Organizing Your Business
Organizing your business from the start will save you lots of time and energy in the future and free you up to create! By establishing good habits and a system that works for you, the flow of everyday tasks will leave you feeling both a sense of peace and accomplishment.
When I started my business getting organized did not come naturally to me. Although I love being self employed, I have always said that the problem with having your own business is that YOU are the one that trains YOU.
Unless you can see into the future and already possess fantastic organizational skills, becoming organized can be a process of trial and error.
There is a lot of ground to cover on organizing your business as this topic includes a business that can travel with you. When travelling you will be accompanied by an entourage of stuff. Stuff that needs to be organized!
I would like to save you time and money by passing on to you organizing tips that I have learned through my own process of trail and error.
Let's start by taking an overview of what exactly needs to be organized in your new jewelry making business. Starting a home jewelry business means that you will likely have areas in your home as well as areas that may travel outside your home that need organizing such as a jewelry display set up for shows.
The first step in organizing your business is the area in which you create! This is the heart of your business and the area that is driven by your passion and your vision.
Your primary creative work space will be your home jewelry studio and I have divided this area into to sections: your work bench and your supply storage area.
Organizing your work bench will facilitate how efficiently you work and organizing your supplies will facilitate your work bench and help you keep your sanity!
Organizing Your Business
3 Main areas to consider
When organizing a home jewelry making studio it is important to take into account what you will be making and what kind of materials you will use. Will you be using materials that need curing time and require good ventilation?
Having a room where you can close a door and leave products to cure may prompt you to consider a second work space for projects such as beading. Second work space? Am I crazy? If you are like me you cannot squeeze a second work space into your home.
I am talking about a portable work station. This will allow you to work in other areas of your home such as the dining table, without leaving a huge mess permanently set up. Perhaps you are already familiar with this... "When I am working nobody gets to eat dinner at the table."
A portable work station that includes your tools and most frequently used supplies will also make it that much easier to pack your supplies to have on hand at craft shows.
The next step in organizing your business is setting up your home office, more importantly your filing cabinet! Essentially you will have two filing cabinets, the one that is stored in your computer and the one that is sitting beside your desk.
If you do not already own a filing cabinet you may want to purchase either a regular filing cabinet or good sized filing box. I am not a lover of the little accordion style portafile boxes as they fill up rather quickly and leave a need for a secondary filing system. It then becomes difficult to remember in which files papers are stored.
For current papers I like to have a simple sorting system atop my desk. Once the current papers are finished with in the filing cabinet they go.
Now truthfully speaking I am not a Martha Stewart type, but I long to be, on some level, and would like to share my years of struggle with chaos in a way that may help to make your life easier.
For ideas on how to set up your filing cabinet and what files you may potentially have in there for your jewelry making business click on organizing paperwork. After you have ventured into the filing cabinet section learn about organizing computer files to meet the needs of your growing business.
Your home office is the centre of it all. It is the brain of your business where important decisions are made. This is where you set the tone for both your creative desires and your analytical decisions.
Last, but not least we must consider how you will show your work. More than likely you will have a portable display system for selling your work outside your home and you may even consider having a small showroom area in your home.
Ideally a home display area should work in conjunction with your travelling display without too much disruption to either. If you do have the space to set up a viewing area for potential customers it is a good idea to make your jewelry display panels easy to remove so that you can make a practical transition from home display to show display.
Organizing your business to meet your specific needs will not only keep you sane, it will ensure that you do not miss deadlines or spend countless hours searching for that bag of beads or show package packed with important information.
Learning how to get organized is a vital step in running a business and is an essential step towards success!
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