After spending most of my day working on the paperwork associated with running an art business, I have decided that I am not made of the stuff that it takes to be a “paper pusher”.

The two brain hemispheres that it requires to be both a creative artist, and a business owner/tax filer just do not work well together. I can keep my desk rid of piles of random bills, receipts, invoices, show applications, sales records, to-do lists, and idea sketches. I can answer emails in a timely manner, and I can get all bills paid, all taxes filed on time, and have everything neatly sorted into my filing cabinet. I can post daily on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, Instagram, Etsy, and my website.

I can also break out my pallette, sketch out a brilliant idea for a painting, lay out my colors, pick the right brushes, dance with the brushes in hand, turning a blank canvas into something that makes people happy, sad, or silly. I can evoke emotions adult people had long forgotten.Taking pictures along the way to share with my followers on Facebook. Gathering Ideas for a grownup children’s book. Coming up with new titles, new color combinations, new projects to work on. I love doing that.

What I seem to be NOT able to do, is to do both processes together, without compromising the quality of either part. My desk is usually a mayhem of various papers in varying stages of “dealt with”. Paintings – I usually have about ten standing around unfinished, abandoned, or not even started yet. Projects – I have a list as long as a diving board, with not enough time to even get started on one of them.

How do you keep it all rolling smoothly without dropping the ball on either one? It seems as soon as I devote time to one side, the other falls apart. I’m frightened of the day the IRS decides to audit me – how will anybody  be able to find anything or make sense of any of it?

I’ve found that the more I work on the office/business side of things, the less creative I become. It seems to be a downward spiral…

If you are of the creative sort – how do you keep track of everything without losing the ambition to create?