Are we too hard on ourselves?

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Transcript

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Welcome to Designing Success from Study to Studio. I'm your host, Rhiannon Lee, founder of the Oleander Finch Design Studio. I've lived the transformation from study to studio and then stripped it bare and wrote down the framework so you don't have to overthink it. In this podcast, you could expect real talk with industry friends, community, connection, and actionable tips to help you conquer whatever's holding you back. Now let's get designing your own success. Today on the podcast, I just want to talk about the idea that sometimes we are extra hard on ourselves trying to be more organized or comparing yourself to those like super list makers, type A really over organized people, the ones sharing a lot of stuff on Instagram. And I am Sorry, because it sometimes comes from my camp. I won't lie. I am a super organized person by nature and Notion is a life changer for me. I absolutely love it. I love to list out everything that I need and to build systems and processes. I am an absolute tech system process nerd. That's the kind of stuff that lights me up. So there's a chance that you're actually experiencing that pressure from my side of the internet. So apologies for that. But I wanted to talk about approaching it from the right angle. So recently I've been leaning into a more bespoke approach to business. Just like I am with my coaching and designing. I never enter a meeting expecting that one size fits all, or one room or brief will be anything like the next in home consult or room or brief. And so I. Like, why do we always feel like we're not winning or we're doing it wrong if our business or version of organized doesn't look the same as hers or the same as that person that you admire or that you've seen? Oh, wow. Look at that digital. It's all color coded and it's all, that sometimes is an aspiration that we're just never going to get. That's, just doesn't work for everyone like that. There's a really good chance that the systems you're trying to adapt to, they just aren't the ones that will excite your brain, and therefore you're just barking up the wrong tree. It's probably never going to be a life changer for you. I will put a caveat to that. If you haven't tried Notion and you've just had a look and it looks really overwhelming because it is at the beginning, then that is not the same as I gave it a really good go, I watched some tutorials, I moved around, I used it for a couple of weeks, and then it did not really light me up. I thought I'd bring it up today because I think we just are so, And I always say this, we're just so overexposed at the moment, but more and more that we say like, share your work, show your things. And that means you're actually seeing a lot more of people's behind the scenes and behind the curtains. And so you are seeing a glimpse of my onboarding process or my systems, or I guarantee you tomorrow I have a concept presentation in the city and I will do a story in my car before I go. And I will show my printed. Presentation that I give to the clients and the way that I do things is quite different in my business. And I just feel like I get so many inbox questions about, Oh, where's that from? How do you do that? Do you do that for every client? Is that included in the price? Is that extra, That sort of thing. And I just really wanted to have an episode that talks about how there are no rules in business and your way is the best way and what your business looks like and the deliverables and the things that you know about and can use seamlessly will look different in the sixth year of your business. Like the way. I take notion to this meeting tomorrow, and I bring up all the selections, the procurement, the concepts, we play the presentation in the database. I will be taking notes. It looks so incredibly impressive to the clients. They're seeing all of these like spreadsheets and charts and tracked things, and that's fantastic. But that's not how everybody's brain works. So I want to talk to you, if you are the kind of person, That thinks those things are amazing, but also knows that it's very unlikely that they're going to, keep up to date with entering all of the client's details and every single selection and just being type A, as I mentioned before. So some people aren't, and I think there's too many people in the aren't camp who are trying to emulate the ones that are in the are. This is for you if you are one of those people that is trying to use processes and systems that do not excite you and might not be the right way for you. I want you to ask yourself what it would look like if there was a version that helped you rather than made you feel inferior or upset or not good. Good using all that negative words. Oh, I'm no good at tech. Oh, I'm rubbish. I can't use AI. I've been having so many conversations lately about specifically women in the tech space and how like less than 36 percent of small businesses are using AI. And that is such madness to me as someone who uses this tool and technology inside of my business. To quite frankly, just shave off hours of what I do. I would rather outsource the things that I don't love doing and then have final say, do quality checks. Nothing goes out of this studio that hasn't come from me, been approved by me or feel on brand for me, but it just saves me hours and hours of like messy work that I used to be doing just to get the content out there and to get the marketing done. Okay. So the first question I always ask, is there already something on the market or a task that can be outsourced that could free up some frustrations and leave me some time to do the work I'm actually excited about? I'm not that excited about. I get a little bit excited about filling out calendars and having post it notes and stationery. When I was a child, I wanted to grow up and own a news agency. I have always been a super nerd for that sort of stuff. But if you are not, is there something that already exists? Chances are there's an application or an AI tool or something that right now could help you with the one task that is making you roll your eyes into the back of your head. I know you've got something in your mind when I say that, and if you just picture that task, there's probably something ready to go. Here's some examples. Three hours of VA work a week. So say you paid a VA, I don't know, 35 an hour. I don't know the going rate for a VA right now, but say 30 an hour. So you spent 90 a week, but three hours of work were given to the VA. And that's of the work that you really don't want to do. So even three hours of deep organization and planning to keep all of the projects up to date to update all your weekly project status reports to look at plotting things in and phasing things into your calendar. 