My maker schedule

Spoiler alert: I don’t sit and knit all day. It would be lovely to do that, but if you want to make money there are a million other things that will pull you away from your craft. So how do you balance it all? First I want to acknowledge that we’re all coming from different home dynamics. I took that into account when I compiled the information for this post and I encourage you to find at least one or two nuggets that you can apply to YOUR maker life even if you are in a completely different situation from mine.

Let’s dive in. Here’s my daily schedule. It is my guide and accountability to keep me on track.

A day in the {maker} life….

I’m a paper and pencil kinda girl. I process things better when they aren’t in digital format so I’m never without a stack of notebooks.

I use a Planner from a company called Southworth. You can see close pictures of the inside on Amazon here. It’s not specific to Makers, but I find it to be sufficient for my needs. Before each month is a two page spread that allows me to do some reflection and keep some running lists. These lists are what help me stay on track.

WRITING THINGS DOWN

FREES UP SPACE FOR CREATIVITY

I use the daily section of the planner for my daily to do list. I have a completely different calendar for our family activities. My maker planner is dedicated to what I need to accomplish for my business.

In the beginning of the planner I start the following lists:

SUPPLY WISH LIST

NEW PRODUCT IDEAS

BIGGER ONE TIME TASKS

GRAPHIC PROJECTS

BUILDING STOCK LIST

ASSEMBLY LINE TASKS

These aren’t earth shattering lists, but they are the nuts and bolts of what makes a handmade business run when you are a one woman show. I refer to these lists so often you’d think I had them memorized, but I don’t. I don’t keep all that clutter in my brain. I find that when I don’t have to remember what needs to get done I have the energy and drive to do make it happen when I simply pick a task from a list. Maybe it’s the satisfaction of checking it of the list? NOTE: These are not one and done lists. These are meant to be added to as you think of something you want/need to do.

After I did a brain dump to get a good start on the lists I spent some time figuring out what my goals are for 2021. I chose the word FOCUS for the year and then picked four goals that align with that word.

1) Be more productive - Don’t just knit the day away

2) Be more efficient - Assembly line projects are the way to go!

3) Don’t get behind - Slow and steady

4) increase income - Don’t buy more yarn

I have a wide range of products I make which makes my life more interesting, but also more complicated because I use so many different materials and the high season for the items vary. To give you an idea of the kind of crazy I have created for myself my stock list looks like this: Knit hats, Fleece neckwarmers, Gnomes (in two styles), knit pumpkins, earwarmers, fleece pillow packs, coffee cozies, and I have an extensive garden with a NEW cut flower farming element launching this spring in time for Farmer’s Market season. I also have a book design business and three kids in activities.

I am 100% aware of how lucky I am to be able to work this dream job full time, but with that comes a huge responsibility to work my tail off to use the gifts God gave me to the best of my abilities. I admit, I have not been very good at this. Hindsight is always 20/20 and this post is a product of the lessons I’ve learned.

My garden consumes my time from May-September when I used to be knitting and building stock for the fall. I used to take Jan/Feb/March to focus on designing knit patterns and getting my house back in shape after the busy Christmas season. That backfires when September rolls around and I have 30 hats made when I really should have 300. To solve this problem I’ve looked at the eight shows I’m part of and figured out how much of each product I need for each one. I broke it down to see how many of each thing I need to make a month to be ready. It is very eye opening to see that I need 38 hats EACH and every month in order to be ready for September. It would be easy to fall back into the trap of justifying knitting all day so I could meet that quota. Instead I have been using that as motivation to keep plugging away, slow and steady on each task as they come up in my daily schedule.

Remember those lists at the beginning of my planner? They are integral to the success of my maker schedule. My schedule isn’t rigid for a reason. I don’t want it to be so tough to stay on track that I toss the whole thing out the window. It’s purposely written with flexibility to adjust to meetings or when I get a custom order. It is the tasks on those lists that I build my day around using the maker schedule as a guide.

I am a morning person so it is best for me to front load my schedule. My kids are also self-sufficient so I am available to help if they need it or if we want to run through the day’s schedule before they go to school, but I’m done with my devotional, scrolling Instagram/Facebook and responded to emails before 7am. While they get ready for school I work on my daily chores and package any orders that came in overnight so they can get dropped in the mailbox on the drive to school. After the kids are at school I come home and do something related to my website like: Add photos to a future blog post, photograph stock and get it listed, write an Instagram post. If that task runs over I have an hour of wiggle room to get back on schedule. I can also use that time to knit if I want OR get a jump on my assembly line project if I know it’s going to be something I want to commit a chunk of time to like: cutting out fur for poms, cutting fur for gnomes, cutting gnome hats, use the Addi to make my quota of pumpkins and earwarmers.

Think of the assembly line block as a good time to knock out a bunch of one element of a product. I look at my BUILDING STOCK/ASSEMBLY LINE lists and think of a task related any of the products I make. I cut fleece brims for my hats one day. Instead of pulling out my brim fleece and the cutting mat to make one brim when I need it, I cut 25 brims one day and another day I’ll sew them together so when I need a brim I simply pick it up off the shelf. See how much more efficient that is? From noon until I pick up my kids from school I get to curl up by the fire and knit with the confidence that I’ve done what needs to be accomplished to meet my goals. GUILT FREE KNITTING! My favorite kind! It doesn’t stop there though…If I’m knitting something that doesn’t require total concentration I pull out my maker planner and look through the list of graphics I need to create for the upcoming market season. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m always seeking to improve signage, tags, labels….the graphic work never ends! I brainstorm ideas while I knit because I don’t have to remember what I need to solve, I just looked at the list and get down to work. This year my list looks like this: New neckwarmer tag, design salsa label, Farmer’s Market Sign, card for mail orders, stickers as bread labels…. These are not things that I want to leave for the last minute. I need to chip away at them a little at a time.

I leave the after school time open for the family. We eat dinner at 5 almost every night so I get started on that by 4:30 at the latest. Family time looks different depending on evening activities. I have two in basketball plus I’m on the school board and help lead an evening crafting group at my church so life isn’t slow paced for us. Once my youngest is in bed for the night (if I’m home) I will knit for a couple more hours. All told, that is 5 hours of knitting time which should be enough to make a hat a day. What makes me happier than that is the fact that I’ve not let the rest of my business slide in the name of building up inventory. Checking all those boxes is a huge motivation: Be more productive, be more efficient, don’t get behind, increase income.

Speaking of checking boxes I’ve added some new printables in my store to help track inventory building. They are much cuter than simple boxes thanks to my talented daughter, Julia. You can choose from 7 products either as individual downloads or as a whole bundle.

I hope this behind the scenes look at my day gives you some inspiration in your own maker journey. Set your own goals, set your pace, make those lists and develop a schedule that incorporates those extra small business tasks into your every day.