get money to begin investing. Passive income isn’t passive; it’s asynchronous. The rewards from the work don’t come at the time the work is completed; they’re not synchronous with the work. Those rewards are a-synchronous, thus my preferred term for this kind of income.

Asynchronous income can be a huge game-changer for artists. It gives you a reliable flow of income, regardless of whether or not you’re working in your studio on a given day. Asynchronous income is the creative entrepreneur's paid time off. It’s your sick days. It’s your freedom to pursue a passion project that you want to do simply to expand your skills, rather than because it will result in a marketable project. Asynchronous income is powerful.

My primary source of asynchronous income within my creative business is royalty share audiobooks, or audiobook agreements for books I’ve narrated where the author and I agreed that we would split the royalties from the sale of those audiobooks. Truthfully, this is the one component that I haven’t paid as much attention to during these busy past three months, but that’s actually ok. If you listen to Episode 8 about asynchronous income, you’ll hear me talk about how this is the area of your business that is probably the slowest to develop. Because it is a bit of a bonus, it isn’t a high priority if you’re in an emergency situation in your work. And once you take the time to set it up once, it will typically continue to pay you gradually over time. That was absolutely the case for me. I haven’t done much in the way of asynchronous income work so far this calendar year, but because I have taken time to do that work in the past, I continued to get royalty payments into my bank account as usual.

And, perhaps even better, the time I set aside in my calendar for asynchronous income projects, namely the time I reserve to record royalty share audiobooks, is already spoken for through the end of this calendar year. Within my business, I’ve made the decision that about 15% of my creative time each year will be spent on asynchronous income projects, and I’ve already signed the contracts for all of those books in 2024. So while I haven’t recorded any royalty share audiobooks yet this year, I have made plans to do so. The joy of asynchronous income is that when I need to focus elsewhere, it chugs along on its own without me needing to do anything, and that’s exactly what it has done for me so far this year.

The fifth component for a thriving creative business is habits that support you. This refers both to habits in your work life and habits in your personal life, and it refers to daily habits, weekly habits, and monthly habits. In general, it encompasses the practices you enact within your life that allow you to be your very best creative self and to be fully present and healthy in your relationships and your personal life.

Because I’ve been sick so much the past few months, this component area has been a special focus for me. I know that when I’m having a bad pain day, one of the things that will help more than just about anything else is moving my body. My preferred exercise methods are running, biking, and hiking. It’s been a little too cold so far this year to go biking, but I’ve been doing a lot of hiking and almost daily running. Physical movement is my most reliable source of pain relief, and so it is almost always one of my highest priorities.

That’s just one example of a habit that supports my creative work and allows me to be my best on a daily basis. Some of my other habits have to do with the time of day that I devote to my recording each workday. Some habits relate to how and when I spend energy responding to emails and taking care of the various administrative tasks within my business. Others have to do with how I keep my home and office clean so that I have uncluttered physical space in which to work and live. When life gets busy, focusing back on these basic habits is one of the most important things I can do to allow myself to focus and be productive in other areas.

I was reading an article about productivity and priorities recently, and the author mentioned that she was trying to schedule an interview with a productivity consultant. One of the times that the author suggested to the consultant was rejected because the consultant was going to be on a hike with her family at that time. That consultant knew that taking time in nature with her family was going to help her focus better during her work time, so it was worth prioritizing above this interview with a journalist. Even habits that don’t, on the surface, have anything to do with your work, can actually make you a better creative entrepreneur, meaning they are worth prioritizing, even in those busy, task-overwhelmed times in your life.

What habits allow you to be your best creative self? Perhaps one of your most helpful habits has to do with physical movement or exercise, like is the case for me. Or maybe you need time with your partner to decompress at the end of each workday. Maybe you need time to read each night before bed. Maybe you need to adjust your schedule so that you’re able to do your creative work early in the morning or late at night. Whatever habits you need to do your best work, those habits are always going to be a priority for you.

And finally, the sixth component of a thriving creative business is a plan for ongoing growth. Creative industries are always changing, so we as artists must always be changing and growing and learning and evolving, too. Even though my last three months have been incredibly busy and full of tasks and commitments, I’ve also been very intentional about my ongoing growth activities.

