 Well hello and welcome to this video now. Are you the sort of creative that can't find anything you need at any given time? Or are you totally structured organized with labels on boxes, and you know where everything is whenever you need it? Hmm, I feel a few people laughing in the distance. Do you run your personal and business life in the same way? Everything's super disciplined. You've got a timetable planners, and you are completely organized. Or are you somebody who just goes with the flow and really steps into being a creative, and it's all a little bit disorganized. What about computer systems? Are they the same? You can't find the files and folders? Then this video is for you. I guess if you are the disorganized person, you likely have leapt on this video, how to be more organized in your art business, and gone Thank you Sophie for recording this topic. And if you are that super organized person, I feel you might pass this one by anyway. Well hello and welcome or welcome back to my channel. My name is Sophie, and I help artists just like you to set up market and grow their profitable art business. If you'd like more tips and tricks on how to do exactly that, then you're in the right place. Don't forget to subscribe to the channel and hit that little bell to get notified every time I post a new video. So, are you ready to get more organized in your art business? And like I say, I feel that some people will have gone off and got a cup of tea and they're like, I've got this sorted. While the rest of you will be saying, I'm waiting with baited breath, Sophie. I really need the help. I can't find anything at any given time. Now I like you guys watching to take a guess which one I am. You can leave your comments pipe, please, below this video. Do you think I'm super organized and I have everything labeled down to the nth degree? Or do you think I live in total chaos? Which one is it? Let me know in the comments below because I'd love to hear from you. So back to that organization. Let's get you more organized in your art business. The first thing we want to do is we want to get you organized in the space that you're working in. Now, whether that's the corner of a kitchen table, whether you've got the spare room upstairs, a converted garage, or you like myself rent out a studio space somewhere. You want to get that space organized. Now, I read a beautiful book somewhere. And if I can find it, I will pop a link to it below here. And one of the things it talked about in this book was having zones in your space, even if your space is tiny, you have a zone that's kind of the office zone. That's where the computer and your printer and where you keep any files or folders, diaries, planners, all that organizational thing. And then you have perhaps a sketching zone. That's where you have materials in your sketchbook and perhaps bits of paper for collage and your sort of creative, you're developing your creative practice kind of area. And then you have the zone where you're working on your product or service. And that's where you have all the materials and all the things that you need for that purpose. Now, if you also ship out products from your space, then you might also have a packing zone. And again, I watched a video the other day and I was super impressed by this artist's complete floor to ceiling cupboard full of bubble wrap and packing and cardboard boxes and the labels and all the things you need for sending out all the prints that she was sending out. And I thought it was a fabulous video because it was like, wow, this is really, really, really organized. So different zones to do that, you might also have a quiet or meditative zone where you might make yourself a little space with some incense and candles. Depends where you work and kind of the person that you are. But getting organized in the space so that you can walk in and get straight on rather than walking into wherever you work and then thinking, oh, God, where were those pencils I want in? I'm sure I had a folder with something over here and chaos ensues. All right, so the working space is the number one thing. If you haven't done it and you've put it off, then why not allocate some time and get it done? And again, I'd love to see a before and after. So why not take a photo of how it is now and then a photo of once you've got it organized and pop it below this video? Or if you are following me over on Instagram, then perhaps you can send me a direct message and show me a before and after because I love studio shots. Step number two, we're going to do the same thing with your computer. Oh, yes. Now, I like to start with just a piece of paper like a mind map. So you think about all the top level things that you need to organize. So you think, OK, what about my personal life? So what have I got? I've got some finance, financial things I've got, maybe travel plans or I might have household documents or I might have health and fitness. And I would create top level folders for my kind of personal life. And then you've got the art business. So what are the top level folders that you're going to need? It might be an artwork folder, marketing folder, planning folder, finances folder, admin folder. You get the idea. So it's really high level. And then you go within each folder and again, break down the categories in there. So if, for example, let's go down the artwork one. So if you have originals and you have prints and you have products or cards, then you might want to separate those off. You might want another folder just for photos. And actually what I tend to do with with my weaving products is I've got a folder with weavings and I've got a subfolder for each particular weaving and their photos and Etsy listings and everything sits inside there. So if I think, OK, that particular weaving, I want to put a photo, for example, on social media, I can go straight in weavings, straight into products, weavings into the direct folder that I need. I can take the right size photo and there is done. I don't have to look around and think, oh, God, where is that? Organization over time, this can grow chaotic when you don't take the time to file everything, just like it would if you had a filing cabinet like we used to have in the day. Back in the day, I had two filing cabinets in my office and one was super organized and the other one used to get a little loose. And every now and then you'd sit down and go, OK, I need to file these papers. It's the same with your online folders. You might find every six months you can go through and cull. Now, I'll give you a top tip here. I used to do this on a long haul flight, actually, because you don't need the Internet and less of a things in the cloud. But usually you can do that anyway. I'd sit through that flight and and reorganize the old things that weren't used anymore and refile things on the computer. Top tip. Hmm. All right. Number three, you want to use a good online calendar, whether that's Google Calendar, I use Ikel calendar. And then within that calendar creates separate different calendars and have them as different colors. So the different areas of your day or your week can have different colors so you can actually plan out your week so that