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As a creative, you may have spent your whole life dreaming of being able to do what you love for a living. Being able to ditch a mundane nine-to-five job, follow your ambition, and launch a creative business may feel like a dream come true. However, for many creatives, launching a business and starting their entrepreneurial journey can throw up a few surprises. One of the biggest realizations many creative entrepreneurs have is how much other work goes into running a business.
Trying to keep up with the day-to-day running of a business can consume almost all of your time. Spending your working days replying to emails, sending invoices, and chasing payments may not have been what you envisaged when you started your business, so finding yourself consumed by these mundane tasks can be frustrating. It is challenging to stay creative and keep your passion for your work alive when you seem bogged down by admin and day-to-day tasks. You may be wondering how to run a business and stay creative simultaneously. The tips below should provide you with handy hints to help keep your creativity flowing and ensure you do not get consumed by admin:
Never Multitask
Multitasking and entrepreneurship may sound like two words that go hand in hand, but in reality, you should avoid multitasking as much as possible. Attempting to juggle too many tasks can sap your creativity and leave your mind feeling scattered as you try to manage multiple things at once.
Instead of trying to multitask, it is helpful to focus your attention on one job at a time. Setting aside one hour a day to tackle admin jobs is an excellent way to ensure most of your time is spent on creative tasks. Trying to stick to the same time each day to reply to emails, chase invoices, etc., will enable you to stay on top of these less exciting tasks without impacting your creative time.
Streamline Your Organization
If you find you are spending a large portion of your time dealing with issues related to the set-up of your business, it is a good idea to try and get these resolved once and for all. If you are dealing with constant queries about payment issues, you can make life easier for yourself by sorting out your merchant enrollment api. When you are constantly dealing with issues that need fixing, it is usually a lot less stressful to set aside time to fix them properly than deal with them continually. Getting frustrating troubleshooting jobs out of the way will prevent these stressful issues from impacting your creativity.
Outsource Wherever Possible
Outsourcing aspects of your business is a helpful way to free up your time and focus on what you are good at. Having an accounting company to manage your books and chase invoices on your behalf can take a massive weight off your shoulders. Likewise, hiring a virtual assistant to take care of admin tasks will help you stay creative and minimize distractions.