Practical Tips for Crocheters and Knitters to Finish their Projects | Podcast Episode #78

Do you struggle to stay on task and meet project deadlines?

I’m raising my hand because like you, I have a lot going on and sometimes I struggle to meet deadlines. Truth is, we all struggle with over-commitment and meeting deadlines. It’s helpful to know that we aren’t alone in this struggle!

Speical Guest

This week I’m joined by Michelle, the creative entrepreneur behind MJ’s Off the Hook Designs and Sentry Box Designs. Michelle has a LOT going on and she’s had quite a bit of time as a full-time design entrepreneur to figure it all out. I’m thrilled with how much information she shared about meeting deadlines and I’m sure you’ll be implementing two or three of her tips yourself!

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
Welcome to episode number 78 of the BHooked Podcast. I’m your host, Brittany, and as always, I’m thrilled to have you here today. We’re continuing our theme here in the month of August of planning, productivity, and goal setting.

I have one more great guest to bring on the show today to share a little bit about her entrepreneur journey and how she structures her day. She is a very, very busy person, and I know so many people can relate to this, myself included, and it’s really great to hear some tips from somebody who’s in the trenches.

Before we get into my chat with Michelle from MJ’s Off the Hook Designs, I want to take a quick moment to thank my sponsor Annie’s. Now you know I’ve been talking about Annie’s Block of the Month Club. I’ve been working through the first three blocks myself. I actually just finished block number three. It was a really unique design. It incorporated some shell stitches, some V-stitches in a way that honestly I’ve never used before and I love it. I love the texture.

And one of the great things about this service is that you don’t get an entire project every single month, which really can be a little too much for us to handle at times. Now this gives us just a few bits and pieces of the pattern every single month. It took me about an hour to work up each one of these blocks. And for me, that’s totally doable. I’ll know that over the course of my subscription, I’ll be able to make a gorgeous blanket in a time frame that I can manage with my busy life.

So if you’re incredibly busy and you need a pudding project too, I would definitely encourage you to check out annieskitclubs.com slash bhpodcast. That’s going to take you straight to the page where you can learn about the subscription and save 50% off your first subscription. So check that out once again at Annie Manny’s kit clubs.com slash B H podcast. Make sure that’s all lowercase and I’ll see you on the inside.

There are a few resources that Michelle and I mentioned here in today’s show. And I want to let you know that you can find all of that over on the show notes page. I take all the notes for you. And for this particular episode, just head over to behookedcrochet.com slash session 078. I’ll have the resources linked out for you there. And you can also find out where to connect with Michelle online.

All right, so this was a great chat. I had so much fun connecting with Michelle here on the show, as well as in Toronto last year at the Our Maker Life event. She brings the goods, so grab your notebook. You’re probably going to need it. Michelle, hi. Welcome to the show.

Michelle: 3:31
Hi, Brittany. I’m so happy to be here.

Brittany: 3:34
I am equally as happy to have you here. We had the chance to meet a little over a year ago now in Toronto. And it was such a joy and such a pleasure. I’m glad that we can chat here on the show today.

Michelle: 3:31
Yeah, it was so exciting to actually meet you at the Maker Meetup. That was so fun. It was a great time.

Brittany: 3:38
It was. It was a lot of fun. So we’re continuing our theme here with planning, goal setting, productivity, and I’m really excited to hear how you plan your day, your week, and how you structure your year because I know that you are also an entrepreneur. And I’m sure you have a lot of value to add there.

But before we do, I want to give people a chance to learn a little bit more about you. So let’s start with how you got into the world of designing.

Michelle: 4:05
Okay, well, I actually just started crocheting in 2013. So just over, I guess, five years ago. So I haven’t really been crocheting a long time. But I’ve always had an interest in yarn. I’ve always just loved yarn. My nan taught me to knit when I was little but I really didn’t have a lot of skill—like I could make a scarf, so that was about the extent of that.

But I really wanted to learn how to crochet. My daughter was taking crocheting at school so I thought, okay, I’m going to learn. I’m going to learn how to do this. So in 2013, I started crocheting and it actually turned into a business fairly quickly.

A local shop was looking for someone to put product in her store. So I started providing product for this little shop in Lakefield, Trinkets and Treasures. And my business—it just started growing rather quickly. I found myself designing a lot of my own stuff. It came naturally and I wanted to make things a little bit quicker because I was getting so busy with orders from the store and through Facebook.

So I started designing a lot more bulky items. I would double up—do two strands. I guess even back then, bulky wasn’t super popular at that point, so I would double up the yarn or purchase bulky. But a lot of times I was just doubling up. So I started designing a lot of my own patterns. I wasn’t selling them at that point, I was just making them up for the product that I was selling.

And then, as my Facebook continued to grow, I started getting a lot of requests for my patterns. I was a little nervous, I have to say, about putting my patterns out there because I was so new to this whole world of crocheting and I was worried that I wouldn’t do the pattern right, that I wouldn’t follow the right structure—you know, that sort of thing.

So it probably took a year before I actually started publishing my patterns, and that was in 2015. So a couple years after I had started crocheting.

My first pattern that I put out was the Bulky and Quick Mermaid Blanket. I’m sure you guys are all familiar with the mermaid blanket. So that was my first. I started getting so many orders for that blanket right away. When I launched it—probably April of 2015—I was booking till Christmas with orders for the blanket. So I thought, okay, this will be the perfect blanket to publish the pattern because I can’t keep up. People kept asking, are you going to publish the pattern?