90 to pay someone 30 an hour for three hours work where they could get all of that done. You will no longer feel the pressure of being a disorganized person. You literally just have to. Pull your fees together that it covers 90 a week of three hours VA time. The next thing is to check AI tech tools. These are advancing at the speed of lightning. Like I, if you told me one year ago, two years ago, that I would be coding Support assistance and that I would be fast tracking things like writing captions, writing emails, getting podcast notes together, doing all of that stuff through AI generated tech tools that I created. I would have laughed at you so hard. Like I would have been like, ah, yeah, I know how to use AI to say, Hey chat, do this one thing for me. But I wouldn't have thought it would be possible for me. And it has taken me very little time to work it, to do a course, work it out, pull it together, the entire lot. Every time I check in custom GPTs, in just in Google, in the hashtag, chat GPT, whatever, there are new and improved AI tech tools that are designed to do all the laborious stuff that you don't want to do. I know so many of you have reached out to me are curious about Marius, my Pinterest support assistant. He does all the primary, secondary keywords, all the captions, all the titles, and all the hashtags and topics that you need to schedule all of your pins in, but make sure that they are pins that actually will get you traction and perform. He is fantastic. Six months ago, I didn't know he could exist. And I was putting myself through a lot of pressure to try to keep up with Pinterest. It was just like, Oh, it's another platform. I'm never going to have the time now. It's less than 30 minutes a week. It's simple and it's effective. It's getting really good results. So there are heaps of things like that tech tools in the AI space that already exist, just because you've checked once and what you need. didn't exist. That doesn't mean that we stop there. It's really important that becomes a regular Oh, just dip in and see what's new. If there's anything that could help me, maybe it's something I haven't even thought of. And then I'm like, Oh my God, there's a robot for that. Love it. Sign me up. A lot of these things are tax deductible. I know, Marius is a once and done payment. He's 137 goes on the tax line and does your Pinterest for you. Like to me, that's a no brainer. I would be collecting the entire set of these support assistants. What about an apprentice or internships or work experience? Sometimes when I find, when I have someone here in the studio, it makes me rise up and be more productive too. Remember when you worked, if you worked for a job, like I worked in corporate, whenever I had someone new to train, I always seemed to present the Best version of me. Like I, I was very hands on. I was detailed oriented. I was getting things done. I was really productive because there was someone shadowing me or sitting right next to me. So I couldn't just be on the iconic looking for a new pair of shoes for Saturday night. Like I had to be doing my job. And I feel like that can sometimes be beneficial for you. If you're out in the studio being like, Hey, you know what? Maybe I could just See if there's local TAFE or somewhere where apprentices and interns could be of help. Like you can help them. They can learn from you, but you can also help them to train them, show them some of what you do, show them a bit of SketchUp or even just give them a realistic look at the fact that being an interior designer isn't just swanning around. There's so much work to do. Another added bonus would be around having some company in the office. It's always nice. It can fill your cup. It can mean that the days where you don't, you're like, okay, these are my deep work days because I'm not being distracted. I don't have an intern or apprentice here. I'll get everything done. And then having them in there one day a week means that you can, yeah, do some varied activities on that day. The last thing I would definitely check is applications or apps for your phone. Like when was the last time you googled if there was an app that could help you? So things like, I always talk about AI, but AI can literally draft all of your email responses. And all you have to do is go in, edit and approve the send. So if you don't like what AI has drafted, rewrite the response, but maybe you go in and you do like it. You just want to change the end from many thanks and kind Sincerities to just Cheers, Rhiannon, like you might just want to change it and then send it off. That would be such a great time saver to go, Oh, okay. There's a free app for that. Or I can train AI to do that. Amazing. And then your routine changes and you no longer feel like, Oh, I've got all these emails to get back to you, blah, blah, blah. You're like, All these drafts are in there. I just need to work on aeroplane mode for the majority of my day and then block in 50 minutes at the end of the day, I'm going to go in and approve, edit, and send all of the responses to today's emails. It's just a smarter system. It's quicker. And it means that you're not stopping all day long because you're getting incoming emails. I always like to ask in coaching calls specifically around organization and productivity is what do you actually think would change for you if this calendar, diary system was all filled up, looking like that stationery catalogue? If you pictured yourself in that situation, what is actually different for you? Because the chances are, it's just how you're feeling about yourself and your own productivity, and that you're being unkind to yourself, putting yourself down, or giving yourself reason to feel like, oh my gosh, you're not as organised as like, I am. You don't know what's going on for that person or whether or not they are naturally organized. My organization isn't a skill that I've learned. It's a skill that I've had since I was a little girl filing things up in my bedroom. Like it's just, some people can and are naturally. drawn to that sort of thing. I was speaking with a designer today in a private coaching call. And I was talking to her about alternative capacities to work. I have an extraordinary work capacity. A lot of people will come to me and say, how did you get that much done? Or I can't believe you do that with the kids. I can't believe anyone does anything with kids, to be honest, because Work gives me a dopamine hit and I am both an early bird and a night owl. I have a strange overcapacity to work. I also don't need a lot of sleep. It's what are those things? Some people are weirdos, me, nerd, super organized process systems, sleep, don't need a lot of sleep, like to work. And I see that in a couple of people that I used to follow as well on Instagram in this same sort of space with interior design