Ever had one of those weeks where your creative spirit is ready to burst, but your to-do list is acting like an evil overlord trying to squash it? Yeah, I feel you! This week on the Create Art Podcast, we’re diving into the art of finding that elusive balance between life’s chaos and your creative pursuits. Spoiler alert: it’s not about doing everything; it’s about giving the important stuff the space it needs to flourish. We’ll chat about how to manage your time like a pro, prioritize your mental vibes, and embrace those moments when life tries to hijack your art. So grab your favorite drink, kick back, and let’s figure out how to keep that artistic heart beating amidst the madness!

What Balance Actually Means

• Balance isn’t perfect equality — it’s adaptability.
• Think of it as creative tides, not a tightrope.
• Recognizing seasons of productivity and rest keeps your art sustainable.
• Burnout is the tax you pay for ignoring your limits.

Managing Time Like an Artist

• Protect small creative windows — 15 focused minutes beat 2 distracted hours.
• Schedule creative sessions like appointments — respect your art as real work.
• Use constraints (like limited time) to spark focus and ingenuity.

Prioritizing Mental and Emotional Space

• Creative energy thrives in calm environments — clutter steals focus.
• Give yourself permission to not create when you need rest.
• Mindfulness or journaling can help you reconnect with your “why.”

When Life Interrupts Art

• Life doesn’t stop for inspiration — learn to sketch ideas on the fly.
• Use “creative triage” — decide what must be done now, and what can wait.
• Even small acts (a note, a photo, a melody hum) keep the artistic rhythm alive.

Building Belonging Through Art

• Your art and your life are not enemies — they’re dance partners.
• Balance changes daily; awareness is your compass.
• Give yourself grace, structure, and permission to create imperfectly.

Takeaways:

• Creative balance isn't about doing everything, but about making space for what truly matters.
• Art and life are dance partners—embrace the rhythm of both and find your groove.
• Prioritizing rest and self-care is crucial for sustaining your artistic journey and creativity.
• When life interrupts your art, keep a notebook handy to capture those fleeting ideas and inspirations.
• Give yourself permission to take breaks; your creativity will thank you later for that downtime.
• Remember, balance is a dynamic dance, not a static state; learn to flow with the tides of life.

Topics covered in this series

Sharing Your Work Online for the First Time

Dealing With Criticism and Rejection

Finding (or Building) an Artistic Community

Collaboration as a Creative Catalyst

Staying Motivated Long-Term

Art Challenges & Social Media Trends

Mental Health & Creativity

Art Challenges & Social Media Trends

Setting Up a Creative Workspace

Creative Constraints & Prompts

Measuring Growth as an Artist

Why Do You Create?

When to Call Yourself an Artist

Balancing Art and Life

Lessons From a Year of Creating

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Reach Out To The Podcast

To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.

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Hey, have you ever had one of those weeks where your creative spark is ready to roar, but your to do list looks like a villain trying to snuff it out?

Between work, family errands and remembering to feed the cat, or in my case, two cats, the canvas or the microphone starts to feel like a luxury.

But here's the truth.

Balance isn't about doing it all.

It's about giving what matters the space it deserves.

This week on Create Art Podcast, as part of the new Artist Compass series, we're going to talk about what it really means to balance art and life and how not to lose yourself or your joy in the process.

Hey there, friends.

This is Timothy Keem o', Brien, your head instigator for Create Art Podcast, where I use my over 30 years of experience in the arts and education world to help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume.

So I really wanted to focus in on them.

And we'll be wrapping up the series probably in January, and we got a couple more episodes to go, and it's going to be fantastic.

And I want to thank you for coming along with me on this journey.

You know, even some of us old artists are us veteran artists.

We're like, you know, this new stuff, you know, the newbie stuff I don't need.

But I've found in this journey that I've picked up things that I needed and I've even started doing some paintings.

I've got some paintings for my wife and my kids that I'm working on right now.

So if you haven't heard from me in a couple of weeks, here, and you're like, oh, hey, he's back.

That's what I've been doing is I've actually been practicing what I preach.

I've been painting now I've been using acrylic, and I'm not doing the paint by numbers thing.

I'm actually watching a video.

And then it's, you know, it's instruction.

