How I manage flexibility and structure as a designer

Tips

Aug 29

When I was first starting out I took on all types of projects and worked with different types of clients, I said yes to pretty much everything then figured it out from there. But very quickly I realized that having structure and more predictable project timelines would be necessary so that I could better plan for myself and my clients. My main challenge was that I didn’t want to offer just one type of project or service, I had three different types of projects / clients that I really liked for different reasons. So I started by looking at the main goals I had in my business and then came up with some ideas for structure. If you’ve ever been wondering how to layout your weeks as a designer, or you’re just curious what my work load looks like as a potential client, here are allllll the details!

My main goals:

To be able to look at my calendar and know clearly when I have openings and when I’m fully booked
To assign types of projects to certain days of the week so I can batch work and give each client the attention they each deserve
Switch my hourly clients to retainer so that I know exactly how many hours I’m working with them per week
Allow time for multiple week-long website projects and create a reusable timeline for them that’s helpful and predictable for both of us
Retain the ability to take on smaller projects and new client inquiries in the near future instead of always booking weeks or months out

The schedule I landed on:

Mondays
Morning - Admin
Afternoon - Current Website Project
Tuesdays
Morning: Retainer Work
Afternoon: Current Website Project
Wednesdays
All day: Day Rates
Thursdays
Morning: Retainer Work
Afternoon: Day Rates
Fridays
Morning: Current Website Project
Afternoon: Admin

Why I love these 3 project styles:

Website / Branding Projects

I get to work with small businesses who need a brand new or revamped Squarespace website and we take our time to go through web strategy, design style, user flows, construction and basic SEO setup. These projects start at 4 weeks long which means we can settle into a groove and really focus on that client.

Retainer Clients

These clients have clear ongoing design needs and weekly tasks to be completed, and are the key to both income and work predictability. I usually work with 1-3 retainer clients for many months at a time and the goal is to have minimal turn over and to maintain consistency. However, I knew I didn’t want to fill my schedule with only retainer clients because I really like meeting new people and serving new businesses as often as I can.

Day Rates

Once I had my longer term website projects and retainer clients in place, I still wanted to have a solution for the smaller scale design needs and a way to continue accepting new clients more urgently. Setting specific days of the week to schedule these smaller projects is a great solution for those clients, and for scheduling my workload. This also eliminates the need to custom quote or schedule smaller design tasks, I can instead estimate which length of session would suffice and then just check out my calendar to see when that time is available.

How these offerings provide structure AND flexibility:

This 33% / 33% / 33% project style breakdown helped me in ways beyond what I expected, such as;

Having reusable 4-week web project timelines that were “productized” (set prices that I’m not custom quoting each time) improved my efficiency and now my clients and I know exactly what to do through each phase of the project
The set hours for my retainer clients has allowed us to schedule when things will get done and really improve predictability each week, making the systems on both sides even better
The day rates can act as either one-off sessions for specific design projects or can become a more loosely scheduled retainer option for returning clients, if they can’t commit to weekly hours but keep returning for ongoing work as it comes up
Now that I know exactly what I’m supposed to be doing during every day of the week, if I have weeks where I need to take time off, either full weeks or just certain days, I can choose not to schedule project-based clients, move around my retainer hours and add in extra day rates when needed

It’s been really helpful and rewarding to find this balance that works for me, and I’d encourage any other designer to really look at your main goals and the projects you most enjoy working on, and come up with a structure that really works for you. As you test out the project schedules, you can adjust and refine as you go and find your balance.