The work of illustration is deep work. It’s difficult to chip away at it in-between other things. It takes a while to get into a flow state and to stay there for a period of time. Illustration work requires stretches of time and concentration in the realms of 2-4 hours per session, minimum. Schedule even a half-hour phone call during this type of time and it can blow a whole half-day of work by breaking up the time in to chunks too small for deep work.
The other stuff that illustrators do–the marketing, the emailing, the accounts, the phone calls–isn’t deep work, it’s bitsy. It’s possible to fit them in between other things: respond to an email on the train on the way home, make a phone call while out walking.
Paul Graham writes about the manager’s schedule and the maker’s schedule. He gives us all a really good framework for optimising our time. And while he wrote it for the context of software development teams, it’s easily applied to the work of an illustrator. Freelance illustration requires both of these modes of working, the deep-work schedule of a maker, and the changeable, agile schedule of a manager. Being aware of this means we can structure our days and our mindsets for it so that we can do both better.