ASLU 012: Our Best Tips For Working From Home
In Episode 12 of the And She Looked Up Creative Hour, we’re continuing on with our May theme of working from home. We’ve already covered creating a workspace for your creative business and how to manage distractions when you run your business from home.
Today, we’re drawing on our two collective decades of working from home to share some of our best overall tips to get things done while still loving what you do and where you do it from (without forgetting you’re the CEO!).
We’ll be talking about setting routines, tracking your time, getting organized, finding peers to network with, future planning, hiring help and making sure you don’t forget to keep growing your skills!
So let’s get started with some great work from home tips.
Listen To the Episode
Here’s a direct link to Episode 12 or you can listen via the player below:
Our Best “work from home” tips
This is a collection of some of our best tips we’ve gathered over our years of running our businesses from home. You’ll find as you spend more and more time working from home that you’ll develop your own routines and learn what works for you. Just remember - there is no right or wrong way to work from home. In fact, this is the one time where you get to decide what your routine, space and workload look like based on your goals and your time.
Have an Opening & Closing Routine
You will probably hear the term “morning routine” used a lot once you start running your own business. Morning routines are great… IF you’re a morning person! Lisa is a morning person but Melissa is not so we prefer to call it an “opening routine” and “closing routine”.
The important thing to note here is that routine is important. Both for you, the people you share your home with and your clients. It’s also important to set boundaries on when you’re available - both to family, friends, clients and peers. And it’s important for mental health and work/life balance. Your business shouldn’t be your entire life (especially easy to do if you don’t have children!) - you do need time to refill your creative well, develop hobbies and take care of your mental and physical needs.
It’s tempting when you first start working from home to reject routine because that’s what you’re leaving behind from your “real world” job. But humans usually crave routine and we’re most productive when we have some semblance of it in our lives (think of your children and even your pets and how they thrive better when there’s structure in place!).
The beauty of working for yourself is you get to make the routine. If you work better in the afternoons, start your day at noon and work later. If you find Saturday mornings are a good time for you, take Thursday mornings off. If you like to start at 5:30am, get up at 5am! If your kids are in school, work from 9-2 and close down at 2. Split your day and work a few hours in the morning and a few in the evening.
It doesn’t matter what your routine looks like. It just matters that you have one. But it can evolve as your life changes, or as the seasons change - the the beauty of self-employment. You can change the routine as needed to work for your life.
Use A Calendar or Planner
We both use multiple planners and calendars - but that doesn’t mean you need to! You do, however, have to have a way to track important dates, meetings, client or customer deadlines, shows you’re participating and so on. One of the hardest things about working for yourself is realizing nobody is going to hold you accountable except you… and your clients (if you work with them).
It can, at first, be easy to push things off or back and that’s all well and good until you have to pay some bills! Nobody likes to work with somebody who is disorganized, always late for meetings (or worse, totally forgets them!) or who delivers things late and getting a reputation for being that person can also affect your income!
We both use larger “month at a glance” calendars where we can easily see the big things that are coming up without having to dig into our phone or open up our laptops. And then we both use more detailed daily planners. Digital or paper - it’s up to you. Just find something that helps you stay organized and get work done on time!
Track Your Time
Speaking of time… tracking your time is a good habit to develop early on. By this we mean tracking how long it takes you do various tasks - both for clients and yourself. Things like:
admin tasks (bookkeeping, backing up hard drives, filing, cleaning etc)
product creation (painting a canvas, creating new products for your etsy who, developing a digital download
shipping product
social media
client work (by task)
This is important because knowing how long it takes you to do things will help you figure out your pricing. We have a tendency to underestimate how long it takes us to do things - especially when they’re things we enjoy. It will also help you when you’re ready to hire help - you’ll have a good understanding of how long the tasks you need help with will take.
It’s also a good way to see how long you’re spending on tasks that don’t generate revenue or move your business forward and then put time limits on how long you spend on them.
