Episode 81 - How to Manage Your Time While Building a Business with Poy T. Granati

Learn from our guest Poy T. Granati and how she has made the most of her time while building her paper flower business. Building a small business means wearing many different hats. How do you find time to advertise, bookkeep, communicate, network, and create?  With time management.  This isn’t just a catchphrase. We’re all busy. We have to make the most of the time that we do have so that our businesses can thrive. But we know that it’s easier said than done. In our latest episode of Paper Talk, we talked with Poy T. Granati of Summer Space Studio about how she has built up her paper flower business in a relatively short period of time. When starting out, she was working a full-time job while teaching workshops and creating flowers at night. How did she manage it all? By making the most of her time. Our conversation covered a wide array of topics, ranging from how she uses her advertising background to appeal to customers, to how she goes about partnering with shops to promote her work. You’ll want to listen to everything she had to say, but here’s some of the tips we discussed about managing time that will help you get more done for your paper flower business.    Break Tasks Down Have you ever felt overwhelmed by something you had to do? Maybe it was a series of blog posts, or a tutorial that needed to be written. Maybe you just don’t know how you’ll ever figure out that new flower for a commission.  Break it down!  Poy’s educational background in design has helped her learn how to break down processes and take things one step at a time, but you can do it, too!  Work out what steps you need to take to complete your task, then do just the first part. Write that first blog post. Jot down just the supplies needed for that tutorial. Look up pictures of that new flower. Don’t worry about what comes next. Complete the first step before you think about the next, and before you know it, you’ll be halfway through.  Block Off Time In order to get things done, you need to block off time. Dedicate time just for paper flowers, and make it a realistic period of time that you can repeat every day.  Poy told us about a course in her graduate program that encouraged students to dedicate a small amount of time to work on one skill for one hundred days. The idea was that we can’t always block out eight hours to work on something new, but by giving yourself a little bit of time each day, you are continually practicing and growing. By the end, you’ve got a habit.  That class was actually the beginning of Poy’s paper flower journey, which you can hear more about in the episode. The details about the class and how it changed Poy’s life are very interesting, and you won’t want to miss them.   Give Yourself Deadlines Without a deadline, you can push off tasks and goals for ages. No judgement here—we all do it. But in order to grow as a business, you do need to buckle down and get your work done at some point. Nothing motivates more than a deadline.  Currently, Poy is giving herself a six month deadline for focusing solely on her paper flower business. She has milestones to reach, goals to achieve, and an end date to keep in mind so that she doesn’t lose sight of what she should be doing.  Of course, simply setting a deadline doesn’t matter if you don’t stick to it. If you’ve done commission work, you’ve probably noticed that you will stick to other people’s deadlines more than your own personally imposed deadlines. It’s hard to self-motivate! In the episode you can hear more about ways that we keep ourselves on track and hold ourselves to the deadlines we set.   Here’s what you’ll hear when you listen to our conversation: More ways you can make the most of your time. How Poy first started making paper flowers. Why you should let go of perfectionism to become a better artist. How to choose collaborators, like stores that will host workshops or feature your work. How to target your ideal customer.   Listen to our latest episode of Paper Talk to learn all of this and more. Remember to join our Facebook group, and please consider supporting us on Patreon for even more great content like this!