How to get out of fire-fighting mode in your business

Does it ever feel like your workload is an overwhelming forest fire, taking over your life? With so many projects you’re juggling, you can create an amazing presentation for a client and practically kill yourself for them, and when it’s all over, instead of being able to rest, you have to immediately jump onto the next project down the line that you’ve been ignoring while you created that amazing presentation, and then then the next and the next.   It can feel like you’re constantly in fire-fighting mode, and no matter how many fires you put out, there is always another one raging out of control.  It’s exhausting.  I understand this all too well because it is how I ran my business for years.  The nature of design work is that projects come and go, go through different phases, are active and then go on hold… It all feels very unpredictable and impossible to control.  I didn’t think there was a possibility of controlling it.  But the reality was, jumping from fire to fire was exhausting.  It was killing my enthusiasm and my joy for my business, and I didn’t know how much longer I could keep it up. 

That’s when I created my first Design Roadmap.  It was simple, really.  I just planned out my project from beginning to end.  I wrote out everything I was going to do, how long it would take, and how much it would cost.   I say simple, but that doesn't mean it was easy.  The hard part was slowing down long enough to take this crucial step at the beginning of the project to really think through everything I was going to do.  I promise you slowing down is the hardest part of this process! 

To hold myself accountable, I gave the Design Roadmap to my client.  And then I followed the plan.  A crazy thing happened.  Things got done in a timely manner.  Things got done calmly.  The client didn’t call to ask for things because they already knew when they would get them.  I was freed up to do the work on my own time schedule.  I showed up to work each week knowing exactly what needed to be done, and I felt focused and productive.  This worked so well, I started creating Design Roadmaps for all my projects.  And the calm grew.  I stopped getting questions about where things were or when they would get done.  I stopped having frantic last minute work sessions to get the work done.  I stopped feeling constantly guilty and apologetic that things were late.  

Do you know what it means to make a plan and give it to the client? It means that YOU get to decide how many hours you will work each week, and create your Design Roadmaps to work around that.  You decide how many projects you will work on, how many hours you will work. You get to carve out work life balance - this is actually possible!  Because you have everything planned, you know exactly when you need to take on more work, and it’s easy to say no to new work when you’re already at capacity because you know saying yes will be saying yes to overwhelm.  You have it all there in black and white.  

The calm that the Design Roadmap has created in my business is exponential.  I’ve finally broken the cycle of fire-fighting that controlled me for years in my business.  Now I decide how much I want to work, and I plan my work accordingly.  I work just the hours I want to.  I control my calendar instead of my calendar controlling me.  I get to enjoy calm and sanity in my business now!  If you’d like to get out of fire-fighting mode too, click the link below to learn more about my Design Roadmap System.