Scheduling and Business
I love schedules and knowing what comes next. I am a creature of habit and I thrive best in a well functioning and orderly space. That being said, my husband also calls me the “Pile Queen” because when life gets busy, my system of scheduling, workflow, and organization tends to look a little messy and chaotic to the untrained eye. The reality is that without that schedule and workflow, I would be lost and my sweet brides would be waiting a lot longer than they do to receive their images. By having a personal and business schedule for the week, I know what is tending and am able to accomplish a lot more by managing my time.
5 am Club
I am not by nature a night owl, nor am I a morning person but I kept finding in the early stages of my business that I was interrupted most mid-morning. It frustrated me to sit down to my desk to work, only to be stopped mid-way through a thought. A fellow momma and business owner suggested biting the bullet and getting up at 5 am consistently in order to have a few hours of time to work without loss of my train of thought. Since starting this back in 2013, I have found that I get more done in those wee hours than any other time of the day. I focus on blogging, editing, and education during that time while saving e-mails and phone calls for the middle to late part of the day. You are probably curious if I work from 5am straight through for 8 hours and I don’t.
Chunking
Because I am a mom as well as a business owner, I chunk my work into portions of time throughout the day. I work for a few hours from 5-7am and then focus on getting the kids to school. Once they are off then I sit down to other shorter tasks that can be accomplished for a few hours. Then I am out the door again to pick up our youngest. During her nap time I work for a few more hours. My goal is to work as little as possible while my kids are awake or home from school. There are some evenings that projects need to be finished but my desire is to not be face to face more with my computer than I am with my kids and husband.
Workflow
In order to spend as little time as possible in front of the computer, I have created templates for things that are asked frequently. These are all then loaded into 17Hats where I manage all my client files and information regarding their sessions or weddings. I love this system for its easy of use and ability to be used remotely if I need to access something on my phone. Have more questions about my workflow? Send me an e-mail to info@meredithryncarz.com or join my Restart Specialist Newsletter here.
