Create Art Like a Project Manager

It's not selling out. It's getting intentional.

There’s a common misconception about making art: that creation is organic. It comes only from the soul or a muse or some intangible inner sanctum that’s not meant to be corralled. People think that art is the product of passion, and therefore cannot be planned.

And I’m here to tell you that is just goofy. 

Art absolutely can be planned. And I’d argue that we need to be doing more of it.

I know this because I’ve been writing for nearly two decades, which means that I have earned my scout badge for rejection letters. For years, I banged my head against the wall, trying to move the needle on my writing career but not making any progress.

Everything changed in 2014 when I took a job as a project manager for a digital agency. For the last nine years, I've been responsible for delivering large-scale digital products to my clients. (Don’t glaze over just yet – I promise this ties back to art.)

Being a project manager is bizarre. Clients will hand you half-a-million dollars (which is insane by the way) and expect you not to waste their time or money. And to do that, you have to get really good at thinking through every step of the project plan. Everything from ideation and planning to execution and delivery. I have to break a project down into its smallest components so that my team can maintain incremental forward progress.

And the thing is, over the years, I got pretty good at this. But during all that time, I was still getting rejection letters for my fiction.

Then one day I had a thought.

What if I approached my writing career through the lens of my day job? After all, here I was struggling to accomplish anything in my artistic endeavors, yet on a daily basis, I was getting paid to make forward progress on someone else's project. And I was doing it using a very simple set of project management tools.

So, I started looking at my project portfolio and asking myself, what makes a project successful? How did I manifest success for clients whose industries I knew barely anything about?

And the answer was so simple, I’m almost too embarrassed to admit it out loud. The most successful projects in my portfolio were the ones with:

• Clearly defined goals

• Objectives

• Action items

• A roadmap

That’s it. It is quite literally that simple.

So, for the last two years, I have been experimenting by applying those same principles to my writing. And the changes that have taken place have been absolutely radical. I went from having no publications to my name to landing three short story acceptances in one month. My craft has gotten better. My writing community has grown. And I'm having more thoughtful and intentional conversations with writers, agents, and publishers. And the coolest thing of all is that none of this is groundbreaking. All I've done is apply basic agile project management principles to my personal life.

This brings me back to the opening statement. People misunderstand what it takes to make art.

We trick ourselves into thinking it’s a struggle. We must fight for our muse. Craft is pain. It takes as long as it takes for us to produce work, and if people don't realize our genius until long after we’re dead, then so be it!

Again, that’s just goofy.

Creating art comes down to two things:

1. Our passion to make something (that’s on you)

2. The processes we put in place to do so (I can help with this part!)

I know some of you are hearing that tiny voice right about now. It’s saying, “This guy wants you to be a corporate shill. He’s a sellout. He’s trying to put you in a box with neat little labels, but you can’t schedule art! Art is about bleeding on the page! Art is about LIFE and LIFE IS TOO MESSY FOR ROADMAPS AND DEADLINES! BURN YOUR COMPUTER! BURN YOUR COMPUTER AND RUN INTO THE FOREST!”

The truth is, that little voice you’re hearing is wrong. It’s not selling out to make a plan. You can be organized and an artist at the same time. You can set goals and pursue them with intention and still create beautiful things. I know. I’ve done it.

Project management is a tool like anything else and it belongs in your toolbox.

So that's why I'm creating this Substack. Because years of project management have shown me that people are wonderful at wasting their own time and money. When it comes to your art, I want you to do the opposite of that. I want you to make incremental forward progress. I want you to understand it’s not selling out to create with intention.

If this is something you’re interested in, please subscribe to this Substack and connect with me on social media. I’m also accepting new clients for 1:1 coaching, so feel free to reach out at hello@jbkish.com.

Photo by Estée Janssens on Unsplash