So that was my first pattern. And then with all the orders I had coming in for mermaids, people were asking for something for boys. So then I designed the shark and largemouth bass blanket—kind of a boy version of the mermaid. And then in July, the shark went viral.

Brittany: 7:31
Yes, I was going to ask about that.

Michelle: 7:33
Yeah, so the shark then went viral. I’d only started publishing my patterns in May and it was only a couple months later that the shark went viral. So it was quite overwhelming at the time because I had just started publishing patterns. I was still even nervous—like, am I doing this right? Are people going to like my patterns?

I mean, even when I look back now, I’m really critical of how I wrote them. But I just didn’t have the technical ability at that point that I do now.

Brittany: 8:04
Yeah.

Michelle: 8:05
So the shark went viral. It received over 33 million views and my Facebook page went crazy. And at that point, I had to still commit to all the orders that I had already pre-booked for the year, but that’s when I really decided to transition from selling finished product into more of a design career.

Because I thought, wow, this is kind of where maybe I’m meant to transition my business. I was so busy doing the finished product. You know the way it is when we’re making finished product, right? It takes up so much time. I found that I was losing that family time because I was so committed with orders. You have to produce to make money, right?

Brittany: 9:03
Yeah, that’s not really a scalable approach, right? I know that’s a lot of struggle that people face when they’re making their own goods. That’s really what sort of steered me away from it, too. I found myself being so stressed out by meeting orders and deadlines that I stopped enjoying what I was doing.

And so at that point, I really had to sit down and ask myself, okay, is this really the direction you want to go? And for me, that wasn’t the case. But thank God there are a lot of people out there that that really does excite and motivate them. So I think that that distinction is important to make early on. And it sounds like you made the right choice for you.

Michelle: 9:44
Yeah, and I was getting to the point with doing the fit—like I was getting overwhelmed. It’s that great thing—you want to be successful and you want people to love your stuff, which was happening for me. Everyone loved my stuff. I was so busy, but I was booking months in advance, and then it didn’t leave me a lot of wiggle room.

So I had that commitment all the time that I had to keep making. And it’s not like I was making a big salary.

Brittany: 10:13
Yeah.

Michelle: 10:15
You know what I mean? So it was a lot of work for not. So I started brainstorming—how am I going to start turning this into a real, profitable business that I can commit to full time?

Designing was really how I thought I could supplement my income and start scaling back a little bit on the finished product. But with how well my designs were doing, I was able to transition right into just designing.

Brittany: 10:51
Yeah. So that’s cool. So you’ve been doing just designing now since 2015—so the past like two and a half years. I can imagine in that time you have learned a lot. I know I have just in the last couple of years.

Well, 2017 was the first year I went full time with my business and I had been working on it for a while on the side. But wow—in just a year and a half, I have learned so much and I’ve changed so many things.

And the first thing I want to do is kind of look at it from a broad perspective, kind of like an overview, and then really start to get into the nitty gritty details. So thinking about it in terms of your year, give me an overview of what your ideal year looks like. So when you’re doing your planning, is there any structure?

Michelle: 11:44
Yes, definitely. I mean, I always leave room for flexibility, but I definitely have a vision and goal for the coming year. So I like to look at what designs I’m leaning toward doing. There’s always room to add in a spur-of-the-moment design, but I really like to have a focus.

Especially now that I’ve got into it—I’m two and a half years in—my blankets still tend to be my most popular items. So I’ve been trying to focus more on themes for my blanket designs so I can keep myself a little more focused. Because easily, as a creative, I can get really distracted with, “Oh, I want to make this, I want to make this,” right?

So I’m really trying to streamline: okay, this is my focus for the year for MJ’s designs. But then I also have to schedule in my luxury brand as well, Century Box Designs. If I’m making a garment or accessory, I try to put it under that brand now. So I like to look at what designs I want to do for that brand.

And then also I look at magazine submissions, yarn company submissions—because I can only commit so much time. So I really need to take a look at my year and see what I can fit in. Because for submissions, we need to submit in advance. Usually, we’re looking at—right now we’re looking at summer next year submissions. So you have to be thinking ahead—what can I fit in?

And I can’t do too many, just because I don’t have the time. So it’s good to have a good idea of what your year is going to look like.

I also like to have a specific focus on what I want to grow. So I’ll narrow in—YouTube videos, I want to produce more content there. This past year I’ve been really focused on providing video tutorials with my patterns. That adds almost double or more time to a pattern than it would take without a video.

But I was also providing a lot of pattern support without the video. So in my mind, I’m thinking if I commit that time to do the video, it will cut back on the emails and support that go along with the patterns—some of the things that initially you don’t think about.

You end up doing a lot of admin, not actual design time. So yeah, I really like to look at what patterns I’ll do video tutorials for. Some are simple enough that I might not do a video, but I take a broad look and then start scheduling in my months where my focuses are going to be.

Brittany: 14:51
Love it. I love how you were able to see that maybe taking on a little bit of extra work will cut back in other areas. It’s a really strategic approach. I’m curious, how many designs are you able to commit to in a year if you had like a rough estimate?

Michelle: 15:11
I would say about 24, just because I look at about two a month. I can sometimes squeeze more in, but I honestly like to give myself a little bit of flexibility because of the videos. And you know, if I want to squeeze in like some free tutorials on YouTube—you know what I mean? I don’t over—I definitely don’t try to do one a week. That’s just, with everything else I have going on in my weeks, I find that’s a little bit too big of a commitment. So if I look at two, two to three usually is what I can do. But yeah, I should say though that sometimes I squeeze in those submissions and other things on top of that. I kind of stick to the two for MJs and Century Box. And then usually the submissions end up being kind of extras I’ve got to squeeze in.

