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All sounds very stressing indeed :(

I wanted to look into getting an Upgrade for the second IA thing I was getting, but after how the last few months have been going for you I'm really not so sure it'd be right for me to do so anymore. Maybe some time in the more distant future instead, when things have like, calmed down more and you don't have a thousand and one things on your shoulders where this would be just one more thing on top of all that ^^;

No no, I absolutely welcome it! Again, none of this is to discourage commissioners or make anyone feel guilty. It's the bed I've made, I have to lay in it!
I greatly look forward to working on ANYONE'S commissions, especially IA upgrades. This ramble was more self-reflection and business structure updating than it was 'poor me I have so much to do...'
I enjoy the work!
What I wasn't enjoying was my lack of organization and structure, which resulted in what should be fun and easy, becoming an absolute headache.

Mmm yes even something you enjoy can become stressful when too much of it comes too quickly xD
Or as you said, when disorginzation comes in to tangle things up ^^;


But yes~ I guess I'll be looking forward to seeing some colored leviathan snuggles then in the futuere ^v^

It's 100% the disorganization. Same thing happened in school. I LOVED school and learning and working on projects, I would only get stressed out when my projects, papers, homework, etc would start to get jumbled and I didn't have a mental map of what was due and when.

Yess I look forward to coloring these MH pieces >:3c

I was the same when it came to scienc'y topics, math, computers, art, and at times creative writing... Not so much with History, English/Spanish, and such xD


Mreee~ cute snuggles ^v^
And the belly bulge with the squad of hunters all snug inside~
((Nnnnnggh I loved that scene in that comic where Lagiacrus was swimming to relax then suddenly Mizutsune swims up and ;v; It was so adorb))

Do you mind me offering something quite critical that may prove valuable to help you get back on track?

Absolutely! Any earnest advice is appreciated as I build this back up.

Okay sure. I'm not one to pull punches, but know what I'm going to say is being done with the intention to be as helpful as possible, whilst not perhaps sounding all that cosy for you.

Whenever these threads creep up, you tend to get a lot of lovely, supportive people, giving you some really kind support, telling you it's all okay and generally securing you with reassurance.

But ultimately, that's not going to be your solution. You've got a big backlog and it's effecting your mental health, so let's tackle the root cause of the problem and really take that head on.

You've added additional elements of stress to your workload, that are artificially hindering you from completing it.

"♢ You HAVE to work, or people will be angry" - Yes. But there is only one single way you can effectively eliminate this. You need to tackle your work. Worrying about this will stress you and trigger your adrenaline into a flight or fight mechanic. Adrenaline's effect on the brain will actively hinder your ability to run, as adrenaline provides your heart and the rest of your body with things that would benefit you if you were running away from something trying to physically attack you (sabretooth tiger instinct), but you don't need this. You need your brain and your focus.

https://youtu.be/NbecIBvR3mE - Pay attention to this.

We are literally in control of our own stress mechanic. What triggers it, is our inability to process the current lack of control we have over a situation at any given time. So, when you face these moments, look at your situation and do the following: https://i0.wp.com/media.boingboing......Gl-1.jpg?w=970

If you get stressed about letting people down on work, you will throw yourself into a cycle of not being able to get out of it. You need to acknowledge you've got a job to do and promises to fulfil, but you just simply don't need to focus on your clients moods. The moods will be irrelevant once you get your jobs completed.


"♢ Which commission was I going to do today?" - Your earliest to your latest, regardless of your mood on what to do first. You have too many commissions in your backlog to be picky on which to do, so order them chronologically, or as best as you can and blitz through them, putting your inner perfectionist aside and instead aiming to produce what the client requested.

As an artist, you are your greatest critique, you will always critique your work more than anyone else, but you also need to know that your 70% may be absolutely perfect for your client, as they ultimately saw you create the dream or idea they had. Ideas which admittedly become less hyped or interesting the longer it takes to get them out. Hence why you focus on your earliest ones first.

__________________________________________________________

Now, advice of a softer sort to break it up.

♢ No weekends off
♢ Your quality is slipping, take a break
♢ You're taking a break for too long, keep working

"Getting level with you all: your support is why I haven't had to crawl back to a retail job. Never doubt what it means to me, despite my lack of communication, and my constantly broken deadline promises.
I am working on it, but I am very slow."

In what looks like self employment, you have not given yourself strict working hours to replace what a 9-5 (or even worse houred) job would give you. You need to give yourself an artificial structure to make it work. I've been in jobs with bosses and I've risen to become said boss. To effectively become self employed, you must be your own boss. Unless you're rich, you need someone to drive you.

You need to give yourself 2 days off and you need to have some quality, guilt free rest on those days. Yes you have shit to do, but you can't do shit if you're too wasted to do that, especially with depression/anxiety taxing your energy reserves on top of that.

On said days off, you go nuts on rewards. Game all you like, have hot baths with candles and an audiobook/film, play with your friends, grab delicious food. Make your days off special.

On your working days, get yourself in a routine with an alarm. I recommend 10:30AM start till 7:00PM, with a structured break, set by an alarm on your phone to go off Tuesday through to Saturday, to go off at 3:00PM. Your body clock will be given time to adjust to this and your head will also produce more hormones effective for being creative:

♢ Crushing Insomnia - Better work output, greater mental health, incentive to look forward to your weekend, greater expectation of your week ahead.

♢ Quality Work Time - With greater work time given to yourself, you can dedicate certain time or days to producing work. You will be able to blitz 5 pieces a day with focus. That's only 20 days of work, so 5 weeks of focused work and then you can reclaim your time and get back to making money.

