Getting It All Done
Scheduling My Business Around My Life
My business is very important to me, but my family is my biggest priority. I chose to do what I do for a living because I love it, but also because I want to help to provide for my family. As my business grows I find myself needing more structure. I try to improve my business every day and the time has come where I need a schedule to keep me on track.
I recently hired two Virtual Assistants, to help me stay on track and further my blog an crochet business. Pamela is my social media assistant. She is very adapt at Facebook marketing. She is also an independent distributor for Jamberry Nails. Pamela also sells her crochet goods and will soon be launching an fb page for her business.
My other VA is Sara Duggan of Crochet Business. Sara will be my business and marketing VA. Sara is responsible for keeping me organized and on task. One of Sara’s first duties was helping me to set up my editorial schedule.
Let me tell you, it has already made a world of difference. Just knowing I have my week scheduled in advance keeps me from feeling stressed about what patterns I’m going to do, worrying about what business topics I’m going to write about and saves me a lot of time in the long run. It has saved me about 3 hours a day so far.
Sara has customized a business plan specifically for me. It includes setting up a schedule using Google Calendar. I have my entire reoccurring schedule written out from now until the end of time. Every week I will go through and fill in the specifics for the following week, patterns, topics, business tips, etc.
This allows me to focus on other things rather than wasting time jumping around from thing to thing and trying to remember everything I have to do. Every time I make a commitment or think of something that needs to be done I put it on the calendar and I don’t worry about it again until it’s time to work on it.
Sara will soon be hosting a blog tour challenge for the 2nd release of her e-book “Hooking for Cash: 10 Ways to Make Money with Your Crochet Blog”. She will be a guest on the Cre8tion Crochet blog on 09/05/13 to discuss the book and award one luck reader a free copy! I asked Sara to share with us how she keeps her blog tour challenge from getting crazy.
I asked Sara to explain a little bit of why scheduling became so important for her too:
Starting a blog is exciting in the beginning. At first you have all sorts of things to share. Eventually you find that you are staring at a blank screen with no idea what to post. This is how I started participating in blog challenges. These are accountability groups where we challenge each other to write for 31 days straight. Topics are usually given or we can share whatever we want. After participating in a few I decided to host my own. Lots of work! This is when I started utilizing scheduling. I pre-write outlines of posts for the challenge and enter those into my editorial calendar. (There’s a WordPress plugin for this) This helps me keep on top of each day’s post. Blogging for business is part of your job. It doesn’t have to be a daily thing like in a challenge but it does have to be consistent. Planning and scheduling will make it a lot easier for you plus your customers will come to expect great things from you.
~Sara Duggan, CrochetBusiness.com~
Sara has been writing online since 2005. In 2007 she started her first blog. Now she is a content curator, ghostwriter, and editor. She is helping me manage my growing business and would love to help you too. Click here for information on how you can hire Sara too. She is very affordable and WELL worth it. Cre8tion Crochet FAN bonus. Use promo code Cre8tion50 for 50% off the Email Action Session. Code valid until July 31, 2013!
The biggest change I have made is scheduling in my life. I’ve learned that I need to make time for the really important things. Making sure that my business runs smoothly also allows me to spend more time with my family.
I will be delving further into my schedule and how it revolves around my life in the Owning Your Own Blogging Series, coming soon. In the meantime I highly recommend that you set up your own weekly schedule using Google Calendar. Fill in when you will do certain tasks, make sure to include creative time and marketing time as well as pattern writing or crocheting. Be flexible because something is always bound to come up and stuff happens. I also recommend leaving room for the unexpected in your schedule every week for those times when something changes and you are unable to complete a task at the scheduled time.
If you have any questions please feel free to email me at [email protected] or leave a comment here. I’d love to hear what you do to stay organized and run your business smoothly as well as know anything I can help you with specifically.
Have fun and as always…
happy hookin’
and scheduling!