My First Week as a Full-Time Artist - Finding flow, facing fears, and making space for creativity

A new start, a new sunrise, a new horizon.

In the middle of June, I woke up and didn’t have to check my work emails. No back-to-back Teams calls, no corporate dress code, and no Sunday dread left over from the night before. After years of dreaming and months of planning, my first week as a full-time surface pattern designer had finally begun. And honestly? It was so beautiful — and yet still really anxiety ridden— in ways I didn’t expect.

🪟 The Shock of Space

I thought I’d be overjoyed with all the free time; revel in the peace and indulge myself in however I wanted to spend each hour. Instead, I found myself creating a new extensive workload and a long and highly structured to do list subdivided into hours in each day and what to do by when in the week.

After years of rigid schedules and external demands, I hadn’t realised how much structure had been propping me up. The freedom was both intoxicating and overwhelming and so within the space of 24 hours and a few cups of coffee I had reverted back to a comprehensive plan, a timetable for every hour and a set of goals to be met on a daily and weekly basis.  It felt comfortable, I felt organised and hyper productive.  However when on the third day I deviated slightly from the plan to do something that I was inspired to do (but did not have on the master list) I felt guilty and like I was “falling behind”.  Where had my relaxed, peaceful new way of doing life evaporated to?  Then it became clear; its me, hi, I’m the problem, its me!

 I’m going. to have to learn to give myself a rhythm instead of a routine.

🌪️ Unpacking Work Trauma

What surprised me the most wasn’t what I needed to do — but what I needed to unfeel. That voice in my head that tells me to hurry up, to be productive, to be perfect? Turns out, it didn’t retire when I did. Years of pressure don’t disappear overnight. It’s going to take time to unlearn the habit of anxiety, the second-guessing, and the stress I thought I’d left at the office door.

If I take a moment for a coffee or just to think I feel a compulsion to DO something, to be somewhere, that I am wasting time and will be “found out”. Its a very powerful narrative that I have for a long time believed was attached solely to the work environment and when I switched the lights off on that it would turn itself off too; it has not.

There is clearly work to be done to unpack that trauma and give myself permission for peace and accept that space and contemplation are valid, the to do list will get done at a pace that fits with life as a whole and that some days will be one thing a day types of days and others may lead to speedier delivery; its all ok. This is a marathon not a sprint.

🧾 The Reality of Business Admin

Admin doesn’t magically vanish; now for me this isn’t a problem, I rather like admin (probably because it nicely feeds my  list making and whirlwind productivity habit) but if you were hoping to never see it again then this will likely be your challenge.

Websites still need updating. Files need organising. Pinterest boards need pinning. Social media needs designing and updating.  Content needs writing.  Contacts need tracking.  Porfolios need refreshing.  SEO needs working on.  

If it’s exhausting and overwhelming don’t panic. There are ways to make it happen and panicking about it or hoping it will go away are not two of them.

I have always found admin manageable and I set about working out why that was; what is it that I do that means I can get through it successfully and in a timely fashion without it feeling like its sapping me of the will to live.  The answer is I build little systems to support me instead of drain me. Starting with working out when am I productive, when am I creative, when do I just need to rest? By matching my creative moments to my admin I find it gets done much faster and with much less of a fight.

I also work out what needs to be done right now and what will make life easier for future me if I do it now and focus my energies on those two things and try not to get distracted by other things if the procrastination is strong. Remember starting is the hardest bit; set a timer and give yourself 15 mins and work as hard as you can, then allow yourself a 5 minute break and do the same again, In 35 mins you’ll have achieved more than you imagined and you’ll feel motivated to carry on. Getting past the block of starting is always the trickiest bit.

🌞 From Morning Coffee to Midnight Sketches: My Creative Routine

I feel very different at different times of the day. If I can match the things that I do best with those energy flows then not only do things get done but they get done without me feeling jaded by it.

For me first thing in the morning (yes that’s 6am!) is my power admin time. Between 6am and 9am every day I can happily work through business admin tasks with a cup of coffee and feel happy, calm and productive doing them. Dare I say it I almost enjoy that part of the day before the rest of the world wakes up. If I try and do those same tasks after 4pm I am grumpy unproductive and seriously negatively impacted by them so I just don’t. If they’ve not been done by then they can wait until the next morning.

Creativity comes to me when I am a little more tired; the tiredness helps tune out the over thinking and second guessing and what comes out creatively is more instinctive and from the heart. That makes that post 4pm and evening window my best aligned moment for creativity. I may need to refine and work on the details at a different time but for capturing sketches and ideas those sleepier moments are both therapeutic for me and creative in terms of output.

The middle of the day has become the time I am trying to use for space. The time I dreamt of having when I was tied to corporate life. Time to sort out personal life admin, tidy the house, weed the garden, make decisions and day dream new collections and ideas into being. I imagine a spattering of technical design work will creep in there too over time but its this time between 9am and 4pm where I am trying to breathe some space into my new creative routine,

⏳ Creating Time, Not Just Using It

Instead of managing my time, I’m learning to create it. I don’t need to squeeze 9-to-5 productivity into my art practice. I’m building a day that breathes. Some days will be full of flow; others, full of fiddly tasks. That’s okay. The first week, I learned that time isn’t something I fill — it’s something I shape.

I am really discovering the extent to which productivity (something I was always respected for in the corporate world) has overtaken my calm and even my ability to enjoy life and the things I am doing. I no longer need to justify how I spent every minute of my working day. I don’t need to have a list of everything that needs to be done within an unrealistic time frame or try and do several things at once to make the impossible happen.

Without even realising it I wake up every morning with an instant challenge of how much I can manage to get through in the day. Some of that drive and energy is super helpful and there are definitely a lot of creative business admin tasks that it has helped me fly through which is fabulous however if I took a slower day then the guilt and anxiety started to creep in in a way I never expected.

🧵 Wrapping It Up

My first week as a full-time artist wasn’t perfectly relaxed and magically full of calm and creativity, but it was real — and it was mine. If you’re on the edge of your own creative leap, know this: the beginning might feel strange. That’s okay. You’re not doing it wrong — you’re just finding your new rhythm.  Your approach to time and work is more habitual than you realise and when you stop while the pressures and demands of a corporate life might be switched off your mental and physical responses are not.  Give yourself time and space to de-escalate and for your body to learn a new way of reacting and a new way to respond.  What you’ve learnt over years won’t subside in days.

And if you're already living your creative dream, I’d love to hear how your first week felt. Let’s share the journey together.

🌈 Connect with me to chat creative journeys, colour palettes, or potential projects: rachelanne@thekraftychameleon.com