Why Artists Should Consider a Project Management Tool

Art is all about project management. It’s about goals, deadlines, revisions, and execution. And if you don’t have some solid project management skills as an artist, you may find yourself struggling to keep up. In fact, as much as we’d rather have it any other way, non-creative tasks are often a prerequisite for creative success. 

That’s where the mindset of a project manager can come in handy. Using tools built for successfully navigating complex projects can help you manage all those pesky administrative duties that accompany your true passion. 

Here are a few benefits to being both an artist and your own personal project manager:

Project Management and Art

Whether you’re an industry or freelance artist, project management might seem outside the realm of what you’re doing on a daily basis. In fact, project management on the surface can sound a lot more dull and dry than what we’d like to think our work entails. However you spin it, the art you create professionally will always deal with administration. Researching the ideal materials for your artwork, resourcing them within budget, and managing client requests and expectations all fall within the scope of project management.

Although artists often think they can successfully manage the chaos without the need for consistent and clear organizational methods, if you’re in it for the long haul, this way of working often proves unsustainable. 

Instead, if you begin to divide your tasks into bite-sized pieces, you eliminate the risk of unmet deadlines, burnout, and creative block. And if you’re meticulous from the getgo, you’ll soon accept that the managerial tasks you once dreaded are just another part of the creative process.

Beyond Creativity

The reality is— while being able to be an artist is largely about creativity and imagination, it’s also about timelines, iterations, and implementing client or studio feedback. When you’re trying to make a living from selling art, the ability to execute things in a punctual manner matters. Project management will help you achieve just that. 

If you work within a team, the importance of project management becomes exponential. You’ll need to manage expectations, create a game plan, ensure everyone knows how and when to execute, and what workflow is ideal for the type of project you’re undertaking. 

And even in a solo career, as you’re on your own, you’ll need to be on top of things equally so. That’s where project management software comes into play.

Tools to Consider

Whether you’re in a team or on your own, project management software for artists can be an essential lifeline. Here’s a few of our top tools to test the waters:

Multi User Tools

The following are ideal for small studios where multiple people are working-

• Asana is a web platform and app that was designed for project management specifically for teams. It includes organization resources such as templates, timelines, lists, and calendars, as well as a tracking feature to visualize project performance. The app provides a breakdown of projects, goals, tasks, and subtasks, allowing you to track milestones as you approach completion.
• Monday is a cloud-based software that allows users to monitor, manage, and track projects, and assign various tasks to different team members. To help users adjust, it also provides predetermined templates, timelines, calendars, as well as kanban. Monday’s collaborative nature, such as the ability to show updates on progress, to star tasks based on importance, and access clear and concise data visualization features, sets it apart from its competitors.
• ClickUp is a cloud-based platform that works well for various-sized teams. It allows companies to navigate projects assigned by different clients and delegate and collaborate on tasks using multiple views, such as calendar, activity, workload, table, and map view. ClickUp’s interface is user-friendly and clean so that you can streamline complex workloads and projects simply and efficiently.

AirTable 

AirTable is another cloud-based program that focuses on the power of spreadsheets to help manage projects. The real strength of AirTable lies in its ability to host many types of information in a single location so that all your needs are taken care of on one platform. 

Airtable also provides the option to organize your content in multiple ways, for example, through a grid, calendar, kanban or a Gantt chart.

Trello 

Trello is a web-based tool for managing projects through Kanban and lists. Known as one of the easiest software of its kind, Trello’s interface was adopted from the idea of sticky notes, in which each ‘note’ leads to an expanded project portfolio with respected deadlines, documents, discussions, and checklists. 

Unlike many other elaborate project management platforms out there, Trello’s simplicity often takes the win.

Benefits of Project Management Tools

Considering your art career through the lens of project management shouldn’t complicate things—it’s to ensure your success as an artist by helping you better organize the tedious administrative tasks and deadlines so that you can focus on what you love.

In fact, it can boost your career in more ways than one. Taking advantage of project management tools as an artist can help you:

• Oversee your projects to prevent yourself from becoming overwhelmed
• Schedule and track milestones within longer-term projects to ensure both small and big deadlines are being met
• Set goals for yourself as an artist
• Collaborate and communicate effortlessly, making sure everyone’s on the same page

Being a two-in-one artist and project manager will ensure you’ll ultimately spend more time being an artist than the other way around. And using the right project management tools will make that process all the more worth it.