 Are you starting your year already in a state of overwhelm or confusion? You're just not sure exactly where you should be starting. You set some goals but you've no idea how you're going to achieve them. Well don't worry because I've got you covered. In this video I'm going to share some of the things that I've done in order to get started efficiently, effectively and heading straight out the gate towards my goals. 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 a highly successful business doing what you love. Now if you'd like more tips and tricks on how to build that successful business then you're in the right place. Make sure to subscribe to my channel and even hit that bell to get notified every time I post a new video. So are you ready to talk planning? Specifically planning tips for artists in 2023. Now I'm shooting this video in January of 2023 but if you're watching this at some time in the future it's going to be just as relevant for you because really planning it doesn't matter when you watch the video whether it's 2024, 25, 2030, whenever you're watching this video because really the same basics are going to apply then. I've got eight things that I'm going to share with you, eight actions that you can take this January to make sure that you're fully optimised with your art business and that you're starting out with success in mind and you're starting out focused knowing what you need to be doing and how you're going to be doing it. Let's dive into those eight things. Starting with the course number one and that is getting your artist's business plan complete. Now if you're watching this and you've never watched any of my other videos you might be going oh I don't know anything about that Sophie. So below this video I've created a link for my playlist on business planning for artists and in there you'll find a few different videos that's going to help you fill out your artist's business plan. You might also want to watch this video the seven simple steps to your artist's business plan because that walks you through exactly the seven steps that I talk about and I teach and I share in my membership and my course to build your artist's business plan as well. So if you've never done a business plan and you like some help the resources are below this video. If you're a regular then first off welcome back. So excited likely you've already got the business plan done because you've heard me talk about it so often that is the number one thing for planning that you need to get ready at the beginning of your year. Not just starting it not just doing some of it but completing it getting it complete. Why because that is going to give you a roadmap of where you want to go. You're going to set a goal that you want to achieve likely a financial target that you want to achieve this year and you will have highlighted some clear steps as to how you're going to do that. The rest of the planning really is about being organized and actually maximizing on your time. If you took away the business planning piece you just grab that number one of my list of eight and you just put it off to the side. And all you did was pay attention to the other seven items. Sure you're going to be way more organized in your week in your month but you could be left totally puzzles to what you're actually doing and how you're actually going to get anywhere. The plan gives you the strategy to help you achieve the goal that you set for the year right. One of the key pieces in your plan is to say okay this year I want to turn over this amount of money. These are the ways that I'm going to make that happen. And the rest of the planning is how you're going to support yourself in doing that so that you create a really great balance between running a business and also being creative. Number two on this fabulous list of planning items is what I call a quarters planner. So in order to do this all you need to do is grab a sheet of paper and fold it into four and there you have four quarters January, February, March, April, May, June. You've got the idea. So you divide your year into four and then you look at each quarter separately. So specifically this quarter January, February, March and you hone in on what are you actually going to be doing in this quarter. What projects are you going to be running? What's the income target for this specific quarter? So you need to be just highlighting some of the key things that you're going to be focused on in these three months. And here's the thing to remember. Each month is only four or four and a half weeks. Each week is likely only at best your five maybe even six working days. It's not a lot of time. Most people overestimate what they can achieve in a week or a month or even a quarter and possibly underestimate what they can achieve in a year. So even if you have set yourself a big goal for the year make sure that your strategy to get there is going to be based on some simple things and not too many of them. So your first quarter it might be that you're running an exhibition or you're running a series of workshops or you're looking for one particular contract. So there might be specific things that you can hone in on that quarter to achieve. So quick tip here. I like to fill out all four quarters of the year but I do usually focus in on the first one first and I worry a little bit less about the others. And then as I'm moving towards the end of quarter one I start looking at what's in quarter two. Now I do this a lot in my art business academy membership. So shout out to any members that are watching. You'll be very familiar. I often do a bonus live for members and really help them look at what they've achieved in the past quarter and then plan ahead for the quarter that's coming up. It's a really, really important way of running your business and structuring your year. You know, a month