How to increase your time, emotional and physical capacity as a designer
Many of the people I support have been in business for years. They have the desire to make more money but are maxed out on capacity.
And , I don't mean capacity in terms of being fully booked.
For you as a designer and service-based business, the concept of capacity refers to your ability to meet the demands of your design clients effectively and manage the resources you need to deliver those services.
But when you think about the capacity and resources you need you might be thinking about the time you need to design beautiful brands or design converting websites but it goes much further than that.
Capacity can be broken down into three key components: emotional, physical, and time capacity.
The clients I work with, have often reached the limits of all of these capacities. I've seen this lead to clients being so overwhelmed that they stopped taking action or clients only working on comfortable tasks like design work.
But when you want your business to be sustainable and be able to contribute more to your family's expenses, you'll need to be able to effectively manage and expand each of these capacities.
So in this blog, we’ll dive into these types of capacities at look at:
How to manage and increase your emotional capacity as a designer
How to manage and increase your physical capacity as a designer
How to manage and increase your time capacity as a designer
How to manage and increase your emotional capacity as a designer
As a designer, you need to be able to make a connection with your clients. The better you can listen to them, connect with them, understand them and then be able to translate that into their designs, the happier your clients will be with the result. Which can result in positive reviews, referrals, and repeat business.
When you have enough emotional capacity, a client that wants a small revision is no big deal. But when you are maxed out on emotional capacity, that small revision can derail your whole day out of pure frustration.
For the same reason, your ability to communicate effectively with this client about this revision is suddenly really hard. When you're responding while you're still feeling all of these emotions and you're, for example, short in your email response this can lead to a frustrated client. And when you don't work on restoring your emotional capacity you'll not be able to manage stress well and this can even lead to problems with your mental health and overall well-being.
Here are some practical tips for increasing your emotional capacity
Practising self-care: self-care looks different for everyone, so it's important to find what works for you and make it a regular part of your routine.
You can think of taking care of your physical health by eating a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, and exercising regularly.
It's important to take regular breaks during the day. This could mean taking a short nap during the day, going for a walk, or simply sitting down and doing nothing for a few minutes.
Having hobbies. Doing things that you enjoy can be a great way to relieve stress and improve your mood. This could be anything from reading a book to playing a musical instrument.
Setting boundaries with clients:
You don't have to be available for our clients 24/7 and you should not feel guilty when you're spending time with your family or taking the time to relax.
Have you ever received IG DM's, Facebook Messenger replies or text messages from clients with questions? Put boundaries around this and let them know how to communicate with you and in which timeframe they can expect a response.
One of the best ways to set boundaries is by clearly defining the scope of work. This means you will need to have a solid consultation call where you're discussing the scope of work so that you can include this (together with a timeline) in your proposal and contract.
If you want to know about how to set boundaries with your clients as a designer you can read this article.
Seeking support from colleagues or mentors
In my experience, personally and what I hear from my clients, having someone who knows you and your business that can, lovingly, hold a mirror for you and show you where you are holding yourself back or whom you can just vent to is a huge emotional support that can help you navigate the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Because let's face it, running a small business can be stressful and isolating.
What I am doing to manage and increase my emotional capacity
After having been in a car accident and still experiencing health issues related to this, exercise is very important to me and is scheduled into my calendar. The same for my evening routine which includes taking a hot bath to relax my muscles several times a week.
I set client boundaries with my clients and every day I have a tea break and a lunch break of 30 minutes so that I am stepping away from the computer for a while.
And I am currently working with a mentor to look at each aspect of my business. But one of the main focuses has been to implement a more ethical marketing approach.
How to manage and increase your physical capacity
Design projects take a lot of time to complete. So the way that you have set up your business back-end has a large impact on how many clients you can take on at the same time (your capacity).
When you have:
Streamlined the client-facing processes
Have translated this into automated workflows (partially automated, to keep the personalisation) inside a client management system like Dubsado
Have optimised your internal project management processes
And are using a system like ClickUp to manage this
Having this in place will also allow you to increase your capacity even more by outsourcing certain tasks or parts of projects. But when you're winging each client project, writing emails on the fly and using post-it notes to remember what you need to do you're limiting your capacity, increasing timelines and reducing your quality.
Related article: 5 most important processes every design studio needs
Here are some practical tips for increasing your physical capacity
Streamline services
Review your design packages and look for ways to streamline or simplify them. Are you having too many calls where other ways of communicating would work as well? Is everything that you're including really necessary or are you using it to 'add value' to your packages to justify your pricing? Streamlining or productising your packages can help you provide the same level of service to more clients without increasing your physical workload.
