Wootness | the blog of christine walsh-newton

HW5!

Y’all are being so quiet that I have no HW5!s to pass out today. If you’re busy achieving wootness, then HW5! to you!

EMAIL TIME CONTROL

Okay, every day we’ve been keeping up on the email and paring down the number of unnecessary emails that litter our inbox. Now I want you to pare down the amount of time you spend on email. There is absolutely NO REASON that you should have your email program open all day. I check mine when I first get into the office, answer what is urgent and close down the program. I reserve the last hour of my day for answering email and doing social media updates. If you do these things throughout the day, it is SO EASY to get sidetracked into cruising Facebook or reading funny joke emails or anything other than work. Stay away from these things during the work day so that you can concentrate on shooting, editing, retouching, ordering, etc. Those are the activities that increase the bottom line.

So – schedule yourself certain blocks of times to do these activities and stick to it.

SCHEDULE SOME TIME OFF

We’ve been hard at it for 10 days. Wootness! Time for a break

Let’s talk about our schedule. I work almost every single day, but I think it’s important to schedule some downtime. I was recently chatting with some photog buddies and one of them remarked that when she is sitting around with nothing to do, she automatically reaches for photography work to fill the time. I think a lot of us are guilty of this. It’s who we are. It’s what we do.

Don’t lose site of who you really are. We’re moms, dads, siblings, children, animal-lovers, stamp-collectors and amateur chefs. Take time to immerse yourself back into the  non-photography parts of your life. Put down the camera, put away the laptop and take some time off.

Schedule at least one day off a week. Put it on paper. Right now.

DAILY LIST

1. Process mail.

2. Update bank deposit, if applicable..

3. Email flush.

4. Backlog/Work Load

5. Financial/accounting updates

TODAY:

• Daily List
• Retouching orders
• Print order day (one of my weekly tasks)
• Filing (ongoing job for me because I gutted my office)

Today I want you to really think about what it is you’re putting on your Facebook page. As far as your personal life, I have no opinion, but on your business page, you need to use a little common sense.

One of the biggest things I  see that is just poor business management is to use your Facebook page to communicate important messages to clients.

I have seen photographers post that they are behind and will get to everyone’s orders as soon as possible. Seriously?

Do NOT use Facebook to communicate a delay in orders/processing/etc to your clients. They deserve a personal call or email to let them know that there is an issue. Not everyone lives and dies by Facebook.

Another thing that I find unprofessional is to constantly announce what you are working on. I don’t need to see a list everyday of what jobs you are editing in what order. Neither do your clients. This just really comes across as bragging about how busy you are. Stop it now.

Facebook is becoming bogged down with repeat messages  and “wah wah wah ” (think Charlie Brown’s teacher). Make sure the messages you post are pertinent, interesting and informational. If people constantly see multiple daily updates, they will tune you out, either by ignoring your posts or unsubscribing to your updates. Then, when you DO have something important for your status update, no one will be paying attention to you.

Think about it. I’ve unsubscribed to a lot of pages that I’ve “liked.” It doesn’t matter how many “likes” you have, if no one is actually reading your page, it doesn’t do you a damn bit of good. Use Facebook sensibly. Boy, did that sound like a safe sex ad or what?

HW5!

High Wootness Five to you! Just because. You’re up and reading this email or post, that’s huge. OK, not so huge, but I appreciate it, so thank you!

 THE LISTS

You should now have a daily list and a weekly list. I will post the daily list at the end of each day’s article, just as a reminder. Weekly lists will be a bit different since we all have different priorities and issues we’re dealing with. Just promise me you actually will compile a weekly list. We’ll talk about this more, but after we’ve dug ourselves out of the black hole we call an office and can get into the maintenance phase to keep things going smoothly.

CATALOG PURGE

Today I want you to go through all of your catalogs and vendor information.

Throw out ALL the catalogs. Yes, seriously. I’ll bet any amount of money that every single one of those catalogs belongs to an online retailer and that you do almost all your shopping online, anyway. There is no use having your bookcases and files ovverrun with catalogs that you don’t need.

Next go through your vendor files. If you have them. I’m a little (!) OCD, so I have one file drawer devoted to my vendors and their current price lists, sample packs, etc. Only keep the files belonging to the vendors that you are actually using. There is no reason to have materials from 7 different labs.

