Time Management for Photographers Who Swear They Don't Have Any

"I don't have enough time."

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard a photographer say that, I'd probably have enough money to hire a chauffeur to be on call 24/7. Which would be particularly useful for someone who can get lost even with GPS telling her exactly where to go.

And I get it. Running a photography business means doing a whole lot more than taking photographs. There are inquiries to answer, sessions to plan, images to edit, clients to meet with, orders to place, marketing to create, bookkeeping to keep up with, and approximately 47 other things that somehow end up on the to-do list.

And if you're a one-person business, guess who's responsible for all of them?

But when a photographer tells me they don't have enough time, my first question usually isn't about which planner they're using.

I want to know what's actually taking up their time.

Because sometimes the problem isn't how you're managing your hours. It's what you're trying to fit into them.

First, Figure Out Where Your Time Is Going

Before you start rearranging your calendar, take a look at what you're actually doing during a typical workweek.

And I mean actually doing, not what you intended to do when you sat down at your desk Monday morning.

How much time are you spending editing? Answering emails? Creating social media content? Working on your website? Going back and forth with clients to schedule appointments?

What about the things you don't necessarily think of as work? Driving to sessions, packing equipment, preparing products for delivery, researching something you need for a client, or fixing whatever piece of technology has decided not to cooperate today.

All of that takes time.

For a week or two, keep track of what you're working on and roughly how long it takes. You don't need to account for every minute, but you do need enough information to see where your hours are going.

You may discover that editing takes twice as long as you thought. Or that you spend an astonishing amount of time answering the same client questions.

You might also discover that you're spending a lot of time on things that aren't doing much for your business.

That's useful information to have before you start making changes.

Are You Having a Time Management Problem or a Workload Problem?

These are two different things, and I think photographers sometimes confuse them.

If you have 30 hours of work to accomplish and 40 hours available, there may be some opportunities to improve how you're using your time.

But if you have 60 hours of work and only 40 hours available, a prettier calendar isn't going to fix that.

Something has to change.

Maybe you're taking on more sessions than you can reasonably handle. Maybe your editing process takes too long. Maybe you're offering services that require far more time than you're charging for.

Or maybe you've got so many different projects going that you're making a little progress on everything and finishing absolutely nothing.

I've certainly been guilty of that last one.

The point is that you need to understand what's causing the problem before you decide how to address it.

Otherwise, you can spend a lot of time trying different productivity systems without ever fixing the thing that's making you feel so busy.

Which is a particularly annoying way to waste time when you're already short on it.

Stop Trying to Do Everything at Once

One of the biggest changes you can make is to stop bouncing between completely unrelated tasks all day.

You sit down to edit, notice an email, answer it, remember you need to schedule a social media post, open Facebook, see something that reminds you to update your website, and suddenly it's lunchtime.

And the editing? Still sitting there waiting for you.

This is where batching and time-blocking can be useful.

Batching means grouping similar tasks together. Instead of writing one social media caption every day, you might write several weeks' worth at once. Instead of answering nonurgent emails every time one arrives, you might handle them during designated periods.

Time-blocking means setting aside specific periods on your calendar for particular types of work.

For example, you might dedicate Monday mornings to business administration, Tuesday afternoons to editing, and Friday mornings to marketing.

The specific days don't matter. What matters is giving yourself enough uninterrupted time to accomplish something.

And no, that doesn't mean you can never change your schedule. Clients reschedule, horses get sick, the weather doesn't cooperate, and life happens.

A useful schedule needs room for all of that.

Your Workflows Might Be Wasting More Time Than You Realize

Let's say you spend 15 minutes writing essentially the same response every time someone inquires about a session.

That doesn't sound like much.

But if you answer 20 inquiries a month, that's five hours spent writing variations of the same email.

And that's just one part of your business.

Think about what happens from the moment a client first contacts you until their order is delivered.

Are you manually sending every email? Do you have to remember when to follow up? Are you repeatedly explaining the same information because clients don't receive it earlier in the process?

Are you searching through old emails to remember what happens next?

Those are workflow problems, and fixing them can save a surprising amount of time.

You don't necessarily need expensive software or an elaborate automation system, either. Sometimes a well-written email template, a checklist, or a better way to organize client information is enough.

The goal isn't to automate every interaction you have with your clients. It's to stop spending time repeatedly doing things that don't need to be done from scratch.

Make Sure You're Spending Time on the Things That Matter

Here's something else worth considering.

Being busy and making progress aren't necessarily the same thing.

You can spend an entire day working on your photography business and still not accomplish anything that moves it forward.

Maybe you spent three hours adjusting the colors on your website. Or researching a new piece of software you don't actually need. Or designing a new marketing promotion when you haven't finished the last one.

Meanwhile, the client inquiries are sitting unanswered, your bookkeeping is behind, and you haven't done any marketing in three weeks.

I'm not suggesting that every minute of your workday needs to generate revenue. That's not realistic.

But you should have some idea of which activities are important to your business and make sure those aren't always the ones getting pushed aside.

For example, if inconsistent bookings are a problem, spending all your available time editing while completely ignoring your marketing probably isn't helping.

And if you're booking plenty of sessions but not making enough money, the answer might not be finding time for more sessions. You may need to look at your pricing, expenses, or how much time each client requires.

Again, the solution depends on the actual problem.

Leave Some Room in Your Schedule

One of the easiest ways to create a schedule that doesn't work is to fill every available hour.

You plan eight hours of work, schedule exactly eight hours of tasks, and assume everything will go according to plan.

That's adorable.

Then a client calls, an order arrives damaged, your computer needs an update, or a session takes longer than expected.

Suddenly you're behind, and the only way to catch up is to work late.

Build some breathing room into your schedule. Leave space for the things you can't predict and the tasks that take longer than expected.

And remember that time away from work isn't wasted time.

If you want a photography business you can enjoy running for years, you need to be able to have a life outside of it.

What If You've Tried All This and Still Don't Have Enough Time?

Then I'd start looking at the bigger picture.

Maybe your workload is too heavy for one person. Maybe some of your services aren't profitable enough to justify the time they require. Maybe you're trying to maintain a business model that doesn't fit the hours you actually want to work.

Or maybe your systems are fine, but you've taken on too many commitments.

Those aren't problems that another productivity app is necessarily going to solve.

Sometimes the answer is to improve a workflow. Sometimes it's to stop offering something. Sometimes it's to raise your prices, reduce your session volume, outsource a task, or rethink how you're scheduling your work.

And sometimes it's simply accepting that you can't do everything you want to do right now.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. It means you have to decide what's most important.

You Don't Need to Become a Productivity Expert

You just need to understand where your time is going, what needs to get done, and whether the way you're running your business makes sense for the amount of time you have available.

Start with one thing that's consistently causing problems.

Maybe it's the hours you're spending editing. Maybe it's the never-ending emails. Maybe it's the fact that you're always working on marketing at the last minute.

Figure out why it's happening, make a change, and see whether that change actually helps.

You can always tackle the next thing afterward.

And if you've tried to figure it out on your own and aren't sure where to start, that's something we can work through together in mentoring.

Because I'd much rather help you figure out why you're running out of time than hand you another planner and tell you to try harder.