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If you run a handmade business, you know work seems to come in cycles. You might be overloaded with orders one week and have hardly anything the next. That’s why it’s so easy to get burned out — your workload changes so much, especially around the holidays. As a handmade business owner, you need to know how to manage your time to meet your deadlines without getting overwhelmed or burned out. Take a look at these tips to help you do it.
Get Organized
This one might sound like a no brainer, but creative types are notorious for being unorganized. However, there really is no excuse for it in this day and age. Computers help you avoid the stacks of paper on your desk. Plus, there are countless apps, day planners, and all sorts of other planning tools to help you track your to-do list and stay on top of your orders.
Staying organized helps you meet your deadlines and monitor your workload so you don’t get burned out. Of course, overcoming your problems with procrastination and perfectionism is an entirely different matter. Perfectionism is a major contributor to burn out.
Don’t Take More Work than You Can Handle
Once you’ve gotten organized and stopped your bad procrastination habits, figure out how much work you can handle in a given week or day. It’s hard as a handmade business owner to turn down commissioned work because you don’t always know when you’ll get more. However, you’re going to get burned out if you take too much. Before accepting new work, make sure that you can easily fit it into your schedule without sacrificing quality.
Set Your Own Deadlines
When a client gives you a deadline, make sure that you set your own deadline ahead of your client’s schedule. Try to give yourself at least one or two days leeway in case something comes up or you run into problems. It’s hard to predict when your sewing machine is going to break or a store won’t have the supplies you need to finish an order.
Plus, clients love when you complete orders early. So, setting your own deadlines helps you improve client relationships and get more work in the future. For the most part, clients only care about two things — that you do quality work and that you meet your deadlines. So, those are the two things you should focus on.
Take a Day Off, or at Least the Weekend
If you work 10 hours a day, seven days a week, you’re going to get burned out. You need a day to yourself to unwind and take care of the chores in your personal life. It’s sometimes necessary to work through the weekend to meet your deadlines, but you should always make sure that you take some time for yourself away from your work.
As a handmade business owner, do you often get burned out? What do you do to avoid the problem? Leave a comment below.
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