Have you ever gotten to the end of a busy day and had no idea what you actually did? I’m raising my hand with you here! I got tired of that (and yes, sometimes it still happens), so I set out on a mission to change the way I work. I’ve always been the “organized one”, the “planner”, but sometimes I still felt out of sorts and not at all like I was getting as much done as I could.

“Being busy doesn’t mean you’re productive.”

When I had had enough I started pouring into anything I could find on productivity. I tried lots of systems in my personal life and in my photography business. Some I loved, some I hated, some I tweaked and some I developed on my own. So I want to share a few things that have made a big impact on my work days in the studio.

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Here are 5 ways I’ve learned to work smarter and not harder in my senior photography studio:

1. I realized that not all tasks are urgent or a priority - Instead of lumping all tasks into one big list and calling them all important and due RIGHT NOW, I now prioritize them. Not every email or voicemail has to be addressed this very second. It’s ok to put things on the back burner and focus on the one important task at hand. Yes, our clients are super important, but things can wait. When you feel overwhelmed by the requests and tasks piling up around you, take a step back and focus on the important stuff. Do you really have to stop your creative flow and designing that portion of your website just because Karen can’t find the email you sent with her session time on it? Does Suzy need to be called this very second because she wants to discuss locations for her daughter’s session in 3 months? I’ll answer both of those for you. No!!! Neither is urgent or a priority. Focus on your business and the important stuff at hand instead of dropping everything to make everyone else happy.

2. I stopped jumping from task to task - Our brains don’t like to switch directions. Mine sure doesn’t anyway! It’s a proven fact that jumping from task to task causes anxiety. Accounting one minute, editing the next, oh wait, gotta charge my batteries for that session. It’s enough to drive a person crazy. I fixed that by blocking my calendar by types of tasks to handle. There is creative time, admin time, client time, etc. I even have full days where I am focusing on ONE thing. No clients, no errands, just getting stuff done! No, I’m not perfect. But it sure has helped me to relax by only focusing on one type of task at a time. Try it and let me know what you think :)

3. I cut out the distractions - Ok, almost all of them. My dogs just won’t get on board with this idea. But gone are the notifications on my phone and 25 tabs open on my browser. Seriously, the phone is the worst. With it buzzing all day long I just couldn’t keep up a creative flow when I was working on something. Now that it’s quiet I can concentrate and I’m so much more productive! Constant interruptions make focusing impossible. Now, if I could just teach my dogs that I don’t need to be notified every time someone walks down the sidewalk or the UPS man drives up all would be good ;)

4. I gave myself white space on the calendar - I used to fill every little second of my calendar with something to do. Oh, I can squeeze this in here and if I just move this over here I can do this too! At the end of the day I was moving things over to the next day and feeling like I hadn’t accomplished anything. I had!! But I was setting myself up for failure from the start. We weren’t meant to go full throttle all day long. I guess I thought I was the exception and could get it all done. Lesson learned. Now I give myself some white space on the calendar. I take into account the actual time needed between appointments and tasks. Oh, I guess I did need time to shower and eat after all! So give yourself some breathing room between all those things that need to be done during the day. It’s much easier on you and at the end of the day you can pat yourself on the back for all those things you got accomplished!

5. I implemented a Power Hour every day - This may be the biggest game changer of them all. You know all those little tasks I talked about earlier, the ones that weren’t urgent or a priority. They need to be done, but just not right now tasks? This is where I started to put them! I called it my Power Hour. There are things that just have to get done each day, right? These are things like answering emails, checking voicemails, returning calls, posting to social media, checking DMs, etc. The phone goes on Do Not Disturb and I just get them done so they don’t pile up!

I hope some of these will help you my friends. They sure have made a big difference around here. Please let me know over on Insta or in my FaceBook Group if you’ve tried any of these!

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