A friend recently asked me how I keep up with so many practices. Specifically how I find the energy to do it.

The secret is that the energy comes from doing it all.

Walt Stanchfield explains it well in an essay advocating for keeping a sketchbook:

Carry a sketch book — a cheap one so you won't worry about wasting the page. Sketch in the underground, while watching television, in pubs, at horse shows. Sports events are especially fun to sketch — boxing matches, football games, etc. Draw constantly. Interest in life will grow. Ability to solve drawing problems will be sharpened. Creative juices will surge. Healing fluids will flow throughout your body. An eagerness for life and experience and growth will crowd out all feelings of ennui and disinterest.

Where are you going to get all this energy, you ask? Realize that the human body is like a dynamo, it is an energy producing machine. The more you use up its energy, the more it produces. A work-related pastime like sketching is a positive activity. Inactivity, especially in your chosen field, is a negative. Negativity is heavy, cumbersome, debilitating, unproductive, and totally to be avoided. Take a positive step today. Buy a sketch book and a pen (more permanent than pencil), make a little rectangle on the page and fill it with a simple composition.