Brittany: 16:00
Yeah. I can relate to that a lot. I am very comfortable with 24 a year. And that’s just—honestly, I figured that out the hard way because I overcommitted myself and I nearly killed myself trying to meet all of the deadlines. And so this year I took what I learned from that situation and said, okay, that was a little much last year. Let’s try this number this year. And I feel like it’s a learning process for everybody. Everyone is going to have their own situation, their own comfort zone. So I guess advice for somebody who’s maybe trying to figure out what that is, what would you say to them?

Michelle: 16:46
I would definitely say to not overcommit because you can always—like I say, you can always squeeze in. Like sometimes I just have a random, you know, something I have to just do, you know, that’s going to be quick. And if I can squeeze that in, that’s great. But don’t overcommit, because I find life can just get in the way.

I mean, I’m a mom of four. So my life is busy, and I have to prioritize all the time. So I just think that—you know, and don’t be too hard on yourself, right? Like, that’s what I think. We got to give ourselves some slack. So if you don’t overcommit, look at what’s reasonable for you. Really look at what your week looks like, what your schedule looks like.

And every design is different too. So if you’re doing a garment, that might take you two to three weeks to complete that pattern. If it’s a cowl or a scarf, that might take you two days. So it really—you’ve got to look at the piece you’re designing and sort of look at, okay, these are the things I want to make. And even if it’s not a whole year, if it’s two, three months—or even the next month. Some people don’t like to plan way in advance. Say, okay, these are the designs I want to do. And then realistically look at the time commitment that that design is going to take.

Because if you are doing a garment and you’ve got to figure out all the sizes, there’s just a lot more that goes into designing a sweater than designing a hat.

Brittany: 18:14
Exactly. Yeah, yeah. The one thing I would add to that too is fight your instinct to look at what everybody else is doing. It might be doable for me and you to do 24 in a year. And it might not be doable for somebody else. So for me, if I just sort of tune out what everybody else is doing, then I fight that instinct of comparing myself and my productivity to others.

Michelle: 18:42
Yeah, that really is important. Especially because we’re so—I even find the difference now from when I started to now. Like, just there’s so many more makers out there. I’m on—you know, I try to be social on social media and seeing what everyone’s doing. And I find like it’s just—we are—it’s easy to compare with everyone else.

But I find if you really look at people, we all kind of have almost our own thing in certain ways or different things that make us all unique. And I think that’s important—to really embrace what makes you unique and what you’re good at. Try—not—don’t try to be what someone else is. Like, find your own niche and what you’re good at and what kind of inspires you and makes you happy and gets you excited.

Brittany: 19:30
Yes. I think when you do that, then not only will you just grow by nature because you’re just doing what you love, but I think that’s when you can be your most productive self too.

Michelle: 19:41
Exactly. Exactly. When you love it and you’re doing what you’re excited about, it’s amazing how productive you can be.

Brittany: 19:50
Yes. So I’m curious, do you plan your entire year or do you plan like little bits of it? Like say right now you’re planning for maybe like three months out, or maybe you’re just planning the beginning of next year. How does that structure look for you?

Michelle: 20:06
I guess I get down to the nitty gritty like a month at a time, maybe a month to two months, but definitely I look at my year for designs and then I go more nitty gritty from month to month in my schedule.

Brittany: 20:19
Okay.

Michelle: 20:20
I mean, lately I’m kind of really scheduling for fall. So I have a lot more put into my schedule this time of year. I try to keep the summer pretty flexible just because my kids are off school and I think it’s important to make time for them. So I try to be flexible over the summer month.

And then I really get things scheduled into the fall. So probably maybe two, three months out. I really pull out the calendar and start writing everything in. This is what I’m doing this. And I think that schedule really does help me to stay focused on what I need to complete each week.

But I’ve really learned, honestly, to—unless it’s like a specific deadline, like I have to get a submission done for a magazine or something—I try to give myself a little bit of slack and not be too hard on myself. I really do.

Brittany: 21:08
Yeah. You got to keep it fun, right?

Michelle: 21:10
Yeah. I find if I get too busy, wound up, I do start losing the joy. And I always kind of go back to: I’m doing this. This is my passion. This is my love. I love what I do. And I like to keep that spirit in everything I do.

Like, I like to be really excited about my designs. And I’m young at heart. I’ve got kids. So my blankets to me are so fun. I get so excited over every blanket I make—maybe a little too excited—but that’s for me what it is. It’s really fun. So I try not to be too hard on myself.

But I am a type—I have to say I am a type A personality though. I am a scheduler and I like to stick to that schedule. But, you know, if I have a sick kid or something else is going on with family, I do make sure I prioritize what’s most important at any given time.

Brittany: 22:06
Yes. And I think in a lot of cases, we need to prioritize our family first.

Michelle: 22:13
Yeah. And that’s—I find sometimes the kids take priority and things have to take a backseat. And then other times, yeah, you know, I’ll work—I feel like I work 24 hours straight trying to get something done, right?

And I used to feel sometimes guilty about that, like with my kids, but you know, then I sat back and—you really have to look at it. There are so many times when I take a day off and I prioritize them, and I’m able to do that with my job. I’m able to be flexible and be there for the kids when they need me.

