Managing and Valuing My Time: Lessons from WPPI

One of the big takeaways I wanted to immediately implement from the classes I took at WPPI 2010 was to manage my time better. Although working for yourself (in reality, I’m working for my clients) is, some could say, a perk of running your own business, it can also be very easy to slip into bad time management habits. At least, for me it is.

For me, one of my biggest pitfalls is getting distracted while editing photos and corresponding with clients. I have a habit of keeping my inbox open all of the time and regularly clicking over to see if I’ve gotten anything new…in the past two minutes. Pathetic, really. Or, what often happens is that I’ll be waiting for some files to import or photoshop to run some actions, so I’ll click over to my google reader and see what new blog posts have shown up. Ten minutes later, after I’ve read a tasty recipe for pulled pork on the Pioneer Woman and caught up with the latest fashion on the Sartorialist, I remember that I was actually editing photos. Let’s face it, that pulled pork and high fashion isn’t helping me with my photography (OK, maybe the fashion could inspire me…but do I need to consume it everyday?).

I also subscribe to a lot of photography blogs that inspire me–or did until two days ago. Although I am inspired and challenged to improve my own skill by seeing other photographers’ work, I realized that I wasn’t being as creative as I could. I was leaning on others’ work for ideas.

So, it was time for some of the blogs I read to head to the chopping block in my google reader. I decided to cut out anything that wasn’t really, really inspiring me. I left mostly my friends’ blogs, a few photographers–again, mostly friends–and a few other sites that inspire me in my work.

Additionally, I’ve devised a schedule where I will answer emails, check my google analytics and read blogs only during specific times of the day, so I can focus on the task at hand and speed up my work flow. In the end, my goal is to better serve my clients by being more productive with my time. We’ll see how it works!