EclipsisStudios
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January 2023 Summary
🕑 Added 2023-02-01 16:45:01 +0000 UTCJanuary proved to be the tough start to the year as expected. Very busy, drowning in work, and around the 3rd/4thweeks I had two bad meltdowns.
Art News
January continued to see a rollout of my new picture alternative sets which I hope to do for the Patreon poll winning pictures. It is still a process to do them but hopefully doing them more will get the workflow logic down better.
Still, this is very taxing on the mind to do because I have to juggle all the different layers. I have to remember what goes with what and what I can or can’t do with certain layers without having to make significant changes to others.
The non-commission alt sets will remain Patreon exclusive but I will see about starting to post more than one version publicly when they are commissioned.
Productivity Booster?
I tried out a new logic to my schedule in how I determine what I have to do on a particular day. It is a variation of the “debt snowball” logic and uses the psychology behind it.
On most days I have 6 categories/types of work I have to on any particular day for varying amounts of time. These include Patreon art, art administrative work (such as preparing posts/responding to comments), commission work, and chores for example.
The logic I went with is listing what I have to do on any particular day by “smallest to largest” in terms of time, regardless of what needed to get done most urgently. I go through each item on the list and check them off and move on to the next larger item.
This logic produces “small wins” mentally and emotionally to want to keep motivated for the next thing. In really rough times, I swap the projects on those queues to something I still need to do eventually, even if I don’t need to be at that time compared to other things.
Also something I am trying to do is when I get really fatigued in what I do, I stop what I am doing and work on sketching/doodling on paper while listening to Lo-Fi music and sometimes some appropriate “Lo-Fi like” podcasts. This is hard for me to want to do because I feel like I really need to be doing other things. I’ll try it more in February and see if it helps.
The sketches I do are typically fun sketch commissions for people that are not on my regular queue. As these are usually commissioned for me to enjoy the process and almost always include complete free reign on the picture idea.
My Mental Health
I’m fairly transparent when it comes to this topic as I feel it is something people should know. I am diagnosed with Bipolar, with the unofficial assignment of “Bipolar III” which is a halfway point between I & II. So it is moderately bad.
For those who don’t know, Bipolar (from how I understand it) is a genetic mental health disorder that causes a chemical imbalance in the brain. Untreated, people alternate on a cycle between very depressed and manic. Mania I would describe as when your mind is processing things too fast for it to handle. It makes rational thinking difficult/if not impossible. No amount of therapy/talking to can fix this.
With proper medication, this levels the wave curve between the highs and lowers but with a twist. The medication usually leaves my brain partially between normal and mania. THIS is what gives me the “super human” ability being able to work so much for so long. It gives a positive feeling of being unstoppable in life.
But when put under heavy stress for a long period of time, or when having an extreme emotional episode over something, the medication gets overridden and I go into either a high (more common) or a low.
Usually with a depressive low I’m more quiet, not outgoing, and/or disinterested in my work even when I am doing something that I usually really enjoy.
The highs are much more dangerous. I’m more likely lash out at people, find faults in almost anything (myself, others, events), and/or just talking gibberish in a destructive way. I will get into fights with people in this phase.
Thing is, unless you have a very personal way to chat with me regularly, you are not as likely to even know this is going on. Most of my comment descriptions or Tweets are pre-written when things are good and stable. When I am not well, I usually don’t spend time writing comments.
January in the 2nd half I saw two extreme “highs” that each had very distinct triggers. Both of which could be traced back to having an overall life overworked on a tight schedule and/or financial insecurity/integrity. The root causes are from me trying to handle my commercial real estate that is still bringing problems.
After the 2nd outburst I knew I need to change some things, so I took the financial hit in sacrificing work and not doing as much as I really needed to be doing.
The highs/lows in my bipolar are becoming worse as the months go by, likely because of the survival lifestyle I’ve been stuck in for nearly a year now. Once I am past these difficult times, I should return to normal.
The Building Update
I still don’t have a tenant in the building and as of this writing I do not have any active inquiries. I had about 5 inquiries throughout the month, but they all fell through.
If you have been following the building and me, you know the roof has been the big headache in needing to replace. A few days ago it finally started leaking for the first time since I bought the building.
At first I was pretty depressed but the next day I decided to just try and look up YouTube videos on putting up patches for the building. I felt encouraged and when the roof dries from the snowmelt and the temperatures are reasonable enough to work with patching materials, I’m planning on trying to do a temporary patch myself and probably save myself several hundred dollars.
As a side thing, I noticed some details on treating other parts of the roof yourself. This may embolden me to try and do some of these myself. If I am able to do some of this myself, it would be very, very labor and time intense to do. It might occupy me for a large part of month. The cost savings for doing it though could amount to something like $10,000 or even more.
I figure I should mention that now because if that does happen, my art would take a big hit in productivity for the month it happens. Just know that is a possibility.
This whole building thing has been a huge lesson in learning to do stuff yourself because you simple don’t have the money to throw at it to fix problems. >.>’
My Thanks
I hope you all are well! Thank you for reading this if you did! It helps give you a more real view of what is going on with me.
Thank you Patrons for supporting me and I welcome the new supporters I saw join in January. It is deeply appreciated and encouraging!
