Ever since I started working full time on my business I’ve made a habit of planning my week. It helps me to manage my time better and also be realistic about what I can achieve each week.

Running a small business means wearing so many different hats from being a designer one day through to being the finance or marketing team the next.

This is what I’ve enjoyed the most about running my business as it means no two days are the same. There’s always a new challenge and something to learn. Making mistakes is important too as there’s always a lesson to take away from each one.

Something else I’ve realised about being self employed is that you can set your own schedule and you don’t have to explain yourself to your anyone if you need to take a day off for mental health or just to deal with other life events.

Planning My Month

At the beginning of the month I like to set a few goals that I want to achieve and I brainstorm the tasks that I need to do to achieve them. I’ve been using The Makers Yearbook to do this which has been amazing at helping me focus on my priorities each month.

It’s good to break down my goals into chunks as it helps me realise how much time I need to dedicate to each task and also be realistic about what I can do.

Alongside my main goals, I always make sure to find time in the day to day tasks like packing orders, answering emails and tracking your finances, as well as time to look after myself.

I always put time aside to do some exercise during each week, even if it’s just going for a walk a couple of times a week. It helps clear my head to step away from my desk, as well as giving me some bonus endorphins. My current obsession is outdoor swimming at our local lido, and I’m hoping to explore some more outdoor swimming spots this summer.

I also try to book in a couple of training sessions on Skillshare or other online courses. General Assembly have some great online webinars which are often free. I’m also a member of the Indie Roller group and they have a whole program of online courses to help you build and manage your business at a pace that works for you.

Planning My Week

Once I’ve got an idea of what I want to achieve within the month, I sit down for half an hour or so each Monday morning and create a ‘To Do List’ for the week. I try not to make this list too long, as I like to focus on doing 2-4 main tasks each day. Then I look at my list and pick out about 3 things to do each day of the week.

This is an example of the types of tasks I work on in a typical week. This will vary depending on the time of year and where I am with developing a collection or what commissions I’m working on.

Mondays

• Social Media Planning
  I use Later to plan out a few social media posts for the week and schedule them to post in the early morning or evenings. I keep a library of images that I want to post, and I use Trello to type out my captions in advance. Trello is also great for tracking projects and keeping notes.

• Packing orders

  • If I’ve had some orders come in over the weekend I’ll plan an hour or so to pack these up and log the payments on my online accounting software.

• Emailing Suppliers

  • I’ll check in with my product suppliers to check on production status for my orders and send them any outstanding artworks or information that they require.

• Ordering Stock

  • I’ll check my stock levels for my products and packaging and order more where needed.

Tuesdays

• Create Product and Packaging Artworks.

  • Depending on what stage I’m at with a new collection I will create artworks to send to my suppliers on Photoshop and Procreate. This can take a few hours depending on how many artworks I need to create.

• Calculate Product Costs and Profit Margins

  • When I’m developing a new collection I will research a few different suppliers and request price lists to calculate my product and wholesale prices as well as profit margins. I usually do this on Google Sheets.

• Pet Portrait Sketches

  • If I’ve got a current pet portrait commission I’ll spend an hour or two doing pencil sketches of the creature I’ve been asked to capture. This gives me a chance to get to know their character and work out some composition ideas.

Wednesdays

• Develop Print Designs

  • I’ve been slowly building up a surface pattern design portfolio and I make time each week to develop a one or two new designs starting with pencil sketches, which I’ll then trace on Procreate, or original watercolour paintings which I’ll scan into Photoshop. I’ll then turn these into repeat prints in Photoshop. I’ve been watching a lot of Skillshare tutorials on how to do this as it’s still a new skill for me!

• Write Blog Posts or Draft Newsletter

  • I send out a newsletter every couple of weeks and also try to upload a blog post on the alternate weeks. I’ve been doing this for a few months now and I’ve started to really enjoy the process of creating a snapshot of my news and projects. I use Mailchimp to create my newsletters as it’s free and really easy to use.

Thursdays

• Pack and Ship orders

  • If I’ve had some more orders in the week I’ll spend another morning packing them up and and making a trip to the post office. I’ve been using Click and Drop to pay for my postage online, which is brilliant. It’s a great way to keep track of any orders from different platforms such as Etsy and my website. You can also set it up to create your customs slips automatically which is so handy for International Orders.

• Contact Wholesale Stockists

  • If I need to I’ll update my wholesale catalogue (which I created using Canva) and send it out to my wholesale stockists. I also make time to research and contact potential stockists that I haven’t yet worked with.

• Training Session

  • If I can I book in some time to do a Skillshare class (there are loads of great project ideas to build up my illustration portfolio). Or I might do a module from the the Indie Roller Bootcamp which has lots of bite sized tasks and worksheets covering everything from Brand Strategy, to Pricing and Marketing and more.

Fridays

• Sketching Morning

  • Depending on how busy my week has been I do normally try to carve out some time purely for sketching and painting at the end of the week. It’s so important to sketch as often as possible to develop your style and practice drawing things that are outside of your comfort zone.

• Painting Pet Portraits

  • If I have a current pet portrait commission I will usually spend one afternoon a week on the final watercolour portraits, once I’ve had all my feedback from my customers and they are happy with the final composition proposal.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of all the different things I get up to each week, and if I have a bigger project or commission, I’m likely to spend the majority of my time on that where needed until the deadline. But hopefully this has given you a bit of an insight into how I plan my week, and perhaps some ideas on how to plan yours.

To get you started, I’ve created a free downloadable printable weekly planner for you if you sign up to my mailing list.