DAILY LIST

1. Process mail.

2. Update bank deposit, if applicable..

3. Email flush.

4. Backlog/Work Load

5. Financial/accounting updates

TODAY:

• Daily List
• Catalog & Vendor File Purge
• Filing

Oh hey, it’s Wednesday.

You know, I’m just not feeling Wootness today. I’m tired, cranky, probably PMSing and there’s a couple of things going on that are irritating the heck out of me.

So what’s a girl to do?

Well, I could tell myself to suck it up and get over it, but I would just get irritated at myself and say “bite me!” and then where would we be?

Sometimes the “kick in the pants approach” just doesn’t work.

Yep, I”m feeling a little bit sorry for myself today, so I think I need to thoughtfully ponder this whole Wootness thing and create a list of little Wootness blessings.

So, last night was my very last class with my Photography 102 students. Several times during the class I was pleasantly surprised when my students were able to pop off with quick whole step adjustments (without referring to their charts) and when I was explaining a technical concept one student exclaimed “I just understood everything you said!”

Yay for Wootness!

I cleaned out my supply closet yesterday and was able to adopt out almost everything I didn’t need any more.

Yay for Wootness!

I got all caught up with my print orders yesterday.

Yay for Wootness!

I’m going to a photography conference this weekend. I’m really looking forward to that.

More Wootness!

I’ve been working on an office-cleaning project and now I have lots of space and organization while I work. It’s very calming.

Wootness again!

I guess sometimes we have to find wootness in the little things. They’re not always going to be stunning moments in time that will be meaningful forever. Sometimes they may be as simple as making yourself a cup of coffee and adding a little mocha latte creamer to it for that sweet touch that makes you go “mmmm” for three seconds.

There, I feel better now. 🙂

So, it’s been a whole week – how’s the organizational revamp going?

HW5!

I met with one of our readers last night and she showed me what she’s been up to and she even had photos of her office from each day. So, HW5 to Candice McMath!

THE LIST

1. Process mail.

2. Update bank deposit, if applicable..

3. Email flush.

4. 50% of work day devoted to backlog.

5. Financial/accounting updates

LET’S CREATE A SCHEDULE

How is everyone doing on their backlog? As of 5:40PM yesterday, mine is wiped out. Wootness!

I would imagine that at this point in time, after a week of serious devotion to wiping out backlog, we can safely assume everyone has come to grips with theirs and we can now get away from 50% of our day being devoted to backlog.

BUT

You must now schedule time to work on edits, orders and all the other work that creates the backlog if you let it get out of hand. Perhaps you will want to schedule a certain time period each day to work on stuff. My office time is every day from 2PM-6PM. I used to work all day and into the wee hours of the morning if that’s what it took, but all it did was make me tired and crazy. If you work consistently in reasonable amounts of time, you will be far more effective with staying caught up.

So – make yourself out a schedule and commit to it. If you find that you’ve got a 3 hour block of time for doing edits and you are completely caught up – work on something in advance. Update your blog, start designing the next promotion. I don’t care what it is – just do SOMEthing. This is not a signal to you to relax and spend the 3 hours playing Farmville or whatever other time-waster you’ve latched onto.

Another thing I’d like you to do is schedule a bed time. Yep, a bed time. There is no need for you to be in your office until 11 or 12 at night. You are WAY less productive when you are tired. You’ve also got your mind running like crazy if you work right up until you go to bed and I bet you just lay there sometimes thinking of all the stuff you have left to do.

And, you’re so tired from staying up late, that getting going in the morning is an issue.

So, schedule a bed time AND schedule a one hour wind-down period for yourself right before the bedtime. Do it. Be kind to yourself. Get some rest. I have spoken.

WEEKLY TASKS

Oh boy, we’re gonna start a new list – of weekly to do items.

The first item on the list is backing up your files and your website/blog. It’s important to do this in specified intervals, not when you suddenly remember it 4 months after the last time you did it. Everyone’s needs are different, so decide what is best for you and put it on your schedule.

I do a daily backup of all of my websites and have an automated backup schedule. You can read about it in THIS ARTICLE.

TODAY :

• Daily list
• Re-purposed over 2 boxes of items (thank you Photo 102 students for adopting my stuff!)
• Wiped out my backlog list (YAY!)

