How to Systemize Your Art Business for More Productivity and Less Stress This Holiday Season & Beyond

I have a lot to do in very little time, and I bet you do, too. 

How do I fit in the client work, the marketing, the grocery shopping, school events, carpool line, preschool playdates, gardening and canning, cleaning up endless messes …oh, and the mountain of laundry…

The list is endless. 

In spite of all the chaos that surrounds us, I am here to encourage you to think about ways you can optimize your time and create systems in your life and business that make things move faster. 

Time is Literally Your Most Valuable Asset

As a human and a business owner, time is your most precious asset. So many of my clients do not have systems in place to maximize their day and prioritize their time for the things that truly matter to them. Take a few moments right now and ask yourself… 

  1. Are you sacrificing your time for things that really matter to you? 
  2. How much of your time is achieving an emotional or monetary return on investment?
  3. What parts of your life are causing you the most difficulty because they are unorganized?

Successful creative business owners are essentialists. They PLAN their day and PRIORITIZE their time to focus only on the tasks that are fundamental to achieving the highest ROI or freeing up time to spend with family, friends, and spouses. Your time is an investment. Spend it wisely. Take a look at the two graphs below. Which one are you? 

Everything is a System

Systems are a part of our everyday lives.

Let me say it again:

E.V.E.R.Y.T.H.I.N.G is a system...yes, I wrote it this way to add even more umph.

We are either managing our systems well… or running around wondering why everything is so chaotic. 

How we get water is a system. 
How you clean your house is a system. 
How you get your kids ready for school is a system. 
Laundry is a system.
How you make your work… a system!

Everything is a system.

We have to take control of our systems, or the lack of systems will control our lives and waste our time. 

My business and my home are managed with systems I have developed over years of trial and error. When you approach your life from a systems mindset, you can begin to isolate what is not working. Look for the parts of your life that are causing you the most stress. You’ll probably find that you do not have a system in place for those things and could benefit greatly from re-assessing those tasks from a systems mindset. 

Quote- Art is the elimination of the unnecessary-pablo picasso

It is an endless series of actions that you access, refine, and perfect to create a life that is abundantly more efficient and more awesome than putting out fires all day. A system's life—It is a calm life, that is not only achievable but rewarding, both professionally and personally. 

Start Creating Systems

Now is always the best time to start systematizing your life.

To begin creating a system,

explore ways to tweak common tasks to make them more efficient,
more convenient,
more cost-effective,
or more accurate.

Next, determine which tweaks work the best,
and turn those into repeatable processes to make those tasks more streamlined.

You just created a system! You can apply that same process to all aspects of your life that could use a little tweaking. 

Make a list of your priorities for your time.

How much time do you want to devote to marketing each day? Creating? Family? Sleeping? Eating? Every task you do within your day is potential for a new system. Here are some ideas for effective home and work systems you can implement easily:

Create Tools for Home


  • Health Documents
  • Weekly Workout Plans
  • Babysitter Instructions
  • Chore Charts
  • Family Organization 
  • Password Journals
  • Meal Planning Tool
  • Financial Tool
  • Recipe Tool
  • Shopping Lists
  • Cleaning Calendar


Create Tools for Business


  • Customer Service 
  • Marketing Plans
  • Sales Funnels
  • Production System
  • Automations
  • Financial Plans
  • Templates
  • Macros
  • Brand Packages
  • Administrative Tools
  • Product Inventory Tool


Start Now!

Start now with developing some essential holiday systems for your home and business.

The next months are so busy, and taking a pause to think about potential systems can make your December much more manageable and enjoyable.

Wouldn’t it be nice to actually take some time off this holiday season?

With the right systems, you totally can! 

Q4 in the handmade business world is overwhelming.

Your to-do list feels miles long, you’re worried about shipping deadlines and delays, customers are needier than usual, plus you’d really like to enjoy the holidays with your family. 

Right?

That’s why I’m so excited to tell you about the Handmade Holiday Prep Summit

This summit was designed to help you prepare for the holiday season right now!

It’s all about specific and actionable things you can implement immediately, so that you can have your pie and eat it too. 

And, I’m going to be talking all about this very same topic!

How to create systems in your life and your business so you can actually enjoy your holiday and your life…

We’re featuring some pretty amazing topics and speakers, including:

  • Kris Daria - How To Drive More Revenue With Email Automations InQ4
  • Kerry Armstrong - Align with Freedom and Creative Self-Expression - Loosen the grips of Anxiety
  • Jenny Parulski - The 3 Pillars to Successful Black Friday and Holiday Facebook Ads
  • And a whole lot more!

The best part? It’s totally free! So go get your spot.

About The Author

Heather Bunker Branding Co helps you boot-strap your way to your own personal definition of success. She helps you work through the uncomfortable and necessary parts of business—the foundations—life, business, branding, design and marketing. If you are looking to find clarity, create systems, market your work, stand out in the crowd, develop more products that sell and work past any decision paralysis that is holding you back...she, is the business partner that will help you do it.

She offers done for you services like marketing and brand strategies all the way through to helping you get start up funds. She helps you leverage your creativity and adds in the business know-how so you can build a thriving creative business. She is the business "therapist" that you need to gain massive momentum as a professional creative—so you can bring your dreams to life. 

Be sure to subscribe and follow along on Instagram.

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