Exercise: Time Management

For this exercise, I had to calculate and produce a project timeline for a hypothetical project, the aim of this was to gather an idea of how long a project will take to complete; going into this with the (again) hypothetical situation of being commissioned to create said project.

In my hypothetical project, I am being asked to create a 120-page Graphic Novel; and in this instance I'm making time for mental well-being, time off and basic human rights for working.

I'll aim to work 40 hours a week.

Visual Research will take anywhere between 2-3 days, since I may need to explore outside of the vast internet to gather research (therefore roughly 24 hours).

Roughs for the drawing aspects doing 7-10 pages a day for 8 hours is 17 days worth of work.

Awaiting feedback, I'll do 1 week waiting and response (40hrs) with a week or two reworking and feedbacking again in case more revisions are needed (80hrs).

Moving from drawing roughs to colour roughs (in the case that I may not have someone to colour for me); I'll say 7-10 pages a day (17 days), i.e 3 and half weeks. Allowing the same amount of response, feedback and revisions as the drawing roughs.

Awaiting feedback, I'll do 1 week waiting and response (40hrs) with a week or two reworking and feedbacking again in case more revisions are needed (80hrs).

For the final drawing stages, i.e polishing, I'll work on 5-7 pages a day (17-20 days).

Final colouring stages 5-7 pages a day (17-20 days).

Lettering would be roughly 15-20 pages a day (6 days).

Calculating that up, I'd be working 1,136 hours/ 28.4 weeks/ 6-7 month project.

Giving myself the weekends off for downtime-- life stuff, and allowing for 2 weeks worth of holiday/sickness/emergencies.

Total Projection Estimation: 30 weeks/7 month roughly.

This is in the instance that I will be independently working on a project for someone while allowing time for extra passes and revisions to ensure project quality.

Evaluation

This exercise was quite challenging to do and really brought me down to earth too! Knowing how long a project could take and purposely factoring my own well-being and life is something that I don't really consider when I've been doing different projects-- or even this course! I am so eager to get things completed that I realise that good things take time and that more importantly my mental well-being is very important at the moment, and factoring these things is extremely important; not including things like that could cause me so much damage to my mental health...

I've done a fair few commission, mainly pet portraits, and so I have some grasp on time management, however I rarely have to make passes and feedback for my clients, so including that I wasn't able to imagine how a feedback session could go down and how long it'll go on for. So to me I think I've factored in a lot of time for multiple revisions and feedback (unless its not enough and I've completely insulted a future clients-- sorry!).

All in all I'm glad I got to take on this exercise, it's a great way of understanding time and client needs as well as my own life.