What do illustrators DO all day? Featuring keep-fit cuppas, & coworking 🤓

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Good Ship Illustration - "What Do Illustrators DO All Day? Featuring Keep-Fit Cuppas & Coworking 🤓"

Episode Details

• Title: What Do Illustrators DO All Day? Featuring Keep-Fit Cuppas & Coworking 🤓
• Release Date: November 15, 2024
• Hosts: Helen Stephens, Katie Chappell, and Tania Willis

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Introduction In this episode of The Good Ship Illustration, hosts Tanya, Katie, and Gerry delve into the everyday lives of professional illustrators. They explore the varied routines, challenges, and strategies that illustrators employ to maintain productivity and creativity. The conversation provides a candid look into balancing personal life with a flourishing creative career, emphasizing that no two days are alike for illustrators.

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Morning Routines: Early Risers and Flexible Starts

Tanya begins by sharing her long-standing habit of waking up early, often around 4-5 AM, a trait rooted in her childhood where she was "the first person awake in the house" ([00:11] Tanya). Despite naturally waking up early, she humorously discusses how menopause affects her sleep patterns, sometimes making her fall back asleep after a brief period of morning activities ([00:56] Tanya).

Katie contrasts Tanya’s early mornings with her own experience during pregnancy, where she used to wake at 4 AM out of necessity. Nowadays, she enjoys the luxury of sleeping until 8 AM, granting her a more relaxed start to the day ([07:58] Katie).

Quote:

"I'm definitely somebody who cannot, cannot function very well after in the evening, but on a morning you can ask me anything." – Tanya ([13:20] Tanya)

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Work Habits: Structured Yet Flexible

Tanya elaborates on her daily structure, which includes setting a to-do list each morning, handling urgent emails, and prioritizing tasks based on deadlines. She emphasizes keeping her to-do lists short to avoid stress, aiming to accomplish at least one significant task each day ([05:19] Tanya).

Katie shares her approach to managing her workload, including batching client calls to specific afternoons and setting aside entire days for concentrated work. She also utilizes co-working apps like Groove to maintain accountability and productivity ([10:07] Katie).

Quote:

"I keep my to do list nice and short because I used to have long ones and they used to stress me out too bad." – Tanya ([05:19] Tanya)

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Managing Energy and Productivity: Understanding Personal Cycles

The hosts discuss the importance of recognizing and adapting to their natural energy cycles. Katie reveals how her productivity fluctuates with her menstrual cycle, being highly efficient during ovulation and struggling significantly before her period ([09:53] Katie). She highlights the value of tracking these cycles to better manage her workload and expectations.

Tanya adds that her creative peak occurs in the mornings, advising against tasks that drain her energy, such as checking emails early in the day. She strives to reserve her most creative hours for high-energy tasks ([14:07] Tanya).

Quote:

"If I can be bothered, I'll put a bra on underneath but sometimes I just have to hold my boobs because they jump about and at least I'm doing it." – Tanya ([05:19] Tanya)

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Co-working and Community: Building Accountability

Katie discusses the benefits of co-working, detailing how virtual co-working sessions help her stay focused and accountable. These sessions involve setting specific work goals and reporting progress, fostering a sense of camaraderie despite the physical distance ([11:02] Katie).

Gerry, reflecting on his first experience with co-working, appreciates the silent accountability it provides, noting that "the silence of knowing you're working side by side digitally" enhances productivity without the pressure of direct oversight ([11:28] Gerry).

Quote:

"It's just, I think it's too much information, but like, depending on where I am in my cycle." – Katie ([11:44] Katie)

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Balancing Family and Work: Integrating Personal Responsibilities

The conversation highlights the delicate balance between professional responsibilities and family life. Tanya explains her morning routine of preparing her child for school and managing household tasks before diving into her work ([03:53] Tanya). Katie shares similar challenges, describing the frantic morning rush of getting her child ready while trying to maintain her own productivity ([07:58] Katie).

The hosts emphasize the importance of flexibility and understanding within the household, acknowledging that family dynamics play a significant role in shaping their daily schedules.