THE LIST

1. Process mail.

2. Update bank deposit, if applicable..

3. Email flush.

4. 50% of work day devoted to backlog.

 NO BACKLOG?

I’ve heard from a couple of you who are all caught up or had no backlog to speak of. If this is you – HIGH-WOOTNESS FIVE!!

So, this is the time when you start revamping the list so that you end up with a daily “to-do” that does not waver.

The first thing that I’d like you to do is schedule a filing & financial time each day. This will be the day when you file anything that needs filed and enter your receipts and expenditures into your accounting program. It’s important to keep up with this, so that at the end of the year, it doesn’t take you 3 weeks of work to get caught up at tax time.

RE-PURPOSE SOME OF YOUR STUFF

So, I have completely gutted the office and it currently only holds my main desk, computer system, 2 filing cabinets, secondary desk, small bookcase, chair and side table.  There’s a rug on the floor and a lamp on the desk. Other than that, it’s bare.

Everything else is lined up in the hallway and needs sorted through. Things all need put away in a place of their own or they need to find new owners. So, we’re going to re-purpose some stuff today.

As I was clearing out the office I noticed that I had a large number of items that were entirely useful, but I have never used them. They seem a little too valuable to just dump down at the Goodwill, so I’m going to put them in a box and let my photography students take what they want at tomorrow’s class. Since they all happen to be teachers, as well, hopefully everything in the box will find a new home.

These items have been placed in their own special box. Let’s call it “Special Box #1. (SB#1)

SPECIAL BOX PROJECT

So, what’s with the special box thing?

Well, I like boxes and bins and baskets and decorative containers. I just can’t seem to rid my life of them, so I’ve figured out a way to incorporate them into my office organization.

Special Box (or any container) #1: This will probably start out as a fairly large box, but as time progresses, you will want to transfer to a smaller container. This is a container that you may just carry to a destination and leave there, so perhaps a cardboard box will work best. This container is where you will put anything you have in your office that you are just not sure that you will be using. It is much better to re-purpose these items than to have them take up much needed space in your office or studio. Some items may be too valuable to just give away and you may want to ebay them.

SB#2 – This container should be placed by the door to your office. If will hold any items that need taken to the post office or UPS/FedEx. This is sort of like your outbox.

SB#3 – This is a container that will hold anything that is in your office that is a household or personal item that needs returned to its proper home. I am forever bringing in tape measures, screw drivers and cleaning sprays and paper towels into my office and leaving them scattered around or shoved somewhere that it doesn’t belong. This basket can be carried around as the items are returned.

My office is in my home. I have a unique setup. The house has a loft with a bedroom and full bath and walkway that overlooks the rest of the house. The bedroom serves as my office and the bathroom is for client use, only, so the entire upstairs is office space. After I have taken the basket downstairs and returned all items to their proper homes, I set the basket on the steps to the loft and use it to  gather items that need to go up to the office. So, basically this container travels back in forth and is pretty much in constant use.

The 4th item I want you to have in your office area is a special area to hold a deposit slip and any income receipts that need taken to the bank. This should be the ONLY purpose of this item. You want to be able to grab your deposit and grab SB#2 on errand day.

So – now your office area has 4 basic organizational items for you to keep things flowing smoothly.

We will add more items like this in the days ahead, but for today, these are the most important, so spend some time gathering some cool containers. They may as well be spiffy and cool, you’re going to have to look at them every day.

TODAY’S LIST:

• List and backlog
• Added SB#1 , 2 & 3 to office as well as a deposit/check holder.

THE DANGED LIST…

1. Process mail.

2. Update bank deposit, if applicable..

3. Email flush.

4. 50% of work day devoted to backlog. Actually, spending the rest of the day on backlog. I’m a little bit in freak-out mode to get this all done by Saturday.

 START OVER ON YOUR PHOTOS

I bet y’all didn’t bother taking any to begin with, right? I know I didn’t. I was too freaking embarrassed at the state of my office. I figured I’d take a few hours and bring it up to snuff first and that didn’t happen. I wound up gutting the room. You should do that some time. Just trek it all out to another room and do all your sorting there and just bring back into the office what really belongs there. I’m about at that point. I have boxes all along the hallway.

RE-PRIORITIZE YOUR PRIORITIES

How is that short term goal going? I’m freaking out a little bit about mine. I’m not sure I can get my plate cleared by Saturday. So what’s a girl to do?