♢ Breaking Down Your Workload - What I just did there was a management technique that makes your daunting or overwhelming tasks more easy to digest, by giving it a time frame, which in turn, gives you control. 100 projects is fucking scary. 5 per day is tricky, but suddenly achievable and with every single one you do, you need to really hype yourself up and reward yourself for that progress! Claim that sweet, sweet dopamine hit against your depression. Kill it with success and regain your self esteem!

♢ "Look at the steps you have walked, not the mountain you must climb." - A proven technique on motivating yourself and others is priding yourself whenever you complete a task. Gain momentum from it! If you focus on your destination, you will ultimately feel far too far away from completing it and you'll despair, but if you focus on the here and now, the completing of one task and then immediately moving onto another, without worrying about what's in the distance, you will be carried through to complete your task. Continuous motivation, a snowballing effect where each success empowers you to keep achieving more!

♢ "Make it fun! Get a silly/fun friend to tease you as your boss!" - Among your friend group, pick one person that you'll be assigning as your boss. Whilst ultimately, you're in control of setting your hours and your structure, you need to ensure that every day, you report to this person with all the work you've completed. Encourage them to poke you when you seem distracted, by actively asking for updates on your work in the day.

Do not associate negativity with this person. Without them, you would rely on yourself alone and you know you are prone to avoid your work if you allow yourself to do so. With a boss you need to report to, they artificially act as your 'queue' fulfilment, without having to bring that stress and worry of clients and their judgements/frustrations with delays into it.

______________________________________________________________________________

♢ Your quality is slipping - Quick one. Just remember what I said before. Your 70% will still be mind blowing for others. Push these coms out and be patient if clients return them asking for changes or amendments (within reason). Let your clients be the judges on how your work is, don't allow yourself to do so, because you will naturally be far more judging than they will.

♢ Money Making Friday! - Yes you have a huge debt to pay in art, but your clients understand that they're fucked if you suddenly lose everything, so you need to give yourself a means to have an income. Discipline yourself to produce 2 adoptables or 2 YCHs (for yourself, I'd recommend mawshot/voracious ones as you've got a lot of us in the vore community that love your skill with this).

YCHs can also be a fun way to make art you want to make. You don't need to do fetish art, or if you do, keep it diverse. Rope-play one day, vore the next, crushing, face-sitting... maybe some themes? Horror, superhero, slice of life, whatever!

♢ Taken on YCHs? Get them done next day! - Again, these are a necessary delay, but if you do them, you must prove that you can complete them swiftly and with a high priority. These will be the only things that take a step ahead of your previous queue of work to do. If you do not get this income, you will ultimately fail or get into more debt. Your clients will understand and if they don't, copy and paste this text.

♢ STEAMING! ALL OF THE STEAMING!!!! -

STEAMING
MAKES
ART
SOCIAL
&
PEOPLE
WILL
DRIVE
YOU
TO
SUCCESS!

You became an artist because you yourself loved the images you could create or you thrived on knowing that other people loved the work you were able to produce.

Invite people to join you for streams and keep yourself on a stream as much as possible! The engagement with the community will do you favours for your mental health, associating work with play and fun and the love people will have for your work, will motivate you to keep on pushing!!! You may even choose to work on your days off, which could potentially take your 100 coms to 14 days of work! That's only two solid weeks of working!!!

♢ Summery:

Your workload seems huge, but it's actually more achievable than you think and you'll be back to making more money soon, but you need to stop focusing on artificial bullshit holding you back. If you can't control it, move on. If you can control it (getting your art done) then tunnel vision on it!

You've got to reclaim the fun in your work, but also just 'do things' https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AdoredPol.....restricted.gif and get stuff done! Chronological order, with money making thrown in on Fridays and Saturdays!

Whilst I've given you a selection of techniques to help you, you ultimately have the choice to make and if you make it, you need to commit to it, to live the life you want to live as an artist and from what I've seen, an artist that's incredibly talented.

There's a negative choice to make here. I'm not going to detail it, but I think you know what it entails. The reason we're not going to even detail it, is because you're the boss! You're a fucking incredibly talented individual! You can absolutely do this!!!

Dedicate yourself to this organised structure and reclaim your confidence in yourself, with a huge self esteem boost to follow when you see how well you can perform when you really push yourself.

I believe you can do it. So stop overthinking it, sit down and do it. Use this guide if you need to, but just do it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx_ao0

That's right, I linked Shia. I went there.

Experience: 7 Years managing people, 4 years training them, 2 years being self employed whilst working a full time job at the same time and also being a sufferer of depression myself on and off throughout that.

Finally sat down to read this in full, and hot damn. I get stuff like this from friends, but it's really nice to see from an unbiased third party all laid out in one place. I'll be saving all this to a place I can keep it, a lot of this is greatly appreciated. And don't worry about 'not being cosy,' this is about progress and business!
Seriously, thanks for taking the time to write this out.

You're more than welcome my dude. I hope it's proved helpful for you and you can make the most out of it.

Definitely, having a structured system helps a lot. I forget to eat a lot too, so I have a food shelf in my room right where I'll see it all the time with my favorite stuff on it. It helps me remember to eat. I also have other chores during the day that I have to do on a list on my dry erase board right above my monitor where I will see it all the time. Chores not work related, garbage, laundry, etc. are my breaks from the computer.

I've greatly come to appreciate this sort of thing. When I'm stressed, I clean or cook. I have been getting better with remembering to eat. Taking a stimulant med makes it harder, since it takes away your appetite, but with time I'm learning that things like a prepared container of tuna in the fridge or organized sandwich makings are a lifesaver for quick meals to combat that constant feeling of 'don't have time to eat, gotta work.'

Premade sammiches and burritos, heck yeah! Cheap, and yummy! And you don't have to cook them, ha!