Quote:

"Another creativity. I feel like it is work. So if my mind starts following an avenue of another bit of creativity, like make a banner or a flag or sew something, I just do that until the deadline feels much, much more pressing and then I come back to it." – Tanya ([07:17] Tanya)

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Evening Routines: Wind Down and Reflect

As the day winds down, Tanya and Katie share their strategies for transitioning from work to relaxation. Tanya prefers eating dinner early to maintain a healthy gap before breakfast and to prevent late-night snacking by her child ([06:09] Tanya). She aims to be asleep by 10 PM to align with her body's early schedule.

Katie describes her evening routine of picking up her child, preparing for bedtime, and winding down with books, ensuring she disconnects from work-related stress ([13:05] Katie). Both hosts highlight the importance of setting boundaries to protect their mental health and ensure quality family time.

Quote:

"But then like ovulation week. I'm a machine. Could do everything. Just plough through the to do list, get it all done, full of energy, I can socialize everything." – Katie ([12:16] Katie)

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Conclusion: Embracing Flexibility and Community Support

In wrapping up, the hosts acknowledge that the life of an illustrator is anything but rigid. They encourage listeners to embrace the variability of their schedules, prioritize tasks based on personal energy levels, and seek community support through co-working and online forums.

They invite listeners to share their own daily routines, promoting a sense of solidarity and understanding within the illustrator community. The episode concludes with a light-hearted reminder that it's okay to have unorthodox days, reinforcing the message that every illustrator’s journey is unique.

Quote:

"No more of those horrible CEO Day in the Life things." – Tanya ([18:37] Tanya)

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Key Takeaways

• Early Mornings: Many illustrators start their day early to maximize productivity, though personal factors like health can influence wake-up times.
• Flexible Workflows: Illustrators often have varied daily tasks, requiring adaptable routines and prioritization based on deadlines and creative energy.
• Energy Management: Understanding personal energy cycles, including the impact of hormonal changes, is crucial for maintaining consistent productivity.
• Community and Accountability: Virtual co-working sessions and community support systems play a vital role in keeping illustrators motivated and accountable.
• Work-Life Balance: Successfully integrating family responsibilities with professional work requires flexibility, clear boundaries, and supportive household dynamics.

This episode offers a heartfelt and realistic glimpse into the lives of professional illustrators, providing valuable insights and relatable experiences for anyone navigating a creative career.

Transcript

[Tanya]

Okay, so today we're gonna talk about an average day in the life.

[Katie]

Yes. I went to a dinner party the other night with people who, their friends. And it was, it was our best man and his fiance and they're both like sciency people. I don't know anything about what they do. And I was a little bit scared, like how we're going to end a conversation, but I just said to, it was Heather. And I was like, talk me through your day. Like, what do you do? She works at a power station, a nuclear power station. And it was fascinating to just hear like what she actually did in a day. But yeah, I thought it'd be also fascinating. What do we do in a day? It's hard because as illustrators, no two days are the same.

[Tanya]

They're never the same. Also, I, I am quite addicted to watching. I don't know if you know Italian Batch. You probably don't. I've got a secret. Do you know K?

[Katie]

Yes, I do.

[Tanya]

Yes. I really love Italian Batch. He is a YouTuber who, who all. My 16 year old is mad about him. So she introduced me to him and he watches other YouTube videos and picks them apart. And one of his favorite things to do is pick apart. You know those videos of a day in the life of a CEO and they're like up a dawn, put on your muscle tea, get in the gym, 10 glasses of water. Like that kind of high, like I. You know, that kind of optimize your life thing. And he watches those and laughs at them and we spent ages watching those. And just like he picks them apart, he'll find in the background there's a clock that actually says it's half eleven in the morning when he says he's up at five and that kind of thing. Yeah, they're brilliant. Yes. So my day is nothing like that. I do get up at 4 very often, but that's because I think I'm probably menopausal. It wakes me up really early and I just go downstairs and if I watch a bit of kind of boring YouTube, I fall back asleep and I don't want to stay in bed otherwise I'll wake Gerry up. Yeah, that's. I'd say that's a life stage I'm going through.

[Gerry]

But even before that you were adrenaline queen, weren't you?