Optimise your processes
To improve your client process, start by writing down all the steps you take when delivering your most sold package. From the first contact you have with a potential client to asking for feedback at the end of the project. Keep this list on your desk and add to it as you work on client projects as there are probably a lot of small steps that you do without thinking about them.
Then identify elements your clients love and think about how you can do more of that. Is it just that additional email with a quick update on the progress? Or a quick video walking them through the latest update you made on their website?
Write down all the necessary documents, forms, and timeframes for each step. How many days is your proposal valid? How many times will you follow up on the proposal and how many days are there in between the follow-ups? Turn this into a concise timeline.
Prepare for potential issues by creating personalised email templates in advance. This will help you handle the situation more objectively and take the emotion out of your reply.
If you want to know about how to streamline your processes as a designer you can read this article.
Use systems to increase efficiency
Client Management Systems like Dubsado/Honeybook: I like to call these the systems that help you with the client-facing steps of delivering your services like sending out a proposal, contracts, invoices, onboarding questionnaire, requesting design feedback etc.
While a system like ClickUp is a project management system that helps you to manage the business-facing side of your design studio. From delivering your services with tasks like creating a mood board, sketching the initial design and preparing final brand design files. To managing everything else that is going on in your business. Like tracking your time, planning your days, creating sales targets, managing your business plan, launch plans and creating a content plan. But you can also use it as a resource to keep your brand guidelines, contact lists, market research etc.
What I am doing to manage and increase my physical capacity
I believe, the best thing you can do for your business from an early stage to have the largest possible capacity is to have clearly defined processes, email templates to support each step and work with automations to reduce manual steps. And therefore (surprise 😉) I could not do this without the help of Dubsado and ClickUp.
What I am currently working on is increasing the number of resources that I have for my clients to support them during the mentor and systems setup program. This will not only allow me to support them better in between our sessions but it will also save me time to create recourses or loom videos ad-hoc.
As well as that I am working on streamlining my business model and my services based on what I have learned over the last year.
How to manage and increase your time capacity
You can only use your time once so it's important to spend it on:
1. Activities that are making you money aka your client projects,
2. Activities that will move the needle for your business (and get you closer to your vision) and will generate money in the future.
I've talked to many designers who fill all their time with the first, working on client projects because designing mood boards, picking our fonts and mocking up websites is where they feel most comfortable.
And they don't feel confident in their abilities to manage the 'business side' of running a design studio: like keeping track of/or setting financial goals, setting up workflows and client management systems and breaking down goals so that you exactly know what to work on when you start your day.
As a result, they don't put any restrictions on the time spent on client work and therefore do not make (there's a big difference between having time and making time) time for the second type of activities.
And I get it! We all have elements within our business that we don't feel comfortable with and as result don't spend any (or limited) time on. But we don't get to pick and choose what needs to happen to build a profitable and sustainable business. So to manage your time well and spend it on these tasks that are a priority you can not leave your schedule up to chance (or as I like to call it be reactive).
Or only work on the second type of activity when there is time left. Time left is a concept that does not happen often and when it does, but you are not clear on your priorities or what tasks will move the needle for your business, you're more likely to waste that time.
If you on the other hand take a proactive approach to how you manage your schedule, be clear on your priorities and include time limits to client work (does the 7th or 8th hour searching for the perfect font really make the difference?) you will be able to increase your time capacity.
Here is a practical tip for increasing your time capacity
The best way that I know to go from a reactive to a proactive approach to time management is by structuring your week with theme days, time blocks and task batching.
There are other practices that you can put in place that will help you to determine what tasks to fill your time blocks with and to reduce distractions:
Implement a weekly planning session to review what you've been able to accomplish in the past week and make adjustments to your schedule for the coming week. Again, this will be based on your capacity.
Have a business plan on how to reach your financial target with sub-goals per quarter. You can use my phased approach for this
Implement a monthly review process to ask yourself monthly review questions, track your metrics, update your financials, review your goals and plan ahead for the next month
Have a process in place of what you'll do when ideas pop up that are not tasks or not priorities & where you will store them.
What I am doing to manage and increase my time capacity
I'll keep this one short: all of the above. With the help of the flexible approach that I am mentioning in this past newsletter.
I hope this helps you to know that if you've been feeling maxed out on capacity but have the desire to earn more money there are a lot of small changes that you can make to manage and increase your capacity. But taking action is the key to building a business that is profitable and sustainable. The sooner you start, the sooner you will see the results.
Some of the action points I am providing take time to set up but pick one that you can easily do today like having a process in place of what you'll do when ideas pop up that are not tasks or not priorities or scheduling breaks into your calendar.
And when you keep taking small steps week after week you'll be amazed about the progress you've made in a couple of months.
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