Time Management Myths for Photographers

Time is precious and you only get 24 hours in a day - You hear it all the time. So, what if there was a way to maximize your time during the day with effective time management so you weren't so drained when your head hits the pillow at night?

You're in luck friend, in this series of short and sweet blogs I want to share a bunch of time management strategies as well as bust some time management myths floating around!

As a Calgary wedding photographer, I understand wearing all the hats, and juggling 12 different balls all while trying to have a life outside of work. That's why today I want to shed light on a few time management myths and steps on how you can start being more efficient and productive in your business today!

If you are new here, Hey, I'm Krystal - the lead wedding photographer of Fly Free Photography and coach for photographers like you. If you feel overwhelmed with all the things and would like some help I would love to invite you to apply for Solid Rock, a 12-week group coaching program for photographers ready to build their business with the right tools. Spend more time with loved ones, and reel in raving client reviews -- without the burnout.

Let's dive right in:

Time Management Myths

1. The Special Formula to Time Management:

Unfortunately, there are A LOT of coaches that will tell you there is a specific formula to perfecting time management, you just have to xyz. To be completely honest, time management boils down to discipline. There is no special formula and what works for someone else might not work for you, God created us all differently and you need to understand what makes you tick and what will work best in your life.

I firmly believe that if you become more disciplined in your life you will naturally have better time management skills, hear me out. Everything has a chain reaction, if you are eating poorly, your energy is going to be lower, and you won't be drinking a lot of water or keeping your body healthy. Thus, you are less likely to keep to a schedule or have the energy to edit photos, your brain will want "numbing" activities like scrolling the gram or binging on Netflix, whatever that looks like for you. Jennifer Allwood actually has an excellent podcast about this topic if you're interested I will link the podcast below.

Needless to say, I believe if you stay disciplined in other areas of your life, even if you think you don't have enough time - clean up the other areas and your time management skills will get so much better in your business life.

2. Working more hours gets more done:

Most of the time this is a false statement because you can "work" for 8 hours but how much of that time is spent scrolling social media or getting distracted by cute dog videos. Instead, if you are using different time management strategies that fit your lifestyle and how you are wired you could accomplish much more in a shorter amount of time.

Ask yourself this - Are you a Rooster or an Owl? haha I know for me, I was always a night owl. I loved to edit all night, prep emails at 1am and pretty much get anything and everything done for my business while everyone else slept. It's also because I love being able to enjoy the sun during the day and didn't build a business to be stuck in doors all the time. However, that bit me in the butt when wedding season would get super busy, as I found myself working till 3-4am and then needing to be up at 8-9am sometimes earlier for a wedding or just life in general.

I know it can be a balancing act, but it starts with knowing when you work the best, when do you have the most energy and feel like you can be the most productive for your business? We will talk more about that in the next blog, when we get to time management strategies. For now, let's chat about the 3rd myth... phones.

3. I need my phone with me to work:

I hate to break it to you but the biggest time management killer is our phones. In today's society, people are so programmed that we need to get back to every notification as soon as our phones go off or answer emails right away. Which often results in getting lost scrolling for 10-15 minutes. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't seem like that long, but if you do it every time you get a notification that time adds up.

There is a study that says it takes our brains 20 minutes to completely focus on the task at hand, so if we are interrupting what we are working on to check social then we are not truly letting our brains focus on the one thing we are trying to accomplish. Trust me when I say this, I used to be the QUEEN of Multitasking and was very proud of all the different things I could do at once, until I realized that is not how I was created (neither were you) and the amount of things I could actually get done when I put all my brainpower to one thing was a massive difference.

Alright, to sum it up we have gone through a few common myths and things most people do to hinder their time management. I'm just going to touch on a few points of things you can start today to help improve your time management. But, for time's sake and wanting to keep things short a sweet for you, I have done up a different post on the strategies and diving deeper into the points below.

Time Management Strategies

Here is a list of a few different strategies to help you with your time management skills, please keep in mind that you need to figure out what works for you - what works for someone else doesn't necessarily mean it will work for you. If you would like to read more into these and understand a breakdown I will have a blog coming very soon and will link in here when it's done.

• Time Blocking

• The Rock, Pebble, Sand method

• Habit Stacking

• Batch Working vs Bulk Working

As promised, here is the link to the podcast I mentioned above.

Jennifer Allwood's Podcast - Get More Done in Less Time

Last but not least, or if you just scrolled to the bottom - who doesn't love a good freebie!

If you would like some more tips, I'd love for you to download my 3 common website mistakes guide below (Click on Image or here) to help get your site in Google's good books, thus saving your time to market your business on social media.

Thanks for being here friend, I appreciate you and am wishing you all the best in life and business. As always, if I can help with anything - I'm just an email away.

xo Krystal