[Tanya]

Yeah, when I used to be working like crazy. I've actually always been an early riser. When I was a child, I would be the first person awake in the house. I used to sit on my windowsill in my Bedroom and watch outside because there's a stream ran past the house. So I've always been an early riser and when I was really busy with work, yeah I would get up and work before everybody else in the house was awake.

[Gerry]

What time would that be?

[Tanya]

Sometimes five in the morning. Just go in my work room, put my computer on, write a to do list, maybe start a newsletter or something, then go and wake Pie up and get her off to school and then start the day properly. And it was, I kind of enjoyed it. But I do think I was in the end suffering with just too much. I was just doing too much.

[Gerry]

So what time do you get up now?

[Tanya]

Yeah, like four or five most days. I just get. It's my natural wake up time and sometimes I just get out of bed and just do nothing till PI wakes up. Just mess about tidying up and don't know, watch some YouTube, watch some Italian batch and. Yeah, and sometimes I actually think, oh, I'm actually too tired and I go back to sleep. But not very often.

[Katie]

That's a good morning routine I can get behind. Yeah, floating around.

[Gerry]

I don't want to jump the gun but I'm getting anxiety about waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning. What time do you go to bed?

[Tanya]

Or early. Because I know I'm an early riser naturally by half 9 I am yawning and yawning and yawning and Gerry and Pyle want me to watch something on TV with them and I can't follow the plot because I keep closing my eyes and I'm having micro sleeps. So yeah, I'm in bed reading my book by half nine and asleep by. And asleep by 10, half 10 always. Because I know, I just know I'm an early riser so I need to get my sleep in early.

[Gerry]

Oh, I feel reassured by that. Four or five. So what happens next? Then you got PI up, get PI's.

[Tanya]

Out the door and now Gerry tells me, he forces me to do Joe Wicks, which we've been doing since lockdown. So we used to do that with PI and then very quickly she got fed up of it. She actually wrote some big protest signs about why she shouldn't have to do it.

[Gerry]

Like people who don't live in Britain. Explain Joe.

[Tanya]

Joe Wick. So he was a big phenomenon in lockdown and he was like at the time keeping children doing PE while we were all in lockdown. And so he made these brilliant videos where your whole family would join in and we heard about it and joined in and I Just really like him because I hate there's no way I'm going to the gym. The idea of that, I think I've been scarred by PE teachers at school, there is no way I'm doing that. But I definitely do need exercise. I feel I need it emotionally, like my mental health needs it. So, yeah, we just carried on. I've done it almost every day since the beginning of lockdown Pie stopped doing it long time ago, but yeah, every.

[Gerry]

Morning I'm in awe.

[Tanya]

He says, you've got to get your keep fit bottle of water at your side. I make a cup of tea because I'm a northerner. I've got my keep fit cup of te. I usually just have my pajamas on. If I can be bothered, I'll put a bra on underneath but sometimes I just have to hold my boobs because they jump about and at least I'm doing it. I mean, it's not cool, but I'm doing it every day, honestly.

[Gerry]

I mean all that you exercise every.

[Tanya]

Morning is so disciplined with Gerry and I argue if we do, if we have a few days off, we end up like grumpy with each other and we know it's lack of exercise. So yeah, Joe wakes, pies off to school, Joe wakes. And now in my days of not being on that treadmill anymore, then I'll open up my iPad. If there's an urgent email, I answer it, but if it's not urgent, I don't. I write a to do list. I keep my to do list nice and short because I used to have long ones and they used to stress me out too bad. So if I do one good job a day, that's good. And then PI comes in after she's finished school, have a little chat and then Gerry and I take turns to cook. So I either he does or I do. The one who's not cooking carries on working and then we stop working. We eat really early in our house.

[Gerry]

What time?

[Tanya]

Like five, half five.

[Gerry]

Oh, that's like 1950s.

[Tanya]

Because I, yeah, I really want a nice long gap between my evening meal and my breakfast and so I want to eat early and then have my breakfast later in the morning. So we also, if we don't feed Pie the minute she's in the door, she'd just eat all the Kit Kats and the crisps in the cupboard and then she doesn't want her tea so we all. It suits us to eat early.

