My Daily Routine as a Design Studio Business Owner
To say I have a “typical” daily routine as a design studio business owner would be silly but I wanted to share a little bit about what all is involved in this work-from-home, running a business, & designing lifestyle! I have only been doing this for a few months now so it will be interesting to see how my days & routines change overtime, but I want to share how I’m trying to use my time effectively with batch work plus share all of the tasks and titles that I have taken on.
Batching my work
I’ve started using Trello (*referral link) to focus my work weeks and inside it on the ‘My Week’ board I have my daily tasks categorized as client work, batch work, and ongoing work. Here is how all of that flows for my daily routine as a design studio business owner:
Everyday: Client Work first & foremost! + Ongoing Work which is basically daily admin tasks (email, website upkeep) & social media posting
Monday Blogging: Planning my weekly post, planning future topics + drafting them, work on graphics for the blogs
Tuesday Social Media: Planning at least a week of posts for all my platforms – Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, & Pinterest; research social media trends, reply back to comments
Wednesday Design: Conceptualize and create new designs for my website & Etsy
Thursday Photography: Photograph all of my new designs plus imagery for my products and social media
Friday Email list & publish blog: Plan monthly newsletter, draft newsletter content, plan future topics, plan extra emails + complete my Friday blog publishing workflow
This is how I’ve currently set up my “batch work” days, however I don’t think I’ve stuck completely to it yet…like last week I didn’t have my blog post completely ready on Monday so that spilled into another day. Also I didn’t have anything new to photograph on Thursday so I was able to focus more on client work and pick up slack from other areas. It’s still in a work & tweak mode overall but it’s a step in the right direction to keep me more productive overall!
All of the Jobs
Since starting up Proof & Parchment I have realized how many different tasks I do all the time and how many different titles I have to take on. Here are the ones I currently do with my business:
Designer: My main title! I create all of my designs to keep P&P products fresh and fun!
CEO: I make all the decisions for P&P like the overall goals and how to track them. I’m still working at figuring the best approach to this (I talk a little bit about in my previous post on 2018 goals) but I do have a real business plan built out so that’s a start! I will have to go into those details more in depth later!
Researcher, Marketer, Customer Service: Again I do all of this for P&P in order to stay relevant I have to research ways to be seen, keep up with social media, and always have my customer’s interests as #1 priority.
Administrator: I complete all the daily tasks to keep everything running smoothly, I also make sure I stay on track with my calendar & deadlines.
Accountant: I keep track of all the finances for P&P (but I definitely don’t do my own taxes, I hire a professional to help me out there!)
I’m sure I’ve missed some labels and will have to add to the list as I continue this path!
Fitting in Life
This has probably been the hardest part so far. Since I’m working from home I tend to fit in non work related tasks when I need a break or see something that needs to be done. Or I’ll run an errand, go to lunch with a friend, or something else that takes me away from work. It’s hard to balance the mentality of being home and able to do the “homelife” tasks vs. needing to get actual work done with P&P if I want it to grow and be a success. I’m sure this will come with time as I get better at being productive and following my daily routine as a design studio business owner more efficiently.
Running on Caffeine…
So that about covers all of the things for now, I’m sure I missed something along the way but hopefully this gives a little insight in the stay-at-home solopreneur life for now! Also I have to admit the one constant in my routine is caffeine! I seriously could not run P&P without it! I probably have a few shots of espresso a day or a few cups of french press coffee.
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