But it's nice because they make great gifts and it's been a lot of fun doing that.

So, yeah, I've let the podcast get away a little bit, but that's okay because I have an excuse.

I was creating art like I asked you to do every time you have an episode here.

So today we're going to be talking about, you know, art and balance.

So let's get right into that, shall we?

You know me, I like defining my terms.

So let's first talk about the word balance and what that actually means.

Balance, when we're talking in artistic terms is, isn't perfect equality, it's adaptability.

Think of it like this.

Think of it as a creative tide where it goes in and it goes out and not a tight rope where you're, you know, very focused on one little thing, you know, the, the next step right in front of you.

Focus on, you know, being in waves in a tide.

It comes, it comes in and it goes out.

And we also want to recognize the seasons are of our productivity and rest keeps your art sustainable.

Trust me, I know.

I used to write back in the day, back when I first started writing poetry.

I was like, yeah, I'm gonna write four poems a day.

And I was able to do that.

And three out of the four poems were crap.

And I wasn't going out there and looking at other poets that much.

But now when I do poetry, and it's been a while since I've written a poem, I'll be honest with you, it's been a while.

But now when I do poetry, I'm reading a lot of other poets and I'm getting a lot of inspiration, a lot of ideas on how other people do it.

And sometimes, yes, if you got the bug and you've got to do it right then and there, go into it, dive into it, but then make sure you're saving time for yourself.

That's when the tide is in, when the tide is out.

Educate yourself, give yourself that time, give yourself that space.

And also give yourself time to rest where you're not doing anything, you're not educating yourself, you're not practicing your craft.

You do need that time.

I'm getting ready to turn 53 and trust me, if I can take a nap, I take a nap.

Because sometimes I just need to because I have so much going on.

I've got a family that I dearly love, whose lives I want to be a part of.

I have a side business that I run and then I have my day job and that's a lot of stuff.

And I'm continually looking for ways to add more to it.

I know I want to join up with Toastmasters for some God awful reason.

I know I want to do more talking at podcast conferences and attend more conferences.

That's A lot of time and a lot of money.

So I need to make sure that I am scheduling myself correctly.

So that way, when it does come time, when it's go time and I'm sitting there and knocking stuff out and creating, I have the energy to do that.

Because with all the other things that I do, plus the podcast, I can run out of energy really quick.

And, you know, just a little, you know, side note, if you've forgotten or if you didn't know, I have ms, so my energy level is already cut.

So I need to really protect my energy levels for whenever I'm doing projects.

And, you know, you may not have a neurological disorder like I do.

Maybe you're just a normal person just going on with your day.

You need that time to rest, too.

Because before I learned that I had ms, yeah, I was boom, boom, boom, boom, boom all over the place, and I ran out of steam and I didn't finish a lot of things and I didn't study a lot of things.

So I'm just trying to help you avoid that mistake.

Give yourself time to rest, give yourself time to educate, and give yourself time to go in and get that creativity knocked out.

Okay?

So we've kind of defined what balance is.

It's not equality, it's recognizing the seasons of your productivity.

Now, we want to talk about, or I want to talk about the royal we managing time like an artist.

So as an artist, we do need to manage our time.

And with me, Sunday mornings is usually my time out of the whole week.

I'll have a couple of hours in my man cave to go ahead and knock stuff out or when everybody's asleep in the house, that's when I can go ahead and knock stuff out.

We need to protect those creative windows.

Schedule them in.

Don't let anything interrupt them.

Okay?

Treat it like a job.

Treat it.

Put it in your daily to do list.

Maybe it's 10 minutes, maybe it's a half hour.

Maybe it's, you know, twice a week.

With me, it usually ends up being about once a week where I can do a bigger project like a painting or a podcast or something along those lines.

But protect those small creative windows for yourself.

And again, schedule that into your life.

Make it an appointment and respect it.

Don't let anyone steal your thunder from it.

Now, if stuff happens again, I have a family.

Stuff happens all the time.

Okay.

You know, I can let that slide every once in a while, but protect that time.

And, you know, another thing that you can do is, like, turn off your phone because if you're like me, yeah.

You get a notification and it takes you out of whatever you're doing, and it takes 5, 10, 15 minutes to get back into it.

