Get Organized Part IV: Your Week

What interior designer doesn’t love a good organizing project?  The new year is a perfect time to get your systems organized in your interior design business!  If you’ve been running around playing whack-a-mole with your chaotic to-do list, always feeling behind on your overwhelming design projects, you’re going to love this 4-part blog series where I’m going to show you exactly how to get your design process, your projects, and your calendar organized.  By the end of this series you’re going to be feeling refreshed and much more in control of your time and your interior design projects!  

 If you missed our first three weeks of the series, CLICK HERE to read week 1: Organizing your Process, CLICK HERE to read week 2: Organizing your projects, and CLICK HERE to read week 3: Organizing your month.  This week’s post builds on those earlier three, so you’ll definitely want to check them out!  

This week, I’m excited to talk about organizing your week.

 With our Calendar all planned out for the month that has week-by-week goals for all our projects, you are already well on your way to organizing your week.  You have already made sure that your goals for the week fit within the time you have available, so now it’s time to organize your week to maximize productivity.

Step 1

The first step for organizing your week is to plan your milestones on the calendar.  Milestones are meetings, presentations or other deliverables that you need to work around. 

Step 2

 The next step to increase your productivity is to block out time directly AFTER each of your meetings.  You heard me right - AFTER. Directly after your meetings you are going to make your meeting notes, and make any quick updates that were discussed at the meeting.  You’re going to send everything off to the clients directly after the meeting and they’ll think you’re a rock star.  You will have saved yourself tons of time because everything will be fresh in your mind and nothing will slip through the cracks.  

Step 3

 Next, you’re going to block out time on your calendar, by project, for all the work you need to do to prepare for each of your milestones (meetings, presentations, etc.).  Plan to complete all the work needed for the meeting at least 24 hours before the meeting.  That way, you’re going to arrive at your presentation fresh, prepared and ready to do your best work. 

You’ll also have the energy available AFTER the meeting to do the follow up we just discussed, instead of being completely fried because you just pulled an all-nighter.  Planning out your week to complete everything for a meeting at least 24 hours in advance also give you margin if anything goes wrong (as it so often does!) - printer out of ink?  5 minutes before your meeting this is a crisis.  24 hour before, it’s a simple problem to fix.  

 Step 4

Continue to plan backwards from your milestones and block out mini-deadlines along the way.  For instance, I like to meet with my team at least 2-3 days prior to a project for a trial run - that gives them time to work out the tweaks and still be done early.  Do you need to order drawings, or samples?  Block out times for this well in advance of your meetings.  

 Looking at your week as a whole, you can easily time block your time to work on only 1-2 projects per day, instead of madly jumping from project to project as fires pop up. 

Focusing on fewer projects each day will allow you to block out all distractions and do your best work. 

Studies have shown it takes 23 minutes to get back on track after an interruption.  If you’re changing projects and trying to wrap your mind around a whole different scope of work this will take even longer.  Everything will run much more smoothly and you’ll get your work done with record time and creativity if you plan your week to have time blocks of just 1-2 projects per day.  

One area where you will want to break this 1-2 projects rule is when it comes to running errands.  If you’re out shopping for finishes and such, then you’re going to want to take all of your projects into account and make a detailed list of everything you need so you can make the best use of your time. 

When you plan your week you can easily block out 1 trip for errands and get all your shopping done for all your projects.  While you’re at it gather up your materials returns and kill two birds with one stone, super efficient!  

Get More Detailed... or NOT!

You are welcome to get more detailed with your weekly planning if you wish, and really plan out every hour of your day, blocking out every task.  Personally, super detailed  schedules never work for me, and I do better when I can follow my energy throughout the day while still staying focused on what I need to complete by the end of the day.  I achieve that by having 1-2 achievable goals for the day and a generous amount of margin (extra time) planned in to ensure my success even when unexpected things come up. 

Do what works for you and don’t be afraid to experiment until you find the best fit for your personality!  

 Imagine having your week totally organized this way so you can rest and take care of yourself while still meeting all of your work goals.  It’s truly life-changing!  

 So there you have it - in this 4-part series we’ve organized our process, our projects, our month and our week so we can set stress aside and show up each day with clarity and confidence - Win!  

This is a journey that takes time and energy to implement, so give yourself grace as you chip away at it.  I want to support you in getting more organized in your business with my Design Roadmap System Course.  CLICK HERE to learn all about it.  

The Design Roadmap System Course gives you everything you need to get your process, your projects and your calendar organized and under control in your interior design business so you can have more calm, confidence and control than ever before.  It’s truly the key to having Designer Sanity in your interior design business.    

Our Winter Cohort for the Design Roadmap Course is NOW OPEN with tons of extra bonuses and support to ensure your success.  Now is the perfect time to CLICK HERE and sign up for the Winter Cohort so you learn the Design Roadmap System with tons of extra support.