One of my favorite ongoing growth activities is to listen to audiobooks by my colleagues, so I can learn from their excellent performances. I’ve already listened to a number of audiobooks this year, but two of the standouts are two titles that were both Audie Award finalists: Johanna Porter Is Not Sorry, written by Sara Read and narrated by my friend Marni Penning (who, as it happens, is going to be one of the faculty members at the Thriving Narrators Retreat in August), and The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder, by David Grann and narrated by Deon Graham. Both of those books are masterclasses in what it means to narrate effectively and with a deep connection to the text, and listening to them was absolutely a growth experience for me in my craft.

Another of my favorite growth activities is to engage in art experiences. So far in 2024, I’ve attended a concert of the Cincinnati Symphony, visited the Cincinnati Art Museum, and journeyed to an art gallery where I spent quite a while studying a Picasso and several Miros, in addition to some gorgeous animal portraits by contemporary American artists. I also saw a friend perform in Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park’s recent production of Dracula. None of those creative experiences directly relate to the work that I do as an audiobook narrator, but anytime I allow myself to consume others’ creativity, I enhance and expand my own, and my work will be better for it.

My life was tight, and my schedule was full over the past few months. But by being intentional and making choices about what would and would not get done, I was able to stay focused in each of the six component areas of my business, and my work didn’t suffer, and my business is still growing and thriving.

How can you learn from my experience the next time your schedule is packed and your tasks are overwhelming? In each of these six areas, what are the focused priorities within your creative business? When time gets tight and tasks get overwhelming, what marketing and networking activities are the most beneficial to you and your creative business, and how can you make sure those essential activities continue in the midst of that tight schedule? What financial management tasks are truly necessary, and how can you systematize those tasks so that you’re able to complete them easily and efficiently? The third component is your creative and financial sweet spot. So how can you prioritize the work that truly brings you joy and pays you your best rates? What do you need to do to make sure that you are doing your very best work? Can you let your asynchronous income efforts slide for a bit, while you focus elsewhere? What habits are most important to your work, and how can you give yourself the time you need to be your best self? And what ongoing artistic growth activities will allow you to stay excited and engaged in the creative work you do?

By focusing on these six areas in your business, despite the hecticness of life, you’ll stay centered in your artistic work, and your business will, like mine, continue to grow and thrive.

--

Thank you so much for being with me for this episode of the Starving Artist No More podcast. I know how valuable time is to creative entrepreneurs, and I will never take it for granted that you choose to spend your time with me, listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving me a review. They really do help new listeners find this little creative entrepreneurship community, especially reviews left on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And of course, if you have a creative colleague who you think might enjoy this episode, or any episode of this podcast, please share it with them. Sharing is caring! As always, a huge shout out goes to my husband, Arturo Araya, who is the audio engineer for this podcast and who makes sure I sound great when you listen to me. If you’d like to learn more about how you can work with me, check out my website, www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com. That’s also where you can share comments or feedback with me about this podcast. I truly do love hearing from listeners! And of course, if you’re an audiobook narrator and you’re listening to this episode before August 2024, I’d love to have you join us for the Thriving Narrators Retreat! You can get all of the details on my website. Again, that web address is www.StarvingArtistNoMore.com.

Sometimes, life gets hectic. Your project schedule is jampacked, or your family life is all-consuming, or your task list is overflowing to the point of overwhelm, or all three at once! And when you find yourself in that situation, as David Allen tells us, while you can do anything, you can’t do everything. Not all the things will get done, which means some things won’t get done. And while that situation can be horribly stressful, it isn’t the end of the story. You’re not powerless. You can make decisions about what will and won’t get done based on what truly matters to you and your creative business. Be intentional, and choose where you will spend your time and where you will focus your attention. And as you make those decisions, use the six components of a thriving creative business to guide your decision-making process. Allow yourself to stay active and engaged in some way in each of those six areas within your business. If you prioritize the most essential tasks in those six areas, then your creative business will continue to grow and thrive even through this busy, hectic period. You can intentionally decide where your priorities lie. I can’t wait to see what you create.