But then when I have a deadline or I need to get something done—and sometimes when you’re into a design, you just need to stay in that focus. And it’s so easy to lose focus when you’re pulled away. So if I have to just spend that time straight working on it, I do that. And my husband’s able to pick up that slack for me with the kids, right? Like, so we’re able to balance. We’re able to balance that. But that is not an everyday occurrence, right? So you just have to learn how to prioritize.

Brittany: 23:13
Yeah. And I think that’s all a learning process too. And I don’t think it’s something that any one person will ever master because I feel like once you get into a rhythm and you’re like, I’m really comfortable with what I’m doing right now, something happens and it shakes things up and then you have to pivot and just readjust.

Yeah, that’s so true.

So let’s zoom in a little bit and talk about how you structure your week. And now for me, my listeners know that I like to have themed days and it’s something that has worked really well for me. I’m able to stick to it, I would say 90% of the time, but you know, some things happen and sometimes I’m left picking up on a project that I wasn’t able to finish the day before.

But for me, that’s really worked. And I’m curious to see if you follow any kind of structure as well for your week or if you just take it like one project at a time where you just start on a project at the beginning of the week and you work on that throughout the whole week. Like, how does that look for you?

Michelle: 24:16
Okay, so my weeks can honestly vary and it’s just the way I roll. I mean, I have my schedules. I have to do these designs. In some things, I’m very structured.

So I, you know, beginning my day, I just sort of like to sit down. Usually first thing—I love my coffee in the morning. So I kind of need that half an hour to an hour in the morning just to wake up and just to kind of prioritize my day. So I have my coffee, check my social media, kind of do those things and look at: what do I need to get done today?

And I find for me, I’m freshest in the mornings to get my sort of important tasks in early afternoon. So I do a lot of my admin sort of right away. I’ll get into emails, kind of go through, check my Ravelry messages or my different pages, see what I need to comment on—that sort of thing. I find it’s just my best time if I do it first thing.

And then I like to kind of just put that away. I mean, the odd time, you know, there’s maybe an emergency thing I need to get to, but I like to say, okay, I’ve got to the emails this morning and then they’re done. And then I sort of move on to something else.

Because I find we can easily get distracted checking things throughout the day. So I’m pretty structured with how I kind of have my day flow. I do ship yarn and different things, so I like to make sure I get all the orders together. My dad helps me with some of my admin work, which is great. So he does some email support as well and does my shipping. So I just have to pull an order and then he gets that ready for me to ship. So that’s helpful.

But then I like to really—it can vary day to day what I focus in on. That’s why I like to prioritize in the morning or based on my schedule what things need to get done. So I’ll get into doing my designing by morning, early afternoon. I’m getting those really important tasks done that’s on my schedule when I know I’m going to be most productive.

And I just know that about myself—that that’s my freshest. If I’ve got to focus on pattern writing, that’s the time I need to be doing it.

So I really almost not so much look at it day to day, but sort of for my week, I would say. Because I do Facebook scheduling and Pinterest scheduling as well. And sometimes that will take up a whole day. But I lump sum it. So it’s—I’m not written in stone: I do this Monday, I do this Tuesday. To me, it’s just how it flows through my week.

If I’m really feeling like I need to pattern write today, I go with that. If it’s the day that, okay, I need to sit and do social stuff, I’m going to schedule. I’m going to do photo stuff. That’s how my day flows.

I usually don’t actually crochet daily. In the day I do most of the admin, writing, scheduling, all that stuff—and save my crocheting for later in the day.

Brittany: 25:40
Yeah, I do too.

Michelle: 25:41
Do you? Yeah, I find I’m just not—it’s sort of—for me it’s relaxing. It’s almost my downtime. Like I’m anxious to get to that part of the day where I can sit and relax. Usually it’s like with the family—you know, we usually watch TV together or whatever—and I crochet. And that’s when I actually get the crocheting in.

Brittany: 28:04
mm-hmm Me too. It’s almost like my way of prying myself from the computer because I really do love the computer aspect of everything. I love editing. I love tinkering with the website. And I find it really difficult for me to get up and leave the office at a normal time.

And for me, I like to get out a couple hours before my husband comes home from work. I like to start on preparing dinner, you know, doing some housework or just generally feeling like okay, my work day is over and this is my evening time. So for me crocheting or knitting is like the way I entice myself out of the office by saving that until later.

Michelle: 28:50
Yeah, the odd thing like if I need to kind of, you know, if I’m swatching or doing something kind of nitty gritty with a pattern, then I have to do it while I’m writing and stuff. But if it’s just sort of the… the majority of it gets left for later.

And I usually like to actually—I usually take a break for fitness through my day. Sometimes I do it in the morning, but to be honest, because I’m so fresh at doing my work in the morning, unless I get up really early, I tend to save it for later in the day when I’m sick of actually sitting.

Brittany: 29:24
Yeah, I’ll be like—

Michelle: 29:25
Okay, okay, I need like a mental break now. And I will go and, I mean, this time of year, I love it because I love to be outside. So I’ll run. I do running or cycling. I’m really into cycling this year. I’ve gotten obsessed with it. So I usually take a break and do that. And that’s kind of my me time.

And I feel it keeps me mentally healthy to do that—to take a break. And I find I’m more creative. Usually when I’m running and cycling, I get my creative moments. So I think that’s important too. It’s important to take that time. Yeah, like you say, even getting the housework or getting a few things done—just like a break from that mental work.