And you've already now for a ping on an email.

That is a spam email.

You're wasting five or 10 minutes.

Don't let people steal your time.

Protect that time.

Turn off that phone, Turn off that tv.

I know in the background you see the TV going on.

That's just because I'd like to have noise in the background.

But I'm here with you, and I'm not letting that TV bother me one bit.

I'd rather be here with you.

So manage that time.

All right, so we've defined what balance is.

We are managing our times.

That's great.

Here's a tough one.

Prioritizing mental and emotional space.

So when we're creating, a lot of our inner stuff comes out in whatever we create.

So you want to make sure that your mental and emotional space is taken care of.

Back in the day, I used to like to, you know, go to the bars, get drunk, write poetry, and, you know, have all that noise around me.

But what I find is, is I get better work done when I'm here in my man cave.

And, you know, it's nice and it's calm and it's quiet, and I can really focus on stuff.

I can focus on the project.

Now, the other thing, too is, and this is going to sound counterintuitive, but give yourself permission to take that rest when you need it.

I gave myself permission to take a.

A break for a couple of weeks from episodes because there's stuff I wanted to get done.

There's other stuff that was more of a priority for me.

And one of those things was resting, you know, resting on Sunday mornings and just not doing anything.

Just letting you know life happen.

So you can give yourself permission to do that.

If you need me to give you permission to do that, I give you permission to do that.

Something else you can think about doing is, you know, doing a mindfulness practice or journaling, and that will reconnect you with your why.

Now, for me, I do some meditation on occasion, and it really helps.

It really gets me focused on my why.

Why am I doing this?

Why am I sitting here talking out into the ether to you and doing this?

Well, I want to help you create more than you consume.

It's not just a slogan.

It's a way of life.

For me anyways, and hopefully for you, too.

But we need to make sure that the stuff that's up here is good.

Now, I'll be honest with you, I.

When I was much younger, I thought, you know, the crazy artists were, you know, you had to be a little bit crazy and nutty and jumping all over the place and being weird.

No, you don't.

I'm fairly normal looking, I guess.

Yeah, I have a lot of tattoos and I love skulls.

But you don't have to be, you know, crazy or outrageous or anything like that if you don't want to be.

And a lot of times when I, you know, step up to the microphone at poetry readings, people are like, oh, who's this, you know, middle aged white guy?

What's he going to say?

And then I lay down some, some words that they're like, oh, my God, he's really into this.

And, you know, to my Friday night crowd at OG's poetry scene, it's been a minute since I've been out there, but, you know, it really helps me get out there and, you know, interact with the audience and let them know what's going on in my life and hearing what's going on in their lives.

So make sure that you're having a practice of mindfulness or journaling or something like that.

Who knows?

That could turn into another project.

Give it a shot for yourself.

All right.

We're going to talk about when life interrupts art, because it happens.

It.

Did I tell you that I'm a. I'm a dad of twins and they're 11.

Oh, my God.

Life gets interrupted every five minutes.

So when stuff like that happens, we have a lot of tools that are available to us.

It doesn't need to stop your creativity.

You can write it down on a piece of paper or have a little notebook with you at all times, or use your voice notes or a voice memo in your cell phone.

Life is going to happen.

It's going to happen.

But if you get some crazy thing in the back of your head and you're like, oh, oh, I want to do this, write it down.

The actual act of writing things can help bring them into reality.

And you can, you know, use a creative triage.

If you've got a couple of things going on, decide, you know, what's got to be done now, what can I not, you know, it's vital that this gets done, you know, and maybe it's a, you know, a portion of the project that it can't wait for anything else.

Okay, cool.

Then make that the priority.

If other stuff can kind of, you know, fade in the background a little bit Let it fade in the background.

You know, sometimes if you see something like just the other.

Just yesterday, my wife and I saw this beautiful sunset and this.

These clouds that were just making these wonderful patterns.

And I was driving, and my wife went ahead and took a picture of it, and I'm going to ask her to send it to me because that's something I'd like to paint.

I was taking a look.

Obviously I was looking at the road, but I was looking at the sky, too.

And I was like, man, that would make a wonderful painting.

That's what's going to happen with it.