you, again, are organized with what you're doing when allocate different times for different things and use different colors. Tip number four, you want to take that first time in the morning time to sit down with a mug of tea or coffee or whatever it is that you drink and just look over look at the planning. So you maybe just have a quick look at the big picture and your goals where you're going this month, this week. And then you pull off and look at today and you say, OK, this is what I'm doing today. I make sure it all fits in with the bigger picture. Doesn't need to be more than five minutes, but you do want to do it every day. Number five, really, really good to have a brain dump journal for better use of a word. That somewhere where you can just write, she's going to go over here and get herself a prop, but you can just write all the sort of thoughts. It might be plans for the future, sort of thinking, OK, I've got this idea for a workshop and you sort of write it all down or I'm thinking about doing a marketing campaign or I'm drawing and scribbling out ideas. So this would just be a place where you just put all your ideas. So that would be separate from a planner because this would be quite a creative thing. It might have doodles and drawings. You might stick things in it, whereas your actual planners need to be clear and focused and not distraction. So you don't want the two things in one place, all right, separate places for the two things. So step six, this is where you're going to do those planners. So I have I advocate a quarterly planner, monthly and weekly planners and then a daily to do, which you pull off all of that. And again, we teach all of this in the Art Business Academy membership. If you missed out on that and you're thinking, you know what, I could really do with some ongoing help. Then below this video, I'll put a link to the waiting list. So whenever we're next available, you will be the first people to know about it. So we have all these planners and we advocate using them in a certain way, going from big picture down to more detail. So number seven is to try and create processes and systems for every part of your business. So remember, I mentioned that packing earlier by having a simple, simple process of, for example, maybe you sell on Etsy, you get an order in, what happens? You don't scratch your head and think, wait a minute, what did I do with the bubble wrap? You have that zone, right? That's got all your wrapping materials. So your process might be great, get it, check the time. I've got to get it out in three days. So how do I do it? I actually have a funny system with my weavings in order that they get sent in a safe package. They get bubble wrapped, then they get tissue paper wrap, then they get some branding and it all looks very, very pretty. Then they get some corrugated card to keep that safe. And then they go inside a a a triangular. Looks like a Toblerone box. So anyone's receiving it's going, I've got a giant Toblerone. But actually inside it is a weaving. And by making that triangular box, it's kind of unbreakable. If somebody puts something heavy on top, that's my process. All right, the process then that you got the packing label goes outside and it goes to the post office and off it goes. Now, if you could do that in every area of the business, that would be amazing. But just start with one thing that's easy, like the packing and then gradually ask yourself, where can I systemise in the business so that I'm not having to do it all again? So, for example, if you do markets, this is not my primary thing. My weaving is a bit of a side hustle, but I'm doing a market at the weekend because I actually really enjoy them and I have a process for packing the car. I have a tick box of all the things that I need to take. And of course, where they fit in the car. Being that Virgo, one has to be a little bit organised there as well. And the difference between having that ready to go, that I can just go, yeah, got that, got that, got that, got that, got that. The difference between that and then running around the house thinking, Oh, what did I take last time? Did I need that? Did I need that? It's going to save you so much time. Step number eight, if you can start using automated schedulers for marketing. So, for example, social media is the first one that comes to mind. Whatever platform you use will have at least one really good scheduling tool. A lot of them cross over, like we advocate. Tailwind is really great for Pinterest and for Instagram. And I've got a link below here where you can find out about that. There's lots for just Instagram, like later and Plannerly. And there's lots of schedulers. You can actually schedule within Facebook as well for that. But anything you can do where you can batch schedule things, that's going to save you time in the long track. So think about what you can do, what you can automate out. And number nine, this is my favourite one. I remember learning this back in the day. And this used to apply to emails only, but I think it should apply to all of our business. And this is really what can you actually delegate or outsource? And what can you just dump, delete or get rid of altogether? There's going to be areas of the business where you think, you know what, that's not really serving me. Do I really need to be doing that? Let's just delete it out. Let's see if that makes life really simple. And then, of course, as you move forward and you start to get some money in, income in, you've got cash in the bank, then you want to start thinking about delegating that whole packaging scenario. You don't need to be doing that. You're the artist, you're the maker, you're the creator. Right, what if you had a shop that goes ding, ding, ding, ding? You're going to waste your time all day long postage and packaging for things? I don't think so. You're going to want someone that comes in maybe once or twice a week for a couple of hours who collects all your orders and who processes the whole lot for you. You know, you've got to start thinking like a business. You want to make sure that you are doing the high-level things. Creation, making, delivering. Some marketing, yes, but at the end of the day, you can usually outsource pretty much everything else. Hallelujah, all right? This is when you get to the place where you really are enjoying what you're doing. What tends to happen when you build an art business at the beginning, you have to wear all the hats until you get to that kind of critical mass point where you've got some money coming in and then other people can take the weight off and do other things for you. And it's a great place to be, trust me. It's really, really wonderful. And that's my wish for all of you. I hope you've really enjoyed this video on how to get more organized in your art business. Let us know below, like I say, what do you think I'm an organized or disorganized person? And if you've got some before and after photos, we'd love to see those or any questions, of course. And like I say, you can do that below this video or shoot your DM over on my Instagram, as I would love to hear from you there as well. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you on the next one.