goes by like that but a quarter is a good chunk of time to achieve something significant, right? Number three, this is a real quick win. Go out and buy yourself an annual wall planner. So something this sort of size. A three is probably a bit small but you want something that's A two, A one, A zero, something that's a decent size that you can put up on the wall. And so I've got a kind of cardboard one and it's a whiteboard so that I can write things on it and rub them off. What do you put on your year planner? Well, you want to put significant dates like holidays or trips abroad or things that are happening but also if you are running events or you have exhibitions or you're running workshops, anything that's got a time deadline to it you might want to put on there. I often block out actually a period of marketing time if I'm running a big event or something but they're more date specific. Your year planner is more date specific. Back in the day when I was running my full-time coaching practice I would actually have a massive wall planner and I would spend a whole day filling it out with everything I was going to in the year including my sort of three to four networking events I did every week. I used to look them up on the website and I would fill in every single date for the year so that I made sure I didn't miss any of the things that I was doing. Networking was my number one strategy to build my business back in those days so I wanted to make sure that I had all the dates in for the whole year. Number four, you want to use some sort of project planning software. So for example, your project might be to to have an exhibition. So it's right, a project has got something that's got a start date and an end date. It's not something that you're doing ongoing. So project A, exhibition. When is the date? What is it involved? Where is it, et cetera? How many pieces of work do you need for the exhibition? What's the marketing sort of weeks? How many weeks beforehand are you going to be doing marketing? All the different things involved in that project. Now you can use simple things like a spreadsheet, a Gantt chart, something that just gives you a bit of a timeline or you can use software. Now people often ask me, Sophie, what software do you recommend? And I've used quite a few and actually I like to use something really, really simple. And I actually work with Evernote, which isn't really a project planning software at all, but it has a lot of different areas to it, a lot of different things that you can do with it now, especially if you go up and you get the professional level. But there might be things that you prefer like Trello or ClickUp or Asana, Notion. There's various bits of software that very often have a free version that you can start with, especially if it's just you. Obviously I've got a little mini team, so I need something that's a little bit more robust for a team. But if it's just you, start out with something simple, something that you're going to enjoy using. And that's why I came back to Evernote. I liked the notebook structure. And then when I found that it did a variety of other things if I upgraded, I've just stuck with that. And listen, we've tried a few different things. We also use Google Drive. So there's a bit of a system in there as well. You've got to find the right piece of software for project management. Otherwise you'll be all over the place. And there's nothing worse, right? Then waking up in the middle of the night and thinking, oh, I also need to do these things for my exhibition. You want to make sure you get everything out of your head and down into the project planning software. Number five is to really support all of this by using monthly and weekly planners. Now, what I like to do is I like to print off. We're very lucky we've made a whole load of planners again for the membership. So I use those, why not? They're gold and beautiful. So I'll print off a load of those. And then what I'll typically do is I will, again, a quarter, so three months at a time, I'll print out three monthly planners and I'll print out a few weekly planners. And then I will just look through the projects and I will look through what I've got going on and I will just pull off the information and put that into the month so that I'm very clear. So you pull some dates off, you pull some bits off your project planner and then suddenly here you've got the month. And then if you've got a lot going on, if you haven't and your business is very simple, it's a simple structure and you kind of know what you're doing day in, day out, you might not need a weekly planner. But for someone like myself, I've got a lot going on that I quite like to then use a weekly planner and just go, ha, okay, this is what I've got to do. Because as creatives, sometimes you wake up and you're really in the mood to get dashed to the studio and do some painting, right? Another day is you can go in the studio and you can just take a backward step. Hands up if anyone knows what a backward step looks like and that's okay, it's part of the process. But sometimes I like to be able to be flexible. I know I've got to achieve a series of actions that week but I want to stay flexible about when I get those done. For example, Tuesday is my YouTube day so I will be filming or editing or uploading or doing things related to YouTube. Now it's incredibly hot today so I've got the air con going but I've had to turn it off because I'm shooting this, you don't want the noise of the air con. And in the ideal world, I've probably have looked at my week and thought it's a little bit cooler on Friday. I'll shoot the YouTube video then but I also know that I work really well at the beginning of the week so I want to be able to be flexible and move things around and I want that for you too. So by using these planners, you can go, ha, these