This post is a little bit late. Technically my one-year anniversary in business was on October 15th, or the Monday after I finished the Technical Web Design program at BCIT. If you look at my paperwork, you could also say that my one-year anniversary was on November 8th. Regardless, I think I blog post is in order! Since starting my business, I’ve been approached by a few students and other people, asking questions about running a web and design business. I also have a friend from art school, who I’ve been chatting with about business a lot and it made me think that writing down a few of the things that I’ve learned this year would really help mark the occasion (that and the glass of sparkling wine I shared with my fiance on Thanksgiving weekend, so actually acknowledge the day). So, here it goes!
- Take Care of Yourself, First This is something that I am going to continue to struggle with, always, as a business owner. Due to my total type-A personality, I tend to want to get to the end of my to-do list and tie things up with a bow before I take care of myself even a little bit. WRONG! For a lot of the year, I would eat lunch at my desk, stay up late worrying about a project that wasn’t even off-track and feel the need to work at all times. By the summer, I was feeling so overwhelmed, that I said to a friend one day: “I can’t even begin to start thinking about how to start thinking about taking care of myself right now, because it just feels like another thing to add to my list.” Yes, bad. She pointed out that feeling was a surefire warning sign that I was headed to burn out. That woke me up in a hurry, mostly because I kept thinking, well I love what I’m doing … I don’t want to suddenly not be able to keep doing it because I burned out. And then there would be the financial repercussions for me and my fiance. Yikes.So, I started to try to deal with it. At first is was making sure that I got enough sleep. Since I’m not exactly a morning person, it meant letting myself sleep in a little longer than usual and just adjusting the rest of my day accordingly. It helped, but wasn’t enough.I hit another snag about a two month ago, when I got an esophageal ulcer. Contrary to popular belief, ulcers are not caused by stress. Mine was caused by some medication I was briefly taking, but the ulcer, which the fiance and I affectionately referred to as Ursula, was a wake up call. Not like a scary, cancer, wake up call, but one nonetheless. I immediately stopped drinking alcohol and coffee and the medication I was put on for Ursula, made me quite sleepy. It all added up to me getting a lot of great sleep! But we wanted to take it further and started eating a lot better. Nothing magical there, but eating your veggies, really makes you feel better!
Sadly, I’m never going to be one of those people who can motivate themselves to do something, just because it’s better for me. What I found motivation in though, was my business. I realized that I would be better at my business and get more done, if I felt better. I know that a million people have said it, but since I’ve started to take care of myself, just that smidge better, my business is doing better, I’m doing better and I think that, even my code is more focused!
- Time Management is Serious Business One of the things that appealed most to me about working for myself was the ability to be in charge of my time. However, once I started my own business, I quickly realized that I needed to still manage my time. Yes, I can do laundry in the middle of my work day and occasionally take the afternoon of to hang with a friend, but I have to schedule it in, or else things just tend to get off track. (I wrote about that more, here.)Time management isn’t just about schedule though. It’s also about realizing when my plate is full and saying a firm ‘no.’ I’ve started mapping out my year now, so that I can actually see when I have time for a project. That way, if someone asks me for a website and needs it to start now, I can tell them yes or no, knowing that I have the goods to back it up. No more getting sucked into projects that I don’t have time for, which ultimately leads me to eat into my downtime, which brings me back to my first point!
- Get Help Running a business is super fun! But hard. Very hard. If you don’t have someone to bounce ideas off of, it’ll be harder still. I’m lucky because I have a built-in business partner at home. My fiance, Nick, runs a business too, so a lot of our conversations are about business. That said, it has been invaluable to have mentors in my own field. Some of my mentors know that they’re my mentors, and some of them don’t! What do I mean by that? There are a few people who’s businesses I watch, because I like the way they do things. I may not even know them, but I’m keeping an eye on what they do, to see if it sparks inspiration for my business. A little stalker-y, perhaps, but it helps! People I admire include: Natasha Lakos (who also happens to be a friend and collaborator) and Breanna Rose (love her work and have emailed her once, just to say that I was flattered that she included my logo on a mood board). I also have a more formalized mentor relationship with Curtis McHale. He and I have sporadic Skype chats, where he lets me run business ideas and general questions past him. He’s also a great resource for coding issues in WordPress.Help can also come in other forms. Good ol’ fashioned books and websites are infinitely helpful!
- Design is a Job (Great book!)
- Breaking the Time Barrier (It’s free, y’all!)
Though starting a business is hard (did I mention that already?!) this year has been one of the best I’ve ever had. I love being in business! And I love the freedom I have to design and code any great project that comes my way. I still have lots to learn, but I’m grateful that I’ve managed a rapidly growing and self-sustaining business for a full year now!
Happy holidays! I’m excited about the projects that I have lined up for the new year already and can’t wait to get started after a nice Christmas break. I’m closing up shop from December 23 to January 3, to enjoy some time with my family and friends. I hope that you can too! Until the new year …
Kate Moore Hermes 