coaching and other things that are just like superhuman. Get up. That's not me and a really details oriented and do all this incredible stuff, but I just do the bare minimum that I need to do. I'm about scrappy action and just getting it done, but I get it done in the way that works for me. And I guess today's episode is really about finding the way that works for you and not looking to put yourself under pressure, unnecessary pressure. We've got pressure from all sorts of other things in our lives, be it All of the school communications and the apps and the fundraisers and all the things that we have to remember. I think you don't have to have this centralized system that everybody says that we need to do. If you picture yourself in a situation where everything is perfect, what has actually changed for you? What have you achieved? What is great about that? I think it's nice to do some reflection and think about it from that perspective. I also like to think if a friend was being really hard on themselves about a productivity issue or organizational issue, what advice would you give them? What would you tell them? Because Probably you would just say that productivity in an organization is not the most valuable quality a person can have and that it really doesn't matter as long as the work's getting done. You don't have to do it in the way that somebody else does it. And now before I finish up today, I'm just going to give you a couple of quick changes that are simple and might actually make you feel more organized. The first is a simple to do list at closing time for tomorrow's priorities. So the, basically what needs to happen tomorrow, I write it out before I shut down the laptop in the studio for the end of the day, like before school pick up or whatever that looks like. And then it's purged out of my brain, it's on paper and I know what's coming up for tomorrow. I know what I have in the pipeline, what is going to be something that I am going to need to achieve tomorrow. The second thing is to triage or identify the top three needle movers. Like on that list, I will always highlight either the first three things that need to be done, the most important thing, but usually the things that take me forwards towards my goal faster, or the things that are really important to me that they need You know, perhaps the last two days these things have moved over onto the list, so they've got to jump up and one of them will always be, I said the words like needle mover, one of them will always be something that's not a direct hit of reward, it's something that, working towards profit or working towards launching something or working towards getting something organized and sorted. So one of them is usually a bit ad hoc like that, and I recognize is a real needle mover in my business.\ The third and last tip you probably going to roll your eyes, especially if you're someone that's Hey, I can't be, I can't do this extra stuff if I'm not a very organized person in the first place, but Productivity. tracking or tracking your time does not have to be a big deal. There's heaps of apps, free apps, fun apps, gamified if you need to. If you are not someone who wants to use a productivity app to track your time as an interior designer, even though it means you could charge more, you'll learn more about how long things take you and you'll be way more accurate. Then at the minimum, I think It's good to gamify what you're doing and say, okay, I like to listen to this podcast. So say you like to listen to an interview podcast episode of designing success. They would generally be one hour. So you're like, I need to do this task for one hour. I'm going to listen. To this interview between Rhiannon and Heather from Oak and Orange, for example. And you're like, cool, I'm going to listen to this one hour interview. And while I listen, my only task is going to be pulled together the flooring choices for this FF& E, and I am just going to concentrate on that. And then you have done something. So you're learning, to time block. You're learning to do things and track how long they take. Because the next time when you're like, oh yeah, the flooring. Yeah, I listened to that podcast. Perhaps you can remember that. It's slightly more flawed system. Certainly somebody who might want to extend the scope of work or pay you an hourly retainer or something doesn't want to hear it's seven podcast episodes and it costs this much they definitely want some better tracking, but I think it's a good start and I want to end today's episode just by saying, and I think I have said it in this episode, sometimes we try to fit. A round peg in a square hole. And we are so hard on ourselves. And we think that our business and backend and systems and everything should look exactly like hers or someone else's. And we're often firstly comparing ourselves to the Instagram version of that person's life. And secondly, we don't know what her business goals are. We, we weren't in her business planning. Maybe she only works. 15 hours a week and look so organized, but you have 15 times the amount of projects and a much larger business, or you have staff or everybody's circumstances are so different. So instead look to yourself, look to how you can help think about what it would look like if it was really simple and what kind of organizational things you can Google and find that exist out there right now that can help you move faster, work smarter, get help, outsource and spend very little money. So many of these tools are available right now to you for free. If you've got some ideas of things that you'd like to know, if there's any help for you, you can certainly Click on the link at the top of the show notes. It says, text me and tell me what you thought of this and ask the question. Hey, do you know of any instant presentation makers? Yes, I do. It's called gamma dot AI. There's lots on the market and I like to think I have explored quite a few of them. So please come and have a chat. It'll be another solo episode for me on Thursday. And I can't wait to chat to you then. Okay. Bye for now. That wraps up another episode of Designing Success from Study to Studio. Thanks for lending me your ears. Remember, progress over perfection is the key. If you found value in today's episode, go ahead and hit subscribe or share it with a friend. Your feedback means so much to me and it helps me improve, but it also helps this podcast reach more emerging and evolving designers. For your daily dose of design business tips and to get a closer look at what goes on behind the scenes, follow at oleander underscore and underscore finch on Instagram. You'll find tons of resources available at www. oleanderandfinch. com to support you on your journey. Remember, this is your path, your vision, your future, and your business. Now let's get out there and start designing your success.