Brittany: 30:08
Yeah, I think one of the struggles that all of us entrepreneurs share is not having that separation between work and life. Like there is no balance between work and life unless you set those boundaries. So I agree, incorporating some kind of fitness into your day—for me, it’s not something that I want to do necessarily.

I know that I need to. And so I make sure that I schedule those things in. Because for me, if something doesn’t get scheduled, and if I can’t hold myself accountable for the things that I’ve said I wanted to complete, then I just won’t do it. And the first thing that gets shoved aside, honestly, is my own health. And that catches up to you.

You can’t sit for hours in a day. Honestly, you can’t sit there and crochet or knit for hours on hours without feeling the repercussions of that. So for me—

Michelle: 31:06
I’ve actually found it—yeah. I found it really hard transitioning from standing a lot, being on my feet all day to all of a sudden, okay, I’m sitting all day. Like this is not— I just, I honestly, I started almost getting anxiety of just, I need to get out of the house.

So that’s sort of what I get after a while. It’s like, I need to get up and move. I need to go. So it kind of—it’s just something that I have to do for me. Like I just feel like I’m going to, you know—unless, like I say, it’s a deadline or something and I have to just stay focused, I will usually take a break and go.

But I also incorporate that somewhat as family time too, because my kids like biking or, you know, I usually end up bringing somebody with me. We do it together. We kind of turn it into a family thing. So it’s kind of good for all of us—all around—if mom takes a break.

Brittany: 31:58
Yes. Yes. I definitely agree. Just for me, learning the hard way, skipping breaks is not a good thing. It’s not something that’s going to help you with your productivity. It’s not going to save you time. It’s going to cost you time—and potentially your health. So definitely learn from my mistake there.

Michelle: 32:17
I’ve had times where I’ve got out of it too and that’s where I’m like okay I need to refocus. I have to—especially in the winter when I don’t want to, you know, when it’s not really fun to go outside and it’s freezing.

Brittany: 32:29
Yes, then you have to find some alternatives. I like to do—I don’t know if this is really a thing—I call it restorative yoga. It’s not like difficult yoga. It’s not really intended to like get me to my zen place or really get my heart rate going. It’s really just stretching.

I find that sitting—no matter if I’m sitting at my computer or sitting in my chair doing my crocheting—I’m a pretty young person still and sometimes it’s hard for me to stand up. And that was my reality check. Like, wow, my bones, my joints, my muscles—they are tensing up because I’m sitting in the same position for so long.

And just getting down and stretching for 30 minutes is—Honestly, when I started doing that, I thought, oh, yeah, this feels really good. I would kind of bounce up and I felt really rejuvenated. Well, then, of course, I would fall into my habit of pushing that aside because I wanted to do something else.

And I really started to feel it. My back would start to ache. My shoulders would start to ache. My elbows, my wrists—like everything started. Reminded me, hey, you need to do this. You need to get down and stretch. We need to move. And so now it’s something that I can’t live without, like on a regular basis. I incorporate it in my morning and in my afternoons.

Michelle: 33:51
Yeah, that’s—yeah, stretching is so important. And it’s amazing how it really makes you feel better.

Brittany: 33:58
It really does.

Michelle: 33:59
Yes, it really—my husband can vouch for that too, because he has a bad back. And he’s like, if I do my stretches, I’m good. If I don’t do my stretches, I’m not good. So yeah, it’s amazing what just stretching alone can do for your health.

Brittany: 34:17
Yeah, I challenge the listeners to—wherever they are right now—maybe you can’t get down and stretch. But promise me five minutes of your time today where you will get down and stretch. Whatever muscle you feel is the achiest.

It could be like your forearms if you’re doing a lot of crocheting or knitting. For me, it’s my back because I’m sitting for so long. Just stretching out my spine—I promise you won’t regret it.

Yeah. So you mentioned before that you have different tasks that you want to do each day. I know one of the struggles for me is that I am a little overambitious. And sometimes I’ll say I need to do five or six things today, and I don’t look and think realistically of how long each one of those things are going to take me to complete.

So I think looking at it from a “what are your three most important things that you need to get done?”—taking that approach has definitely helped me. Do you set a number to how many things you want to complete in a day?

Michelle: 35:22
I honestly don’t say that I set a number. I just prioritize what needs to get done. And I guess I’ve got to the point where I know sort of a general idea how long things take. And I’ve had to learn that the hard way too.

Like when I’m putting out a new pattern, for instance, you think, oh, well, we just have to publish it to Ravelry. Well, no. You know, you’ve got to post it to all of your—like wherever you’re selling your patterns, blog posts, all the—like all the photo editing, newsletter…

By the time you get all those things done, like it’s a good day just releasing a pattern for the day. And then the promotion.

So I really try to be realistic with my time. Like this is—yeah. And I—for me, like just for me—writing takes me longer. Some people, it comes naturally. I’m not a natural writer. I love writing. The creative side of what I do, it’s so much like the writing part of what I do. It takes me a little bit longer.

But I just know that, you know, it’s going to take me a bit of time to get my blog post done because I’ll fuss over, you know, what I’m saying or I’ll keep it short and sweet if I don’t, you know, have a lot to say. But I just know that those things are going to take time—a long time.

So that’s why, again, I don’t over-prioritize, but I really look at, okay, what is the priority of this day? Maybe I should, you know, do my Pinterest scheduling or my Facebook—you know, like what’s the top priority for that day, what I need to get done. And then I just go from there.