Tracking your time can also stop you from procrastinating - there are lots of apps and timers you can try out. It can also show you areas where you need to get faster or more efficient and can highlight tasks that might be better suited to being hired out.
And, tracking your time gives you a really good sense of how much your time is worth… which can make it easier to say NO to things that eat into your precious time!
Block Big Chunks of Time For Deep Work
Don’t rely on getting by with multi-tasking. It’s an easy way to burn out and make mistakes - and even take longer to get things done.
Be sure to block out chunks of your week that are for deep work - where you dive into bigger projects or more complex tasks with deep focus. It can take a while for our brains to ramp up to the point where we can make significant headway on certain tasks so you need to build some time into your schedule where you block out all other distractions and get some solid work done.
At the same time, keep a running list of small tasks you can do in 2, 5, 10, 15 minutes and slip those in when you have a few minutes to spare - like before a call with a client or before ending your day etc.
Create Before Consuming
Creating before you consume each day (and by consume we mean checking email, scrolling social media, the news etc) achieves multiple things:
it starts your day on a positive note and gives you a sense of achievement early in your day
you create without an outside influence on your work or your mood
you avoid the comparison trap that often comes after consuming social media
Find A Group of Peers
Working from home can quickly become a lonely endeavour - even if your house is full of people! It’s really important to start building and maintaining a network of peers who also work from home or run their own businesses. Make time to meet up in person (when we’re allowed!) or via phone or video chat. You don’t need to work in the same industry - although that can be helpful!
By having a group of peers who you can connect with, you can help avoid feelings of isolation, get feedback on problems you’re working on and ease the insecurity that sometimes comes when you need to make big decisions on your own. It’s also nice to have a group of friends who you can compare work strategies with or simply just meet up with for a laugh or a rant when needed.
Be The CEO of your business
When you run your own business, you wear a lot of hats: intern, bookkeeper, project manager, janitor, marketing specialist and… CEO. A lot of us tend to forget the CEO part of our job but it’s critical that you embrace it for long term success.
You’ve heard the phrase “work on your business, not in your business” before? Well that’s your job as CEO. You need to do the strategic planning, goal setting, financial projections. You also need to delegate (more on that in a moment).
Know Your Numbers
As CEO, it’s important that you know your numbers: your profits and losses, your expenses, your projected revenue, your actual revenue. You’re bringing in lots of dollars but how much are you spending?
How much does it cost you to make your product - be it a blog post, an range of candles, a line of necklaces, an original painting or a logo design for a client?
If your main source of revenue dried up over night (and if we have learned anything from this pandemic it’s that this can happen in the blink of an eye) what would you do? Do you have multiple revenue streams? Can you pivot quickly if need be?
Don’t get fooled by vanity metrics. Your social media followers and page views may be high but how is that translating into revenue? How much time do you spend on social media and how does it translate into a paycheque? Do you know how much it costs to turn a follower into a customer? These are the questions a CEO needs to ask.
Get Professional Help
A good CEO knows that sometimes, you need to hire an expert. Accountants and lawyers sound (and can be) expensive but they can save you a lot of money in both time and mistakes. Getting set up correctly early on with good bookkeeping practices, solid contract templates, guidance on your business structure and on any legal issues you may not be aware of as well as tax advice can save you a lot of time, money and heartache down the road.
Professionals can also become trusted business advisors. If you work with people who specialize in your field they can offer a wealth of knowledge and advice based on years of working with other clients similar to you.
PRO TIP: While professional services are not cheap, they probably aren’t as expensive as you think they are. Many professionals will offer a free 30 minute consult. And there are many accountants and lawyers who specialize in small businesses (and small creative businesses) who understand we’re not necessarily making big bank early on. They may offer project based pricing for things like contract templates, trademarking etc that can save you a lot of money and give you the flexibility to ask questions without getting charged for every phone call.
