In order to complete the fantasy brief, time management and organisations are key. I always have a list on hand of the tasks I need to do and with this project, this was determined from the very start. However, about halfway through, I knew that I would need more than just a simple list. I needed to know where I was at all times, what needed to be done, and how best to use the time going forward. I have currently opted for three different methods of tracking my progress and deciding how to best spend my days in order to do this.
The first is using my planner. Bullet journaling is an option which I tried out some time ago and felt that it was too time-consuming to set up everything myself: I preferred to have a template of the month and week ready for me to fill, and I knew that an agenda or planner would be just that for me. In a previous post, I talked a little about how I utilise my planner daily, and for the fantasy brief, it has become of even greater importance, and use. It is now crucial for me to have a list for each day to tick off the tasks that I want to get done by the end of the week. These the accumulate towards my monthly goals. I made a separate list for blog work, and another for character design and concept art, which fits into what I have to add into the blogs, and I attach those to my planner with the paperclip that I use as a weekly bookmark. This way, I always know what I have left to do and can give myself tasks according to the lists. My planner isn’t as complex as I have seen other people use, I do have a code to categorise everything with colour, and do put down important dates, deadlines and reminders, but mainly just use the checkboxes provided to create a list of tasks for each day. This is the system I have tested and found that it works best for me. It’s easy and helps to motivate me as I like the satisfaction of ticking a task once I have completed it; after finishing one blog posts, I usually feel stimulated to complete another.
The second organisation method involves utilising the brief itself. Whilst the lists I had created myself provide a more in-depth look into the work I still need to complete, I wanted more of an overview, to see if I was meeting all of the posts needed for the individual sections. The best way to do this was to use the brief itself, so I took screenshots of each of the pages with the required work, put them in a PowerPoint presentation, and began to highlight everything that I had completed or was working on. Using different colours helped me see how much of the brief I had actually completed, and how much I still had left to do. Using this, I could see which parts of my lists I needed to prioritise, and which parts I could push further back.
Thirdly, and the most recent method I have adopted, I have created a Gantt chart for a day-to-day layout and a plan that structures the month for me. I initially thought that I wouldn’t use the chart at all, because I often work to my mood, and I believed that I would ignore the chart and do the task that I felt like doing. But, I have been surprised, as I have been checking the chart daily, and using it to schedule my day in my planner. Because the Gant chart has a time period (until the end of February) I can see exactly how much time I have left for each task, and how much I should be spending on it, instead of working aimlessly and spending three days on a small post or drawing. Even though I don’t always complete what I wanted for the day and fall behind, the extra days I have given myself towards the end are a plan B in case I need to reassemble the chart. Overall, I have found it more useful than I could imagine, and although I still procrastinate, and still do things mainly based on my mood, I feel reassured knowing precisely how much time I can allow myself before moving onto the next thing.
At one point, I realised that I had forgotten to include the title sequence in my plan. So at the minute, I’m simply viewing the ‘animation’ and all steps leading up to it as the title sequence, which will shorten the process and hopefully give me some extra days to work on the animation. If not, and I do indeed reach the end of February, I will probably opt to do the poster campaign (most of the work I will finish will overlap anyway).
Other than that, I sometimes use the, larger of the two, blog checklists as additional support/guidance for what to put on the blogs if I need that, otherwise I mainly use these three methods I have created for myself. Personally, these lists and charts have been key to getting where I am with blog work and practical work. They help me immensely, not only as a way of keeping tabs on all of my work for this project but also with my mental health. I would feel incredibly lost and stressed out if I didn’t know how much I had done and how far behind I was with the work, and this would probably lead to me falling even further behind and not even managing to provide all of the necessary evidence and assets. I’m glad to have them! For the future, I think that I will stick to using these three methods, and if I find that they aren’t working, I will tweak them or try out something new, but for now, my planner and Gantt chart especially, are of great use.