Time management is a great issue I have with blender. I am a high school student and I usually run out of time to finish my projects. I try spending 6 hrs. of my day on blender but it’s usually a lot less. I could use some kick-a** inspiration to get me motivate me…
So would do you please tell me how many hours a typical advanced blender-head spends in blender everyday?
I started Blender at the end of my sophomore year in Highschool, and during the summer, I spent about 2-4 hours a day using Blender. Now I am at the end of my senior year in Highschool and spent roughly 4-5 hours a day during school days and 5-8 hours on the weekends using Blender. I am far from an advanced blender head and if I had the time, I would spend much longer each day using Blender. I would guess that an advanced Blender user spends about 4-6 hours a day (maybe less) on Blender. Mind you the hours vary from day to day and person to person but more advanced Blender users manage their time well and most importantly, Finish their Projects.
I had the same problems when I was a beginner blender user. I couldn’t finish a single project to save my life… Seriously. It was extremely frustrating and it really made me want to give up any project I started. But as time progressed, I began to understand what it takes to finish a project and slowly started getting better at completing things I started in Blender.
So my advice to you is just be efficient with the time you have to use Blender to progress through whatevr it is that you start, and eventually, it will get done. 2-4 hours a day is plenty of time to get through a project. Sure, some will take more time and be more difficult than others but hey, no one said it would be easy right? If you want some motivation or extra push to get u excited about finishing a project, just think about how great it will feel when it’s done. This works well enough for me but you will just have to see what will really motivate you to finish what you start.
I hope I didn’t bore you with all this writing and hopefully you get something out of it. Good luck and hope to see some finished projects up soon 
I spend about 2-4 hours on blender each day. I have had blender for about a year now and I am going to start a new project, a short film. I am no where close to professional, actually I am going to be a senior next year. I am going to balance my time between a job, college, and blender. I am inspired to be work better by those other more advanced blender heads and there works.
@fpsgod17 — Thanks. Efficiency is what really counts and not the amount of time you spend. I guess 4-6 hrs is enough time to be an advanced-blender-head.
@Wulffman — Good luck with your short film. Just don’t forget that efficiency is what counts when it comes to time management.
Sweet! Sophomore year in high school is when I started learning blender too. I found a use for it and made small projects (10-30 seconds) . I also successfully made a library of video loops -where it seamlessly ends on the same keyframe on which it begins. at that time , on average 4-7 hours on blender was considered quite normal… mostly because I lost track of time. now and days its about 1-2 hours a day.
One place that helped me out the most was the speed modelling challenges at http://speedmodeling.org/ (freenode irc channel #smc)
These quick 20-30 minute challenges to model and then upload a project really put me on my feet. Some of the people there ( Jeepster, fried, ZanQdo, MFoxdogg, & others)
are real pros at this kind of stuff. It’s always fun competing… especially with artists who have practiced Blender3d for hours on end.
I’m in college with a super small note taking laptop so I don’t always get the chance to compete… but when I do, it’s a blast!
Here’s my file list if you want to see some skill progression (the bottom of the list is the beginning)
["](also… here’s Jeepster’s portfolio… his work is very nice 
)](http://speedmodeling.org/smc/index.php?mode=nicklist&nick=Jeepster[)
Wow, I thought I spent a lot of time! I started my freshman year, and have improved a ton by using it 1 to 6 hours a day with an average of 4 a day. I found that if I am really struggling with a certain project with no deadline, I take a couple days off.
If you want to see how much I progressed, look at my portfolio. The older stuff is at the bottom. Unfortunately it doesn’t have all the crappy stuff from when I started, it only includes my best from 4 months to the present.
Hey, great idea on the speed modelling contests, I should try that!