are the tasks I need to get done by the end of Friday but when I get them done is really up to me. Number six, of course, is having a good calendar or diary planning system. You know, again, if you've got typically appointments or you've got other things going on kind of in your personal life, you want to make sure that you don't forget those and that you integrate everything together. So by using a calendar system, an online calendar like iCal or Google, you can set up a variety of different calendars for the different parts of your life. So I've got a business calendar, I've got a coaching and delivery calls calendar, I've got a personal life calendar, I've got a health calendar. I've got various different calendars and I can put the specific things that I have in the week on. Super, super simple. Again, keep it super simple and make sure it's linked in with everything else. Tip number seven is you want to have a meeting with yourself and or your team if you've got a small team. Why do you want to do this? You want to make sure that having done all that big picture planning that you actually get specific what you're going to do on the day. Now, if you want to stay flexible and not, you know, structure a week ago but you actually want to wake up in the morning and go, huh, okay, I'm actually feeling quite creative today or I'm feeling quite sparky in my brain today. Therefore, I'm going to write a couple of blog articles, you know, that I had as a task later in the week. You can look at your week and your month and your business plan, all of the things. And you can say, this is the most important task for me to do today. It also allows for anything that's come in suddenly via email or phone in the morning. You know, suddenly you've made a sale and you need to ship a canvas somewhere. You know, that's a priority because that's your customer. You want to work in priorities. Your customers are making sales as your top priority, right? You're running a business. Customer service, looking after people but also building connection and building a list of people that's also equally important. So you want to think about doing tasks that are a priority and will move your business forward. So when you're having that little meeting with yourself this is not a moment to dump everything on your week's action list, all right? It's for you to just go through and go, okay, that's a priority. That's a priority for today. Ideally you want three to five tasks for the day. So for example, this is a Tuesday. My key tasks today are to shoot, edit and upload and do all my YouTube tasks. That's the majority of the day because that's how long it takes. I like the process. I'm not outsourcing it at the moment because I actually enjoy what I'm doing and I've also taken a lot of other footage at the same time making some other videos. So it'll be a video-based day. And then I've got two or three other tasks for this afternoon if I get round to them, but they're not a priority. If I get round to them, that's great. The admin tasks, if I don't get round to them I'll just drag them across to tomorrow where I've got a window for admin and marketing. So I hope that makes some sort of sense. Stay flexible because we creators we want to stay flexible, right? But also you want to make sure that you get the actions done that move you forward. Lastly, well, it is a January video. Last but not least, you want to get yourself organized on your laptop, in your working space, in your studio space. All right, nothing worse than coming in after Christmas, a new year and going, oh my God, the place is filthy, it's a dump. I don't know, can't find anything. And you're struggling to get in in the beginning of the year when everything's chaos. So allocate a day or two, one to do the laptop. You want to make sure you have a really clear file and folder set up. So if I rang you and said, right, Jane, where is your such and such document? I want you to be able to go, oh, I can find that. It's in that folder, that subfolder, here it is. If you cannot find your own files, you need a better filing system. To grab a sheet of paper, work out what your high level files are, your high level folders are some subfolders and where you're going to file everything. And yet it's a really dull task that you need to go through. Don't forget the dump and delete bin and that can receive a lot of files that you probably don't need anymore. So delete a lot of stuff, clear out a lot of stuff. You will feel so much better. And make sure that everything is organized in a way that works for you. Do the same in your working space, right? I very much enjoyed this is very clear. My little office is very clear and I have one more room to do but it's super hot in there. And it's not a priority because I'm not using that room right now. So you see it's priorities. If at the end of the day when I've done everything and it's a little cooler, then I might say, okay, I'm going to spend an hour or two organizing that space. So that's a little bit about what I do. I obviously do a lot more. I do all the mindset piece. So affirmations and vision board and all of that good stuff is going on in my organization and getting ready for the year as well. I've got a few other things that I do alongside but these are the key planning tasks. Do all of these and I promise you, you will be out of sleep at night. You'll wake up knowing what you're going to do and you'll move yourself and your art business forward. If you've loved this video, then I think you're really going to love this next one. If you haven't watched this one already, then maybe watch what's on screen right now, How to Succeed as an Artist in 2023. Don't forget, as I've said, to subscribe to channel. Thank you so much for watching. If you've loved it, give it a lot of thumbs up as well and I'll see you on another one. Bye-bye.