[Gerry]

So if you say you're happy if you do one good job a day, what's that to do a drawing or some roughs or is that there's some rough.

[Tanya]

Do you know what? Every day is different as well. At the moment I'm preparing to give a talk for Scooby. So tomorrow I will, I'll do that all day. If I've got a deadline, it's different because I will actually get up early, put my computer on, write a list, write a little sheet with each page. I want to get done today so I know what I'm going to do. So yeah, my days are always really different. Some days I might get up desperately in the mood to write a sub stack. The mood just takes over and I think, well, that's, that'll be the job today. Then also we're doing up the house, so sometimes a DIY job might be the priority.

[Gerry]

So much freedom. We're really lucky.

[Tanya]

We really are.

[Gerry]

Prioritize what's important to us on a particular time and if there's gaps between work and, yeah, do life stuff.

[Tanya]

Another creativity. I feel like it is work. So if my mind starts following an avenue of another bit of creativity, like make a banner or a flag or sew something, I just do that until the deadline feels much, much more pressing and then I come back to it.

[Katie]

I definitely need the urgency to get anything done, which is annoying. But then when it works, it's really effective.

[Gerry]

It's just a world of pain all the time though, isn't it? But it gets it done. What's your day like, Katie?

[Katie]

So I also wake up early. When I was pregnant, I Woke up at 4:00 every morning. That was really annoying. But I would just get up and float around. Recently I've been managing to sleep till 8 in the morning, which is luxurious. So I get up at 8, go grab small child from upstairs, like get all her clothes and things, put them in a pile downstairs, get breakfast for her, get my breakfast and then we sit and watch cartoons. And I'm late every single day, so don't take any of this as advice. So we watch cartoons with too long and then I go, shit, it's quarter to nine. And then put her clothes on as fast as I can. Try and like scrub pancake off her face and brush her hair because it's like a bird's nest on the back of her head. Persuade her to get in the car. Come on. And try not to seem too stressed. Yeah, like today I got hurt in nursery and then was like, okay, now I need to go home and sort myself out because I hadn't done any of my own things. So I went home and like packed my lunch and did all that stuff. But then, yeah, I go to the studio most days and it's tricky to say a normal day in the life because it is always really different. But if I'm in the studio and I've got stuff to do, I'll probably have some meetings. So I'll look at my calendar and see when they are. And then when the big chunks of time are that I can get other things done, look at my inbox. It's really nice that I have people, there's two members of the team looking after my. In books. So there's just like things labeled for me to. To look at.

[Gerry]

Wow.

[Katie]

So I'll be like, I'll look at them. And even then I don't even reply sometimes because it's too boring. But sometimes if I'm like, oh, that is really urgent, I need to respond, I will. Or I'll tell somebody else how to respond, which feels naughty. But then carry on. I might have, like, edits to do on an illustration. There might be like, tweaks from something I did live a couple of weeks ago or there might be, I don't know, preparations for a feature event. But yeah, client calls. I try and batch them all on one or two afternoons a week.

[Gerry]

That's a good idea.

[Katie]

And I keep them short. They're like 20 minutes each. So then I'm just like, push, push, push, push, push, get through them all. And that means as well, because I don't know if you have this. If you. If you know there's a meeting at the end of the day, the rest of the day is just waiting for the meeting, which does her head in.

[Tanya]

Yeah, I completely get that. Sometimes there's just the feeling of waiting makes it feel as if you can't do anything else when actually you can. Yep, horrible.

[Katie]

So I try to have at least one day, one working day a week where there's no meetings at all. And I work Monday to Wednesday officially, sometimes Thursdays, but never Fridays. So those three days are like my concentrated workie days. And I'm just about to shorten them because at the moment it's nine to five and I feel like that's too long in the afternoon. I don't get anything really done useful anyway. But if I've got loads to do and I'm struggling, I do co working. So there's an app called Groove that I really like, where you log on, it's on your phone and you literally just get on and say, I'm gonna work on this now. And then you say, see you later. And then in 50 minutes, 5, 0, you say, I did it or I didn't do it. And that is really helpful. And that sometimes I just be like, I need three grooves and I'll get everything done and then I can let myself off the hoop.

