Multitasking is a skill you have to be very good at (or very quickly learn) when you decide to start a business.
I’m not really sure that small business life is possible without it!
Even when you grow your business and employ a team of people, as the founder, the ultimate responsibility for everything (idea generation, design, copy, proof, marketing, finance, retailing, social media, equipment, stock control, packaging, and more) all lies with you!
Multitasking is both my superpower and my biggest weakness
The ability to switch it up day-to-day is a big part of why I love running a small business. To be working on website development in the morning, and then flip to something creative in the afternoon keeps things interesting and stops me getting bored.
I genuinely love being involved in every aspect of what we do, which often leads me to start too many projects, and then feel like I’m under an enormous amount of pressure. (This blog is a great example of that. Do I need to start a small business blog? No! am I gonna do it anyway? Umm… Yep.)
Find the data and make the changes!
This week, Kate and I spent some time looking at Etsy SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This involved using a tool to check out what search terms are being used frequently in our niche, versus how many products (or competition) there is for each one.
This helps us to identify gaps in the market that we can create new designs for, such as planner inserts or journal stencils, or improve existing products to meet these needs.
In a bigger organisation there might be a person or a whole team dedicated to SEO, who would do all this research before feeding information to product designers, who in turn would pass the design to the production team, next to visual to create imagery and branding, and then to the website team to creating the product listings, copy, etc. Finally marketing would get involved to get this new product seen.
In our business all of this happens between a team of 4 people, which means that although I am responsible for everything, we can work closely together to make things happen and see results really quickly. It also means that when products are well received, we all feel a huge part of that success.
We take it personally
Because of how close we are to every step of the progress, we can’t help but feel personally invested in everything we do. So, when we receive negative reviews (no matter how valid) it can sometimes be a little hard to swallow!
After nearly 8 years of running Oops a Daisy I like to think I have become better at receiving negative feedback. However, the more well known the company becomes, the more I think that the general public see us as a faceless entity, and are therefore are much more blunt in their delivery!
It’s definitely a challenge and, thankfully, the negative reviews are pretty few and far between, but when we do receive a doozy I try my best to reframe it as a learning point. (After there have been a chosen few choice expletives!)
Staying on task
The biggest issue with having your eye on so many balls, is sticking with one long enough to get everything done!
How the hell do people manage this?! By the time I’ve thought up a new idea and we have a framework for how we we bring it to life, I’m bored and have moved on to the next idea! (This is a me problem, I know…)
I’ve tried a lot of different organisation systems to keep all of my tasks in check and, more importantly, try to prioritise the stuff that needs doing immediately, versus the things that can wait. What never fails for me is a good, old-fashioned to do list. This explains why I fell in love with the Bullet Journaling system to begin with!
A shared to do list
At Oops a Daisy HQ we have been using an app called Todoist for a while. It’s very simple to use but allows us to have multiple projects and deadlines, and assign and prioritise tasks, all from a master database. I still add my personal tasks to a paper list within my journal (nothing is as satisfying as ticking something off a list!) but having a digital place to organise everything that is going on in the many facets of the business is a lifesaver.
The best part for me is that it has a phone app, as well as a desktop version so, if I realise that something needs to be done and I’m not in the office, it can be added to the list and assigned to a person on the go!
(Not an ad btw, we pay for our Todoist subscription and love it!)
Busy doing nothing
This year I really want to get better at switching off from work. So far, it’s been a big old fail as I always seem to be taken by a wave of inspiration at weekends and crack on with a new project or creative idea.
Honestly, I’m not even sure that I know how to switch off! If I tell myself it’s the weekend and not time for work, I end up just thinking about it anyway, in which case I may as well be doing the actual thing!
Answers on a postcard for ways that a workaholic small business owner can enforce time to unwind?!
That’s all for now…
Thank you for sticking with me until the end, drop me a little comment below if you read the whole thing!
I’d also love to know what you’d like to hear about in future blog posts. I can’t promise but as always i’ll do my best!
Big Love
Jo xx (aka @oopsadaisyuk)
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Loving the insights Jo
Thank you for reading! xx