Handling Full Time & Building A Business…
Let’s be honest, trying to build a business, work full time to keep paying the bills and keep relationships in tact is definitely not the easiest. Things can slip, one thing needs to take a step aside for a while and compromise is required. It is a long journey, but the possibility of running my own business and have more flexibility with life and my finances makes me motivated to keep trying.
Throughout my creative journey, I have worked full time. This has looked like a 7am start to catch the train into Manchester and I am lucky if I am home for 7pm that evening to make dinner and then finally have a short time in the evening to either relax, create or plan my ideas. It doesn’t leave much time and to start with, I was not using my time to the best I could.
Now my days look a little different, after a bit of planning to make my day work better for me. This might look different for you (I do not have children or other commitments so have the ability to work in this way, but perhaps you will be able to pull some of these things into your own routine)
My daily commute now involves Instagram networking and posting, listening to podcasts and researching new UK based manufacturers and researching all the elements that go into a business, from shipping and policies to pricing and whatever else I need to research. My train journey into and out of Manchester is always filled with this as it can be done from my phone on a crammed rush hour train with nothing else needed but the internet and my phone’s notes page. I have about a 30 minute commute one way (on a good day), which means that is one hour a day of being able to do these tasks that otherwise I would be looking out the window or listening to music, instead of putting time I have spare into my business. Now, I certainly have those days where I have no motivation and I am listening to music or just looking out the window. But I know that when I am motivated it is an hour a day extra towards my business goals and it is spare time I need in a busy day.
My lunch break is when I am most active as my brain has kicked in from work so I tend to fit in more productive work at this point - thinking up new ideas for illustrations or writing out journal ideas or calculating pricing that works for all my options of the shop and wholesale and digital products. It is finding a small margin in daily life that you would otherwise not be using that helps move the needle forward. I once heard that we all have the same time in a day, we simply choose to use it differently. I now do my best to use my ‘margins of life’ time more productively to help reach my goals of growing this into a business.
My weekends are my most productive time and batch working is absolutely my best friend when it comes to weekends, from bulk creating Instagram pictures for my page and bulk creating journal posts and illustrations, but more on that on a future post!
For now, think of the small margins in your life. A commute to work, a lunch break to research or simply 15 minutes before going to bed to start the idea of a pattern collection or drawing. These small moments add up quickly in a week and a month. You will quickly find you are further along than you thought by grabbing little moments in the day to inch that needle forward.