[Gerry]

It's just I'm still amazed by the whole co working thing because I hadn't done it before and both of you had. And then we decided it would be good to offer it as part of Good Ship membership and we do that now. And I did it for the first time. I was like, why does this work? Because you're not genuinely being accountable, but just that silence of knowing you're working side by side digitally, virtually with a bunch of people who've got their own thing going on.

[Katie]

It's so good.

[Gerry]

Yeah.

[Katie]

We started doing Good Ship stuff every two weeks, haven't we?

[Tanya]

Yeah.

[Katie]

So if you've done any of the courses, you're invited to Good Ship call working. It's just an hour, just like that. You see what you're gonna work on. You work on it. You see how it went.

[Gerry]

How many grooves do you do a week, Katie?

[Katie]

Oh, it depends how much I've got to do, how much I'm struggling. I also find it's probably too much information, but like, depending on where I am in my cycle.

[Gerry]

Yeah.

[Katie]

Like the week before my period is a total write off. Can't do anything. I've given up trying. Even like ADHD medication doesn't work. I don't know. I just can't do anything. Well, I can, but like painfully while crying and I get one thing squeezed out for the week and be like, I can't do anymore. But then like ovulation week. I'm a machine. Could do everything. Just plough through the to do list, get it all done, full of energy, I can socialize everything.

[Gerry]

That's amazing.

[Katie]

I should track it more because I always forget. I'm like, I'm a failure. Why can't I get anything done? And then I'm like, oh, that was why? Okay, I'm fine.

[Gerry]

That's mind blowing that it is that reliably bad.

[Katie]

I'm like, why did I book a project this week? Like, the client's really wanting me to do this work and I just can't do it. Yeah. Once I get all through that, I go pick up child, go home, have tea. It's literally pick her up, tea, bed. And then I just lie on the Sofa and look at my phone or leave.

[Gerry]

So what time is that? Like, what time's your tea?

[Katie]

Half five, quarter to six? Yeah. And then like a little bit of playing. Half past six for upstairs, bath, bed, book, back book, bed, yeah, loads of books.

[Gerry]

Totally different. When you've got a little running your clock for you, you have to be there for that. Six and seven.

[Tanya]

I used to fall asleep while I was getting pie into bed. I'd read with, sit in a bed to read and then I'd wake up and it'd be 11 o'clock at night and I'd gone to sleep in her bed. Do you do that?

[Katie]

No, but I do. Like as soon as I get downstairs I'm like, don't even speak to me, I'm so tired I can't even, like, I don't care what's on the telly, I'm not going to watch it.

[Tanya]

I just, I'm definitely somebody who cannot, cannot function very well after in the evening, but on a morning you can ask me anything. I always say to PI, don't ask me this in the evening, ask me in the morning because in the morning I'll be on it, I'll be able to fix it, I'll be able to do anything. Ask me in the evening, I'll just be grumpy about it. You're picking the bad time.

[Katie]

Same for chess. If I play chess at night time I'll lose. But for playing with a toddler. No, she plays. I'll win every time. Yeah, no, sadly she can't play chess yet, but with Cameron, who play chess at night, I'll lose, but in the morning I'll win. It's because my brain is offline, I think, from like 3:00pm I'm done.

[Tanya]

Yeah. I always try to remember to save my emails for nearer the end of the day because the beginning of the day is when I'm creatively best. So I, I shouldn't really be first thing in the morning looking at my emails.

[Gerry]

Yeah. Wasting good energy, but I do because.

[Tanya]

It'S a distraction from starting. But I always think to myself, I should do these at the end of the day, but I'm not disciplined enough to do it.

[Katie]

What about you, Tanya? You're the light owl of the three of us, aren't you?

