Something I live my life by, and unabashedly love, is lists. I always have lots of notebooks lying around, lots of notes on my phone, and lots of filled pages in my Day Planner.  For real, a good schedule is the only way to go. So many business owners have admitted to me that they don’t stay on track because they don’t have a routine, so I’m sharing what I know today! I keep everything in order by writing a to-do list (usually, a fresh one every week) and then try to stick to the routine I’ve developed for myself over the years.

So, what does that look like? We’re taking a look into how I stay on schedule as a small business owner in hopes that it can help some of you, too.  Sundays are huge in terms of setting up my week for success, so I’m starting with that!

Sundays –

I plan all social media content and blogs for the week. This usually takes me about an hour, but then I don’t have to look at it again for a whole week.  This is super easy to do from my laptop in front of a movie with the kiddos.

For social media, my go-to’s are Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest.  I just don’t do the other platforms well, so I stick to what I know.

:  For Instagram, I utilize an app called Planoly, as this allows me to upload a bunch of images at once for the week or month, and then schedule my content to auto-post, complete with hashtags.

:  For Facebook, I share the same content from Instagram to Facebook and edit the captions to work for the platform. For instance, tags and sentences like “link in bio” don’t work well on Facebook in the same way that they do on Instagram, so editing the captions and tags to suit Facebook is important.

:  With Pinterest, I pin original organic content of my own once a week (designs, logos, etc.), and scroll to pin stuff I like every night while in bed for 20 minutes or so.

:  Lastly, Blog content is written and usually scheduled for Tuesdays or Thursdays.  I then correlate that with a post to Instagram, which you now know I schedule to autopost 🙂

Side note – I also order my groceries (delivery or pickup) and clean my house on Sundays.  Doing this makes Mondays SO much easier.  A clean house and full fridge (cause you know, #snacks) make it easier to be creative and do my job, because it’s one less thing I have to think about.  

Mondays

Brand Launches – When I have a new brand or website launch, I try to schedule them for Mondays.  It allows each of my sweet clients to prep for their own launch (note: I never announce to the public until they are ready, but if they are, Mondays are it)

Taxes/Bookkeeping – Any receipts or bookkeeping from the previous week gets inputted into my excel sheet every Monday morning.

Tuesdays/Thursdays

Blog posts – As I mentioned before, I schedule blog posts for these days and coordinate an Instagram post to go with it. I also create a graphic for Pinterest to link to the blog post and upload/pin.

Wednesday/Fridays

Coaching or client calls – I schedule any client calls or coaching calls on Wednesdays and Fridays.  Additionally, since I have my makeup on (#smallbusinesslife), I try to do any promo videos or photos.

Saturdays

I’m off. I’m also a wedding photographer, so during busy season, I typically shoot weddings on Saturdays.  When I’m not, it’s my time with my family.

Daily/Weekly

Emails – I always answer emails first thing in the morning.  This takes me anywhere from 30-60 minutes.

Gym – I don’t go every day, but I go three days a week while my youngest son is at preschool.  Making time for the gym is really important to my overall well-being.

Italian lessons – It’s no secret that Italy is my favorite place in the world, and learning the language is all for me and my love of Italy.  I have a teacher I FaceTime with once a week 🙂

Lunch with my husband – The hubs is a police officer and works nightshift, so dinners together are few and far between, but lunch we get to do together every day.

Family Time

Sticking to the routine – I left this for last because it’s really important.  I walk away from my computer every day at 4:30pm.  I may pick it back up after my kids go to sleep most nights, but making my family dinner and sitting together as a family at the dining room table, sans electronics, to talk about each our days, is so, so important.  My kids are also heavily involved in sports, so we are usually rushing out the door to a sporting event around this time as well. I value this time with my kids and my husband, so it’s on the “non-negotiable” list for me.

 

Any designing, editing, sketching, refining, etc. is done throughout the day, every day. The constant to-do list I have is being forever checked off, and I move on to the next thing as I write down something new that needs to be done in it’s place.  Running a small business is more than just the fun, creative side, and the back end has to run like a machine in order for that fun, creative side to function to well.

This was a little more long-winded and so unlike what I normally blog, so if you made it to the end, congrats! Mark it off your to-do list and have a midday drink, you deserve it 😛 xo

K