Brittany: 37:00
That’s a good tip. Do you have any time management tips? I know that’s something that, gosh, I feel like we all struggle with time management and we all have our own little tricks. Are there any things that you do or things that you’ve implemented to help you with that?

Michelle: 37:13
Well, I would say first off, just knowing what your personal and professional commitments are and making sure you have them in your calendar. That’s a super—like, don’t rely on your memory. That’s what I’ve learned. Don’t rely on your memory—write it down, put it in your calendar. First off, know your month. I mean, for me, I have a really busy schedule, so I have to calendar everything. I’ve got kids’ appointments, so I have to put everything in the calendar. And then really, you have to prioritize and also delegate. If I can delegate things out, I do that as well.

I mean, right now I’ve kind of gone through a process where I’ve had help and then not as much help, but for a while, when I was really busy with viral patterns, I had to get help, right? I needed help with social media. I needed help. So that’s really important, because you don’t want to be spending your time on things that aren’t going to be productive for you—if you can get help and you can delegate things out.

And even having my dad—I call him my admin assistant, I mean, I guess he is my assistant—he does all my bookkeeping. Any emails that my dad can help with, like sending out… I get a lot of people having problems with download links. I’m sure you probably know that too, like, “I didn’t get my pattern,” you know? Just little things that I don’t have to address. So what I do is my email is really well organized into folders, and my webpage—there’s a dropdown menu. It goes to pattern support, admin, download issues… I’m just getting the pattern support stuff that I need to deal with.

So managing your time that way—like, a lot of that preparation and organization ahead of time—goes a long way to make sure that you’re not spending your time on things you don’t need to be spending it on. And I had to learn that the hard way, because when my shark went viral, I did not have an organized email system, and I had all these emails coming through, and you’re trying to find the important things that you need to address, right?

Decluttering—for me, that’s really important. I find I can be a messy designer. I don’t know if anyone else out there—creatives are messy—but I can tend to get pretty messy when I’m working on a lot of stuff. So I like to take time to keep things organized. I feel like when you have an organized space, it just helps you think clearer. I can get messy, but then I need to clean things up, declutter.

And I mean, one of the other things—I know this is really hard for everyone—but staying off my phone is really important, because you can spend so much time doing things that… I give myself 30 minutes to an hour a day for being social on social media. I will do an Instagram post—that’s one thing I don’t schedule in advance. I plan (and we’ll get into that later), but I plan out my week with Instagram. But I will go on Instagram to post the day of. And I’ll spend some time liking and commenting and just being social on social media, scrolling through.

But I have to put my phone aside and not look at it except for that scheduled time, because your time can get wasted so quickly being on your phone. So yeah, I can agree with all of those things.

Brittany: 41:14
Those are some really great time management tips. I’m curious real quick—what kind of calendar do you use? Do you use like a digital calendar, or do you have a physical planner that you like to write in?

Michelle: 41:26
Okay, I use my phone calendar and I have reminders. I have a lot of stuff going on in my phone calendar. But I do also write down on a calendar as well the designs I’m going to work on for the week. But I mainly use my phone calendar and have reminders in there to remind me. I mean, I even have reminders to tell me to eat, honestly, because I can get busy in my day, and I found I would sometimes just… I wouldn’t eat, or I would get a coffee and that’s it. So I have reminders to remind myself, “Okay, take a break, do this.” Everything coming up—it reminds me a day or two in advance, “You’ve got this coming up,” which I find really helpful. I need that. I just—I have so much going on. I need my phone to tell me I have something coming up.

But for my designs, I do like to just have printed calendars and write out—and just have it by my desk—these are the designs I’m working on this month. So yeah, and for me, I’m visual. I like that. I like to have that paper copy to show me.

Brittany: 42:47
Yeah. It sounds like there are a lot of us out there who do calendar blocks in a digital calendar and then still have something that we can write—have that pen-to-paper connection. Now, I know there’s a bunch of apps that you use too to help you be productive, be social. Can you share some of those?

Michelle: 43:08
These are just the apps we have now. Okay, so—Tailwind I love. I mean, Tailwind, you can get a monthly free trial, but Tailwind is amazing. One of my focuses lately has been Pinterest. It’s one thing I haven’t focused on growing. I was really focused on Facebook, Instagram, all my other social channels. And Pinterest—I was on there, but I wasn’t really utilizing it like I needed to be. So I’ve really started focusing.

And Tailwind has helped me so much with that, because you can schedule out all your pins—it’s amazing. I’ll schedule, like, honestly, 500 pins. And you can have it so that so many are pinned a day for you at random times. So you can choose—if you want five pins a day, 20 pins a day, whatever you want. Right now, I’m pinning 20 a day. So I’ll go in—and I’m not just pinning my own content—I’ll pin other people’s content as well that I like.

So I’m in a lot of different group boards on Pinterest. I have tribes on Tailwind that I’m in. I’ll go into my tribes and look, and so many of the designers that are on there, I know them—I know them from social media and Instagram. So it’s just great. I think it builds community—we’re pinning each other’s stuff, and it’s great.

But Tailwind has been amazing for that. If you haven’t checked Tailwind out, you need to check it out. I went from having about 30,000 monthly views on Pinterest to about 600,000 a month, just over the summer. I kind of got into it in the spring and now over the summer, I’m scheduling everything out in advance. I’m going back through a lot of my old patterns, making pretty pins for them, trying to join as many group boards as possible.