I’ll tell you what we’ll do – we’re gonna take a look at the tasks we need to get done and decide which of those can be let go. I believe I can meet my deadline with some tweaking.

The things that HAVE to be done: Backlog, teach Tuesday class, weekly post office and bank run.

The things that DON’T have to be done: Wootness articles other than the 61-derful ones (don’t worry, I’ve already got the Fan Club Freebie for Tuesday done), the finishing of the cleaning of the office (I’ve got some nice breathable space, I’ll just have to trip over some boxes in the hallway for awhile).

So – there you go – mark a few things off the “have to do” list and you’ve given yourself some breathing room. Add to that all the rest of the days this week that I’m going to do 100% day of backlog and I’ll have it all wrapped up.

HOW DID YOUR RISK-TAKING GO?

Did everyone take a risk the other day? How are you feeling about it?

I took a risk by processing and entering a totally different kind of image than I usually do. How do I feel about it? At first I was confident. Now I’m wondering if I can really be objective about it. Here is is – tell me what you think. The title is : Tomorrow a Widower.

TODAY I:

• List and backlog

HIGH-WOOTNESS-FIVE! (HW5!)

HW5! to Me. No one else touched base and I spent the day knocking out a HUGE project. So – Wootness!

ONTO THE LIST…

1. Process mail.

2. Update bank deposit, if applicable..

3. Email flush.

4. 50% of work day devoted to backlog, ummmm, not today.

 HOW ARE THOSE PHOTOS GOING?

That good, eh?

OK – show of hands – how many of you got all freaked out by the office organization tasks and realized they were in deep do-do and that a couple of hours re-organizing was not going to hit it?

Yeah, me too.

So much so that I abandoned all tasks for today and concentrated only on cleaning my pig-sty of an office.

So – sometimes it’s flat out okay and pretty unavoidable that you are going to say “chuck 61-derful, I’m doing what I want today.” Yep, perfectly acceptable. You have permission to have one of those today. Please note that you cannot chuck work, itself, but you can chuck following the list.

TAKE A RISK – part 2

Um, apparently I went brain-dead yesterday while writing the first part of this section and never bothered to write an ending.

Those of you with ESP – I was hoping your mad skillz would kick in and you’d get it figured out.

Mainly, the thought I wanted to convey was that I wanted you to try something that’s a little out of the box for you.

TODAY I:

• Finalized images and paperwork for competition. Went to the PO to mail.
• Cleaned office.

HIGH-WOOTNESS-FIVE! (HW5!)

HW5! to Melissa Reed Smith – she’s getting busy with a to-do list & doing some re-prioritization. Wootness!

HOW’S THAT LIST LOOKING?

1. Handle mail the day it arrives.

2. Keep a running bank deposit prepared.

3. Clear out your inbox on a daily basis. Unsubscribe from any emails that arrive on a daily basis. (Except for Wootness!)

4. 50% of work day devoted to backlog

 ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JANE A DULL GIRL

You’ve worked hard all week, so let’s treat ourselves a bit. You didn’t become a photographer to sit in your office all dang day. Get away from the desk, grab the camera and go shoot. Do you have a pet project that you’ve let slide because there were  more vital things to be done? It’s all fine and good to re-prioritize and set a plan to get organized and stay that way, but if you don’t allow for any time to be creative – the passion you have for photography will suffer. So – Today, Spend 25% of your workday on backlog and then step away from the desk. Go shoot. Drop me an email and tell me what you’re working on.

I have a digital image competition next weekend and the deadline for entries is looming. This is the last day to work on entries before they need mailed in. I’ve had so much other stuff going on that I let this slide. I did a creative shoot today and got an image from it that I really like. I also pulled out 3 past images from shoots I’ve done this past 6 months or so.

They’re all ready to take down to the Post Office. *whew!*

TAKE A RISK

We all know what our strong areas are. Mine are in-studio portraits. When entering competition, I never enter a non-studio print. However. I have an image I took of my father-in-law the day before my mother-in-law passed away. I had my camera with me that day and took 6 random photos. Little did we know that these would be the last photos of my mother-in-law.

Anyway – There’s one of my father-in-law that I really like. I’d be breaking one of the 12 Elements of Wootness if I entered it. I have an explicit rule not to enter photos of family memebers or images that I have become emotionally invested in. You’re asking for trouble. This time I broke that rule twice. I also entered a photo of a grandchild.

