by Guest Contributor Shannan Painter
You’re in the middle of FINALLY sitting down to work on some bookkeeping when a friendly little chime alerts you that someone commented on a post you wrote on your Facebook business page. You think “I’ll just take a quick peek. It IS marketing after all.”
Twenty minutes later, you’ve watched a viral video that made you cry, taken a quiz to see which pop star you are, and crept on that “other photographer’s” Facebook page that you are convinced is stealing all your business. And come on, she’s not even that good.
WTH happened?
If you’re like me and are right-brain dominated or live mostly in your creative side as opposed to your logical, rational side, you might be an easy victim of reactionary workflow: spending all your energy trying to keep up and responding to each incoming thing, as opposed to being proactive and structuring your day.
You might be right brained if…
You’ve ever been in the middle of one task, and suddenly gotten distracted by another pressing need, and as a result left the first task unfinished.
You’ve ever found yourself wondering where an hour went while sitting at your desk working, and nothing got accomplished.
You easily forget appointments or tasks.
You constantly feel “busy” even though your business revenue doesn’t really say you are.
Why most organizations systems simply don’t work for you
Guess who is making most of the organizational tools: the people to whom organization comes naturally! The people telling us how to organize our creative brains are the ones whose socks and underwear are all folded neatly into symmetrical little rows! We try to conform to their brain and thought patterns and end up more frustrated than before, because it just doesn’t work for us.
So what DOES work?
Well, that depends. We all have a unique combination of creativity and structure. There are photographers who are exceptional at organizing and planning. And then, there are the rest of us. I used to write a “to-do” list willy-nilly on random post-it notes, pieces of scratch paper, the notepad in my phone, dry erase boards, and anything in plain sight frankly. But then, I had no “plan of action” to accomplish those tasks. In the same way that you can’t simply say “I want to make six figures this year” and then sit back and wait for money to come rolling in, you can’t just write up to-do lists without figuring out when and how you will get things done.
I used to hate the idea of scheduling. I remember interviewing a very successful photographer who told me she scheduled everything and thinking “I could never do that!” The truth is, that I have found MORE freedom in putting a plan on paper. I am more focused, and less stressed, because everything has an allocated time. If something comes up in my day that I didn’t plan for, I am also able to make adjustments to the structure I already have as opposed to reacting and panicking! Want to know more about time blocking and planning? I found this wonderful FREE tool that I use each morning from Just a Girl and Her Blog: check it out here.
{For further reading on organizing your creative mind, check out Scott Belsky’s article HERE. Reference note: The term “reactionary workflow” taken from this article.}
About the Author: Shannan Painter is a newbie photographer who has spent the last 5 years working with the left side of her brain helping small businesses organize their accounting and taxes. She decided to take the big step and pursue her dream of becoming a professional photographer in 2013 after adding a third boy to her house that was already full of super heroes, trucks, and sports equipment. She and her husband, who is a local TV meteorologist, play pick-up games of basketball in their free time and like to take road trips to Lake Minnetonka with all 3 boys, and their dog Growler.
Visit Shannan at her WEBSITE | FACEBOOK page today
