Dealing with workload

Management tasks change in priority and intensity through the business development cycle. Every business model, every idea has its own needs, every entrepreneur their own style. For the creative entrepreneur it requires careful balancing of resources, and your own time is the most important resource.

To put this in some context, if we imagine each working day being around 4.5% of a month’s available time then a studio that designs, makes, wholesales (possibly retails) and exports could easily have time requirements for each operational aspect as in [fig1].

The percentages seem reasonable; 4 days a month selling, 3 days manufacturing etc. etc. but it would be rare to experience such concentrated blocks of time. Most tasks will occur simultaneously, sporadically and unexpectedly and as such will often take longer to start-up and wind-down from one to another. Your agility and ability to multi-task is a worthwhile skill to nurture in abundance.

You may notice there is a relatively small allocation listed for design. Considering this is the main purpose of the enterprise one would expect a priority share of time. Yet in reality design must compete for resources too, 5-10% could easily be the maximum time available for creative evolution. If this is less than you anticipated, try a list for yourself by leaving design-time until last.

This exercise illustrates quite starkly how little time may actually be left for design and product development despite our expectations, or indeed motivation for starting the business enterprise.

The relationship between creative and administrative activities, while essential to each other, have both positive and negative effects. Time spent developing creative aspects can impact negatively on growth and development of the business by jeopardizing viability through mismanagement or lack of management. While time spent on management can compromise potency of creative output through limitation of time necessary for incubation. We must respect the unpredictability of the creative process.

Once again it comes down to balance. Allocating your resources in a way that is comfortable, yet realistic to achieve the business aims, and at the same time capture the creative essence.

Pace and perseverance are valuable keywords to ponder. Growing too fast or beyond resources is a serious risk and a common management problem, often leading to financial stress and deterioration of quality or design currency. These circumstances together are extremely damaging and can be difficult to arrest and reverse.

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