So, you know what? I’m going to stop playing it safe – just for a little bit. I think I have 4 pretty solid entries, so I’m going to enter the image of my father-in-law and see what happens. It was shot in a very low-light situation at probably 1600ISO. But I think the grittiness of the image reflects the mood in the house that day. Of course, that could just be me having a marshmallow moment.

TODAY I:

• Creative Shoot
• Prepped 5 images for competition
• Cleared email
• Worked on backlog

HIGH-WOOTNESS-FIVE! (HW5!)

HW5! to Candice McMath, who wrote to let me know that she’s using the 61-derful daily activities in her regular job – she doesn’t have a photography business. Wootness!

HW5! to Tasha Jakubisin, who will be joining us on board the 61-derful train! Wootness!

If you’re utilizing the 61-derful program, let me know how you’re doing! I”ll HW5! you publicly so you can brag that you got mentioned on the Wootness site.  😉

START A LIST

For days 1 and 2, we did a few things that should be part of our daily duties, so it’s time to start a list of activities that we need to do to keep our office and business under control and organized.

1. Handle mail the day it arrives.

2. Keep a running bank deposit prepared.

3. Clear out your inbox on a daily basis. Unsubscribe from any emails that arrive on a daily basis. (Except for Wootness!)

 LET’S CLEAN OFF THE DESK

You know, there’s nothing more depressing than working at a desk that is piled with stuff. Let’s get the desk area cleared and create some visual calmness.

Go grab yourself a couple of shoe boxes, baskets, or containers of any kind.

I want you to clear off your desk and sort the items on it into the following categories:

1. TO BE FILED (put this container on top of your filing cabinet when sorting is done)

2. WORK TO BE DONE/BACKLOG (retouching, orders to be placed, files to be processed, etc)

3. MAIL THAT NEEDS PROCESSED (bills that need paid, due renewals, anything that came in that needs to go back out)

4. ORDERS & OTHER ITEMS THAT NEED PACKAGED UP AND SHIPPED OUT (orders. and other items. can’t you read?)

LET’S GET CONTROL OF THE MAIL

On Day 1, I had you grab the mail that was ready to go and took no preparation. I wanted you to be able to do something quick and painless that would still give you a sense of accomplishment.

Suck it up a little – we’re going in and this time we’re going to attack all those mail items that have built up that need handled. All of it. Every single stinking bit.

We’re going to totally eradicate number 3 and 4 from our list today. When you are done, all of these items will be placed into a nice decorative basket or container, preferably one with handles so that you can take it with you on errand day.

 ERRAND DAY!

Your goal is to have one day per week when you do errands. In order for errand day to be accomplished smoothly, all errand items MUST be prepped PRIOR to errand day. That means you don’t get to disappear into your office for an hour and a half prepping bank deposits etc before walking out the door.

I want you to be able to grab your deposit envelope off your desk and your mail container off – off whatever it is that you put it on. Errands should be quick and painless.

So – for me, Errand Day is Friday. So, that means that I have all my packages and letters all ready to go by Thursday. So – today we are prepping everything that needs to go out on Errand Day – tomorrow.

EMAIL MANIA!

This is now a daily list item. Delete and unsubscribe as needed to keep email under control.

WORK ON BACKLOG

Do 1/2 day of backlog. Do not spend the whole day on working through backlog. This is a real good way to get frustrated and bored. Do a half day and then congratulate yourself. You’re half a day closer to being caught up.

SHORT TERM GOAL CHECKUP

How is progress towards your short-term goal going? Since mine is dealing with backlog by 11/11/11, I’m just keeping the pace.

I’m really looking forward to getting caught up and organized and I’m excited to do some work on my office. I have not done anything to it for the 5 years I’ve had it, so it’s time for a little paint job and some new flooring. We’ve got several boxes of laminate flooring just waiting to be laid. I had bought it several years ago for another purpose that didn’t pan out and the paint is leftover from the studio construction, so it’s like a remodel for free. Wootness!

TODAY I:

• Prepared a huge pile of Wootness shirt packages (sorry – I set them aside and FORGOT! – ack!)
• Prepped all outstanding order shipments
• Cleared email
• Worked on backlog