And then what you can do with Tailwind is go to your blog post or your Ravelry or Etsy, and you can schedule it to pin—and schedule it to go to all of those group boards. But they go at random times, because you can spread them out over, let’s say, a month, so you’re not flooding all those boards at once. Before, I’d just sit down and randomly pin in the evening—not really having a strategy. Now I’ve switched to a strategy with Pinterest—not just random, and not just when I have a pattern, pinning it to my own board.

And Pinterest seems to be the thing—because engagement has been down on Facebook—I’ve needed something else to get my stuff out there. We don’t have the views on Facebook we used to. So being a little bit of everywhere is good.

So Tailwind is a great app. And also, what I really like for Instagram is Plan. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Plan?

Brittany: 48:09
I haven’t, no.

Michelle: 48:11
You can plan out your Instagram posts for the week or whatever, and you can look at your grid. Because what I’ve been learning—I’ve learned a lot about Instagram over the last year too—but it seems like there are so many rules for all this stuff. Like, your grid has to look pretty, it all has to coordinate nicely, archive everything that doesn’t fit in with your grid…

But anyway, what Plan allows you to do is go in, let’s say—I’ll go through my photos—“Okay, I want to share this for the week.” I’ll arrange them so they coordinate nicely, so you’re not stacking similar pictures on top of each other. Because sometimes that would happen to me, and I’d be like, “Oh, why did I do that?”

So you can arrange all that, plus you can actually put in everything you want to say as well. You can have it all scheduled ahead of time and then just post it the day of. You can write out what you want to say, put in all your hashtags and all that, and then just go ahead and post.

Now, Tailwind actually lets you schedule for Instagram too—I just haven’t used that feature yet because I’ve been using Plan.

And here’s a little tip: I save hashtags in my Notes so I don’t have to type them every time. I used to think, “Man, this takes forever just to do a post.” So now I try to save different favorites—even for different themes. Like if it’s a mermaid-themed post, I’ll have a mermaid hashtag group. I’ll switch them up occasionally too, obviously. But yeah, that helps make scheduling a little bit faster, because social media can consume a lot of your time.

Brittany: 48:43
Yeah, it really can. And it can get out of control really quick.

Michelle: 48:48
yeah it can so I think it Like I say, having that sort of time limit for me, like, okay, I’m going to spend this much time. I’m not going to be on there all the time checking messages. I just can’t. And I think early on in my career, I felt like I did, because you know how they have everything on Facebook, you know, like you need to respond right away to everything.

Brittany: 49:08
Yeah, there’s actually a little tick bar there, like, hey, you need to respond to this person to maintain a good

Michelle: 49:13
number. And I really… you know early on in my business like I was always on there all the time like just responding and I just got that it became really too overwhelming and I couldn’t I couldn’t stay on top of that not with how big my following had become. I actually don’t, I mean, I am thinking of maybe putting messaging back on my Facebook page, but I don’t have messaging on my Facebook just because my Facebook page so large, I couldn’t keep up. I couldn’t keep up with it. Yeah. And I found it was really stressful.

So I try to just have everything flow to my email. And then through my email, everything is allocated out so that again, I’m only dealing with what I need to deal with which is mainly you know my my pattern support or right things that my dad can’t do for me. So yeah the the apps are really helpful. I mean in Facebook you can schedule without an app and I do that all the time. I rarely ever share something to Facebook live, like I usually it’s always scheduled in advance. And to be quite honest, I probably won’t get a whole lot of posting done if I didn’t schedule if I didn’t take that day and schedule out posts because my day is just so full generally that

Brittany: 50:33
yeah

Michelle: 50:33
it’s just easier to sit down for me and take half a day or a day just to kind of do all my like schedule all those pins and do a bunch of Facebook posts. Now what I’ll do is if a new pattern’s coming out then I’ll fit in those posts because I may have a month or more of Facebook posts scheduled and then I’ll just adjust them if I’ve got a new pattern release and I want to share some new photos or you know, I’ll just go in and reschedule a post that I have scheduled.

Brittany: 51:04
Yeah, that makes sense. I know for me, I was a little bit hesitant to jump on the scheduling train there because I felt like that took some of the authenticity out of it. But what I realized is that, like you, my day is really full. So I would rarely take few minutes here and there to schedule because that few minutes inevitably turned into five, ten, and that adds up. Anywhere you can save just a few minutes is worth it in my book.

You said that you set a limit for yourself where you’re just on social media for 30 minutes or an hour a day. How do you stick to that?

Michelle: 51:44
I just don’t go on my phone a whole lot, which seems crazy, right? But I’ve just had to, for me, I just, I’m not productive if I have the phone handy. I’m just not. So for me to get my designs done and do the other things throughout my day, and sometimes, you know, I might miss a day of scheduling an Instagram, and sometimes I feel like, oh, I should have, you know, I should have, but I just needed to prioritize that day. And if I knew if I was on there… Right. I wouldn’t get other things done.

So I really have to. And maybe some days I break that rule. Like I’m not going to say, oh, I never. But generally, I’m honestly not. And I’m usually not that much on my personal Facebook at all. I’ll occasionally just scroll through, kind of check things. But I just I just don’t have the time. And for me, it really is about priorities. I have to prioritize and I can’t. I always think time is money. I have to prioritize.

