This article was found by one of my daily reads, Lifehacker (http://lifehacker NULL.com).
As budding artists a lot of us know first hand (myself included) that our biggest roadblock to taking our projects to the next level is often our day job. The start up time for a comic to start earning a livable income, if it indeed happens at all, can be considerable. In the meantime you still have bills to pay. This usually entails a very considerate and gainfully employed significant other, or you’re working a job you have to take in order to support the job you want to take.
This is never easy. There are only so many hours in a week, 168 to be exact. A third of that is taken right off the top for sleep. Then there are the hours you spend on the things that keep you alive, like eating. You’ve got all the errands you have to run to maintain quality of life. If you have any sort of social or family life you can count on at least one day’s worth of free time to be devoted to that. Once you figure out all the logistics and add them up, that could count as another third of your week right there. But hey, you still have 56 hours left. That’s plenty of time to get all your creative work in and have plenty left over to have some ‘me’ time to keep you sane.
Now subtract 45.
Now all of a sudden those 56 hours gets shredded down to 11. That’s what working a full time job does. You lose 40 hours to work and often at least another 5 to traveling for said job. You get 1 hour a weekday and 6 for the weekend for your comic and any personal time. So you start cutting back on the time you spend on various logistics. You don’t socialize as much. More of your meals come out of a box or a bag rather than preparing them yourself. You start metering your entire life by the hour. And when you inevitably run out of logistics you can cut back on, you start sacrificing your personal time.
It can be done. It’s done every day by many cartoonists and artists. But you have to have a dedicated mind and a thick skin to run a daily cycle of waking up, work, art, sleep, and precious little else. It’s a grind, and it kills many a well made comic. But what can you do? You can’t quit your day job until you know you’re making money with your comic and you can’t make money with your comic until you have the time to develop it that only quitting your job can provide.
Well Everett Bogue (http://evbogue NULL.com/) has one strategy that may help you form a plan to take that big plunge (http://www NULL.farbeyondthestars NULL.com/the-minimalist-guide-how-to-prepare-to-leave-your-day-job/), and a lot of it revolves around the idea that even in today’s economy, the big plunge really isn’t as big as you think it is if you have the right mindset and a plan.
As a disclaimer, I’m not advocating everyone go out and quit their day jobs. As interesting as the article is, I have no plans to quit my day job for the foreseeable future. It’s also not without it’s sacrifices and it may be more than some are willing or able to make. But if the only thing stopping you from quitting your job today is the fear of the unknown, than this may be of great help in figuring out how to make that happen.
[[ The Minimalist Guide to Leaving Your Soul-Crushing Day Job (http://www NULL.farbeyondthestars NULL.com/the-minimalist-guide-how-to-prepare-to-leave-your-day-job/) ]] – Far Beyond the Stars (http://www NULL.farbeyondthestars NULL.com//) via Lifehacker (http://lifehacker NULL.com)