If you start to think about one thing that needs to be done for your business, then often times, that thought is followed by the million other things that need to be accomplished, and you can very quickly start to feel overwhelmed! Having a daily schedule for business owners is a lifesaver!!! No one is paying me to say that, it’s something that I’ve (unfortunately) learned the hard way, and would love to keep you from making the same mistake!
Confession Time
I haven’t always had a schedule… in fact, up until yesterday, I didn’t even have any semblance of a schedule (eek!).
Don’t get me wrong, there have always been things that I knew had to get done (taxes, blogging, getting images to clients, etc), but I didn’t have any sort of consistency and just ended up doing things willy-nilly and there were always things that fell through the cracks.
While it may not be “fun”, I know that once I implement this daily schedule for business owners, it will definitely be an improvement. There are so many things that I want to do more consistently (pinning all my images, clear out my email inbox, submit weddings for publication, etc), and this will help put me on the right track!
Daily Schedule for Business Owners
You can do the same thing!
First: think about whether you’re gonna be planning out a daily schedule, weekly/bi-weekly schedule or monthly schedule. Eventually you’ll need to do all three, but for right meow, lets just focus on one. For kicks and giggles, here’s are some things to think about when planning your weekly schedule (and some insight into what I’m doing!).
Blogging
I blog 4-5 times a week, and want to be consistent about it. Since blogging can be done at any time, I scheduled 3 blocks a week for blogging and get all my posts written then. That way, I’m not scrambling at 8 o’clock in the morning to figure out what I’m going to write about for that day.
Also, I’ve set aside specific days of the week for specific blogging topics: Mondays = Weddings, Tuesdays = Photo Session, Wednesdays = For Photographers, etc.
Education
Thanks to Stella Reynoso for reminding me about the importance of continuing development! Whether it’s reading that new e-book you downloaded or catching up on those articles you bookmarked for later.
Disclaimer: this is NOT a time for you to catch up with Facebook, or get sidetracked going through emails, it’s really important to make sure to focus your time only on the task at hand!
Marketing
There are a ridiculous amount of resources that can help you with marketing, and it’s up to you to come up with a plan to make it work for your business! Set aside time each week/month to go over marketing goals and figure out what works/doesn’t work for you.
Remember, if you don’t make time for it now, it won’t happen in the future!
Client Appreciation
Our clients are the reason we are able to do what we do, and they deserve a little love! Make sure to take time out to send a thank you (whether it’s email, snail mail, smoke signal… you get the idea), and let your clients know how much you appreciate them choosing YOU to document their most precious memories!
Call to Action
So you’ve got all this awesome information, now it’s time to do something with it!
Take 20 minutes right now (yes, right now!) and just write down a list of things that need to be done for your business on a weekly basis, then schedule those tasks for specific days during the week.
This is the key: if you don’t schedule something to be done, it won’t get accomplished!
That should get you off on the right start, I’d love to know what you’re implementing or what you might be struggling with! Feel free to message me or just comment in the box below!
I try my best to stick to a schedule. It keeps me from over working and skipping things that I should be done. But I know it can be very hard some weeks because I don’t have a clock to punch and just don’t “feel like it” at times.
I know Sarah, sometimes it can be so hard to stick to a schedule all the time!
Thanks for sharing these tips. I am always trying to become more organized!
No problem Amy, hope it helps!
You had me at “schedule.” I love the idea of a a schedule and I love, love planning it all out and color coding it, it’s just the day to day doing of it that gets me every.time!
Oohhh, me too Jenny!!! I don’t always follow my schedule exactly, but at least it gives me a goal to shoot for (pun intended 😉 )
What a great idea. I have been blogging for a while and it is only over the last month or so that I have been trying to figure out a schedule to that I can get things done.
It has been working out so far but I need to tweak it here and there so that I am more productive. It is all about trial and error until you find a system that works for you 🙂
[…] about have a daily schedule for photographers (if you missed that post, feel free to check it out HERE), and I wanted to update you all on what’s been happening for me behind the scenes. I’d love to […]