[Gerry]

Yes. Whenever they wanted to meet, do something that required intelligence at 10:00am, I'd be like, oh, no, could we not do it at 2 or be at my best. But I had this. There's two lives. So there was the life in I Sorry it sounds really poncy to say the Hong Kong life. I used to work really long hours I'd start at 10 and I'd finish about 7 o'clock and I just got so used to that I thought it was normal and a few people said it wasn't I was like oh okay because it doesn't get dark till 7 then so I almost worked on a kind of light thing but coming back to the UK is totally different especially and I know it's been a while but I still can't get used to winter nights and you know, 4:00 that it's, it's dark and I feel like I could should stop work but I think recently here I get up really late, I wake up at about half past eight, don't want to get out of bed before then and faff around until I get to my desk about half past nine get the to do list out which I am a living to do list even though I don't want to be pick off the most important bits, do loads of emails and then maybe what I can never really get into the flow till after 2 o'clock so 2 till 6 I would work and then if I've got a project I'll still do that thing of working two till say lunchtime till seven o'clock at night Graham cooks now so I come down, eat my food, eat too much of it, fall into a coma on the sofa in front of the TV and once I've had a few naps then I'm up for a good old TV session till midnight or one in the morning which accounts for the half past eight wake up so that's the routine I've always done but I'm trying to go to bed at half 11 that's late stage adulting.

[Katie]

Yeah I'm in bed by half ten. Half eleven's like oh it's all eight. Yeah, definitely.

[Gerry]

So now whenever we have our like suppers together I've actually learned to start them at 6:00 because it's too much strain for, for you two if we're carrosing until 1011 o'clock at night.

[Tanya]

Yeah I'm. I'm just yawning non stop come 10 o'clock. There's no way that's. So that's interesting because you always, you've often told us how late you eat your meal and I think how do you sleep when you've eaten your meal? But you're not going to bed till midnight or 1:00.

[Katie]

No.

[Gerry]

So I've still got that gap. But I'm trying now to do all the sensible stuff, like eat at 6 o'clock, not eat heavy meals. You need that gap. And try to do a bit of intermittent fasting. It's finally come to me, but I don't think I'll ever be able to get up at 7. If I get up at 7, I feel weirdly tired and ill at the end of the day. It's just because it was that extra hour. So when we talk about what do we do all day, I always feel ashamed because I'm a lazy riser. Just do lots of things, like sign petitions for half an hour first thing in the morning. All those emails that you should really be actually clicking and subscribe on. If I calculate it, how much of my life was signing online petitions, it'd be really quite chunky.

[Katie]

You're doing good work, though. Someone has to say the petition and.

[Gerry]

Pass them on to other people who don't want to sign them.

[Tanya]

I sign them. Whenever you send me one, I sign them. I just think, well, Tanya told me to sign it, I better sign it. I don't know what it's for, I better sign it.

[Katie]

I'm like, I'll sign that later and then forget about it.

[Gerry]

So that's like. There's no real solid thing in an Illustrator's day, is there?

[Tanya]

No, there's really not. Like today, we. None of us have done any of those things because we got up, we sent a message, what time? We're podcasting. We came around here, we had a good old chat at the table.

[Gerry]

Yeah. And then put the world to rights before we began podcasting. So this is effectively the ASMR episode that doesn't impart any useful, actionable information. Just figure out that you're not alone in getting up late or faffing your way through the day and managing to get some work done somehow.

[Tanya]

Yeah, it's all good.

[Katie]

We'd love to hear about your Days in the Life.

[Tanya]

Yeah, I don't know.

[Katie]

Where do we want to hear about that? Somewhere.

[Gerry]

Send it to us. Even on Instagram. We could do a Day in the Life post and ask people to write.

[Tanya]

That would be good.

[Gerry]

And don't lie and don't fib and try and make it sound like you're really super.

[Tanya]

Oh, I really like to hear realistic, nitty, gritty, embarrassing elements of people's daily routine. They're the best bits. No more of those horrible CEO Day in the Life things.

[Katie]

They're just exhausted doing.

[Tanya]

Oh, God, they're always men with perfect hair who think they're God's gift to women. Oh.

[Gerry]

End self optimizing. Now, let's just get slack.

[Katie]

Get slack. Half.

[Tanya]

That's it, Katie. That's Katie's advice for life. And I love it. Half has it.

[Katie]

Yeah, definitely.

[Gerry]

Have a good day.

[Tanya]

Bye.