So even if you can't take the note or take the photo or whatnot, have somebody there with you that can write it down, especially if you're driving.

You know, focus on that driving.

But you never know when that, you know, that next idea is going to hit.

And for me, it hit while I was driving, and luckily, my wife took a photo of it, and we'll go ahead and make a painting of it.

But these are just things that, you know, life happens.

If I would have been by myself in the car, I wouldn't have been able to, you know, whip out my phone and take a photo of it really quick.

I. I would have had to have done it by memory, or I would have had to get to where I was going.

You know, write some stuff down, take a sketch, something along those lines.

But always have pen and paper handy, or at least have your phone handy, so that way you can take notes on it, and that's what you can do to beat life when it's trying to interrupt your art.

All right, so let's, you know, kind of refocus on some takeaways that you're going to have for this.

First thing is, you know, your art, in your life are not enemies, they're dance partners.

So try to fit your art around your life.

Try to fit your life around your art.

Art is very vital.

It's very important.

It's not on the scale of food and water, but it kind of is a close third because it helps a lot with your mental and your emotional state.

So make them partners, make their life, and make your art partners.

And realize that it's going to change daily.

You're.

You're going to have stuff that interrupts you, and that's okay.

It's not a problem.

Just try your best to not let it interrupt.

And when it does, pivot, get done what needs to get done and then come back to the art.

I'm prime example of it.

Like I said I had stuff to get done, so I took a break for a few weeks from the podcast and now I'm back and that happens.

And it's okay.

It's not a problem.

You can do that.

You.

You have a lot of leeway.

You can do that.

And then, you know, when that stuff happens, give yourself some grace.

And I'm talking to me too.

Give yourself some grace because there's going to be challenges, there's going to be interruptions, and it may or may not be your fault, but it's more than likely not your fault because life is going to happen regardless.

It's going to keep on going.

So realize that.

Don't necessarily blame yourself and give yourself permission to create things that are imperfect.

I joke that I paint like a four year old on crack, but I have tools now that helps me look like an 8 year old on crack.

So definitely, you know, dive into those tools that you have for yourself and give yourself some grace and then just find that balance, find that happy spot.

And is it going to make every, you know, make everything super duper easy?

It's, it's going to make it easier.

I mean, I make it totally easy, but it's going to make it easier for you.

All right, I'm going to close us out here today.

Balance isn't static.

It's like the tide coming in and coming out.

You know, you're.

You're going to find balance some days, you're going to find imbalance other days.

But just do what you can to try each and every day.

And, you know, each day is a new day.

You get a new chance and just realize that, hey, you know, Tuesday was horrible.

I didn't get anything done.

And this and that and the other thing happened, okay, let's make Wednesday better.

Let's realize that.

Identify what happened, and then try to do better the next day.

And if you can do that, the days will get better.

Maybe not right away, but they will get better.

Okay, so the next time you feel all, you know, stretched too thin, remember, take five minutes, do it with your craft, whatever project you're working on, and keep your artistic heart beating and just be with it for a few minutes and then get back to the stuff that needs to get done.

All right?

So, hey, keep on creating, keep on breathing, walk this path and don't trip over perfection.

That's all I have for you this week.

I want to thank you so much for joining, joining me.

If you'd like to reach out to me, you can email me.

Timothyartpodcast.com I'd love to hear from you.

I'd love to see what kind of projects you're working on and you know, I could use some, you know, critique on the show too.

Is this filling you with what you need?

Let me know about that.

I'd love to hear from you.

I do run another show.

It's called Find a Podcast About.

You can find it at findapodcast about xyz.

And that's where I help my listeners there find their next binge worthy podcast and outsmart the algorithm.

You can find it at Findapodcast about XYZ.

You can find it at tkbpodcaststudio.com and I help folks start up their own podcasts and, you know, help you lead through the noise with quiet professionalism.

So from idea inception all the way to production and everything after that, that happens.

I'd like to help you out.

Take a look at my website, see the projects I've been working on.

See if I mesh with you.

All right, that's all I got for you today.

Thank you so much.

And I just want to say, create more than you consume.

Tame that inner critic and go out there and make some mark for somebody you love yourself.

I'll talk with you next time.

It.