So for the scheduling and see for Instagram, and I think that’s why I don’t have everything scheduled ahead for Instagram, because I feel I’m more connected on Instagram than I am on Facebook now. And I do go on and answer comments and make sure like I like things. And usually that’s at the end of the day, unless I randomly get, you know, a chance to jump on there and check for comments and stuff. But I try to keep it that I just go on a certain time, I go and I check them all and that’s just sort of the routine I’ve got into.

Yeah. It’s just not, yeah, not being… sometimes I’ll check to make sure something’s posted okay. But usually in the mornings I’ll check, okay, what do I have scheduled for the day? Kind of in that timeframe in the morning where I check my social media quickly and kind of get my day organized. I’ll see, okay, these are the posts I have scheduled. Okay, good. Do I need to switch anything up? Like that sort of thing. And then I just go from there. And then usually Instagram, I usually will go on a little bit later in the day, unless I’m super ambitious and get my post right out there in the morning. But sometimes it’s later on.

Brittany: 53:58
Well, it sounds like willpower is definitely strong in your book. So I know that’s something we can all work towards getting better at. I know for me, I’m not too different from that. I do use my phone to keep track of my time. I use the timesheet app. And that has been a great way for me to know just how much time I’m spending on each of my different things so that I can use that information for the future, like planning out my next year.

So I have all the notifications turned off on my phone. There’s only two people who can get through to me during the day and that’s my mom and my husband. And I just had to mute the notifications because that desire to check and people please and just find the next shiny thing — it was just a little too much for me. So for me, yeah, I just kind of have to keep it at arm’s length. So I know that I can do the things that are most important.

And important, I think, you know, the moral of the story here is just figuring out what works for you. And that’s why I’m really glad we can have conversations like this, because I’m able to share some of the things that work for me. You’re able to share some of the things that work for you. And then somebody listening on the other end can pick bits and pieces from each of our experiences and kind of craft their own.

Michelle: 55:24
Yeah, and that really is what it’s all about. We’re all so different and unique and we’re all going to, you know, some people may be more productive in the evenings, right? And some people are more nighthawks and they do their best work later on. And I think everyone has to kind of adapt their schedule and that’s what’s awesome about being an entrepreneur. We really can kind of make our own, you know, our own schedule as to when we’re most productive.

And I can take those, you know, late afternoon, you know, breaks and go for a bike or go for a run or, you know, whenever it fits into my schedule well, which is what I love — that I have that flexibility. But yeah, definitely. I’m going to check out that timesheet app because that looks like that would be actually a really good app for me as well.

Brittany: 56:13
Please do. I know if you are on iPhone, I don’t believe that it is available in the Apple store at this time. I have an Android phone. But there is a version that is similar on Apple. I don’t have it off the top of my head right now, but I’ll link to it in the show notes. And Michelle, I’ll email it to you because I know somebody who was using an iPhone found this and said, hey, like this is basically the same thing and it worked for them.

So I’ll link to that in the show notes page. I also want to give people a chance to connect with you too. I mean, being an entrepreneur is kind of a lonely life to some extent. So it’s great to reach out to other people who are entrepreneurs, but then you have a lot of really great designs and I want the listeners who maybe aren’t an entrepreneur or maybe aren’t designing to have a chance to see what you have going on. Where’s the best place for them to go?

Michelle: 57:06
I would say the best place is to go to my website, which is mjsoffthehookdesigns.com. And then from there, you can find all of my other social media, YouTube channel, my Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest — all those places. So the best place to go is my website. And then that’s all my contact information is there.

Brittany: 57:27
Excellent. So I will link to all of that in the show notes page. So if you’re listening, you don’t have to try to memorize that. I’ll have it linked for you there in the show notes.

And Michelle, thank you so much. It’s been such a fun conversation. I love chatting with people about entrepreneurship and productivity and this has been a real treat.

Michelle: 57:44
It’s been great for me too and thanks for sharing all of your little tips as well Brittany.

Brittany: 57:50
Well, I hope you enjoyed that chat just as much as I did. I got so much out of that. A lot of little tips that I’m going to try and implement and see if they work. And I hope that you were able to find some little gold nuggets in there to apply in your routine as well.

So once again, you can connect with Michelle online at her website, MJ’s Off the Hook Designs. I’ve linked to that in the show notes page as well as her Instagram handle so you can connect with her in a more social setting. You can find all of that on the show notes page at BHookedCrochet.com/session078.

Also, that link to check out Annie’s Block of the Month Club is annieskitclubs.com/bhpodcast. That’s B-H-P-O-D-C-A-S-T. Make sure all of that is lowercase. When you type that into your browser to check out this service and to learn more about it, please use that link. This is how they know that you heard about this through the show. And of course, that helps me because they are a sponsor here. But I know this service will help you if you feel like you’re just stressed to the max, you have no extra time, but you still want to pursue your hobby. You still want to make something for you. Annie’s Block of the Month Club could be just the thing that you need.

So check that out once again at annieskitclubs.com/bhpodcast.

Now we’re going to wrap things up next week with one more episode on the topic of planning, productivity, and goal setting. And this time I wanted to relate it to the hobby crocheters and knitters in the audience. I know not all of you have a business or are interested in that sort of thing. So I definitely appreciate that you tune in and listen to these types of episodes because there are a lot of golden nuggets you can find from each of the guests.

But I don’t want to neglect those of you who are just doing this for fun. And so next week, I want to talk to you about how you can organize your projects and how you can stay motivated to complete them. So stay tuned for that next week. I will see you then. And until then, have a wonderful weekend. Bye-bye.