I’ve been so blessed with a beautiful, crazy, busy 2019 in my business and I have zero regrets or complaints about that. I do, however, want to make sure that I’m always keeping my time between all of the things I love — family, hobbies, work — balanced.

I have already started some things behind the scenes that direct all my clients into my HoneyBook business management system pipeline and keeps me organized — like my away messages on Facebook messenger that direct inquiries to my email along with an estimate on how long until I get back to people. I even have an auto-responder in my email that lets people know how to sign up for certain things or get more info through different links and directions. I also make it really clear that I can only guarantee emails being checked once a day Monday through Friday. All these things just guarantee that I’m not missing any messages and lets people know my boundaries right from the start. 

I used to feel chained to my phone around the clock — checking emails, responding to texts and messages and working on all the things instead of doing things that help to refill my cup. I think a lot of that comes from fear, too — what if someone is reaching out to five photographers and I don’t get back to them as soon as the others and they go with one of the others because of that? Well, I came to realize that that person wouldn’t be my ideal client — or anyone’s ideal client, really. I want someone who chooses their photographer for personality and talent and less because of waiting 24 hours or less for a reply. 

Just like I did this year, I’m soon going to be sitting down with my planner to schedule days off, weekends off and vacation weeks so that I don’t find myself in busy season without any breaks and overwhelmed to the point that I can’t take care of my clients as well as I want to. I’d much rather have less clients that are well loved and taken care of than try to take all of the sessions in the world.

The things I do behind the scenes are always with the intent of better taking care of my clients and keeping myself a happy, balanced, well-rounded human. I don’t want to lead a “busy” life; I want to lead a happy life.