Professional Development
It’s important to make time for continuing education and professional development and there’s so many ways to do this. It can be a course, a conference, workshop or a retreat. It might be paying to join a mastermind group or starting one yourself.
It’s also important to set aside a few days every year for your own retreat where you work on your business with reflecting on the past year and what worked and what didn’t, future planning and strategic thinking. Some people do this yearly, others do it quarterly or even monthly.
Hiring Help (Before You Need It)
When you’re just starting out you’re probably doing all the things. But there will come a time where you’ll probably need to hire some help if you want to keep moving forward. Don’t freak out! Hiring help does not mean you need to hire a full-time employee! You can start small - probably a lot smaller than you think!
Hiring for micro tasks
How small is too small? We’d argue nothing is too small to hire out! There are lots of small businesses and services built on doing micro tasks for other business owners. It could be something as little as the $8 Lisa paid somebody to make an email signature for her. Or it could be a 3 second animation to use at the beginning of your YouTube videos, a custom track written for you for your videos or a pinterest pin template.
If there’s something you don’t want to do or have the time to do, there is somebody out there who will happily do it for you and usually for a reasonable rate.
Hiring A Freelancer For Bigger Tasks
You may want to hire freelancers for other projects. These are usually people who specialize in a specific area that’s outside of your area of expertise. You might want to consider developing long term relationships with them without actually having them work for you as an employee. This could be a web designer, graphic designer or bookkeeper. Or it might be a service provider like a print shop or even a house cleaning company. (Make sure you understand the difference between a contractor/freelancer and an employee where you live. Different provinces and states have different legalities in this area).
Hiring Part-Time Help
There may come a time where you need some body to join your team. For many small business owners this often comes in the form of a VA (Virtual Assistant). There’s lot of different VA specialties but many of them can help you manage email, your calendar, your social media, small marketing tasks, or customer service. You can start really small with a VA - some will work for as little as an hour a week. Try it out and as you get used to the idea of delegating tasking, you might quickly find suddenly you can give them 5 or 10 hours a week! VAs often work on contract and will have multiple clients. They are rarely an employee.
You might also want an actual employee who goes on salary. There’s so many tasks they can do. It could be managing the front desk of a salon or spa or tattoo parlour. It could be doing art studio clean-up or washing dishes or food styling after a recipe development session.
The point is, you can start small - as small as you need to. But delegating tasks you don’t enjoy or you’re not very good at or that aren’t the best use of your time can quickly pay off!
Make Time For Movement
Get up and move. We’re not just talking about going to the gym for an hour at lunch or after work. Make time for movement every hour. Stretch, move your neck, make a cup of tea or get a glass of water. Be sure to take a proper lunch break. Go for a walk. Walking meetings are a great way to stay productive while getting in some steps. Walk around your house while taking a phone call. Do 25 jumping jacks.
Movement helps you problem solve and process your thoughts. It gets your blood flowing and it’s good for you. It doesn’t have to be a full on workout - just enough to stir things up!
Build In Time For Fun & Flexibility
Another perk of being the CEO of your business is building in some time for fun. It could be as simple as scheduling a manicure every second Tuesday or blocking off Friday afternoons in order to start the weekend early if you feel like it. Maybe it’s getting your errands for the week done at lunch on Mondays or taking a yoga class at 10am on Thursdays. Whatever it is, it doesn’t have to be big or expensive. It just has to be something that reminds you that you’re in charge and that working for yourself means you get to build flexibility and enjoyment into your schedule on your terms!
Last but not least, remember that you don’t need to figure this all out at once. Even after working from home for 10 years, we’re both still tweaking, adjusting and sometimes completely scrapping things that don’t work anymore.
You and your business are a work in progress and things will change as you enter different seasons of life. Give yourself some grace to figure it out.
And remember, there is no should. This is about what works for your situation. You don’t have to be a morning person to succeed. You don’t need to work 9-5 to be legit. Working Saturdays doesn’t mean you’ve failed if it’s your most productive day of the week. You call the shots!
