Dealing with Maker Stress and Juggling Deadlines | Podcast Episode #61

This post may contain affiliate links. See our Disclosure Policy for more information.

Do you overbook yourself with deadlines?

You’re not alone! As makers, we need to find the balance between what we think we can handle and what we actually can handle. It’s best to take an educated approach to figure this out. That’s what this episode is all about!

Special Guest

I’m joined by, Tara, from the Explore Your Enthusiasm Podcast and we chat all about the different stresses we face as hobbyists, entrepreneurs, and bloggers and the ways we deal with them to stay productive and happy.

Episode Transcript

Brittany:
And welcome to episode number 61 of the BHooked podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today. I hope you’re having a wonderful day, a wonderful week, and an even better month.

This is the final episode in our Stitch Away Stress theme month of April, and I think I may have saved the best one for last. I really enjoyed the conversation that I had with my guest. It was one of those very insightful conversations, and we really went back and forth about different ways we experience stress both in our hobby and in our business. And then we brainstormed some different ways to avoid that and maybe dig ourselves out from that stress.

And then we take it another step further and we talk about dealing with the stress of deadlines. Now, when Tara first started out, she was doing something completely different that I think makers will really relate to. And then, of course, I talk about my stressors with juggling deadlines in terms of pattern writing.

Now, this is one of those wonderful, wonderful shows. So I’m glad that you’re here with me today. But before we get into my interview with Tara Swiger, I want to take a quick moment to thank our sponsor, Yarnspirations.

I do want to let you know that the coupon that they’re giving us as B Hooked podcast listeners — this is the final week. So if you’re going to order any yarn from their website, make sure you listen in and you act before the end of the month.

If Yarnspirations is a brand new name to you, I want to just let you know how wonderful of a yarn company they are, both from a consumer standpoint, but also for me as somebody to work with. They have amazing products. They have a wonderful website that is basically a goldmine of inspiration. They have tons of free patterns, tons of video tutorials hosted by people like myself, Mikey from The Crochet Crowd, and so much more.

You definitely want to check them out if you haven’t done so already. And like I said, they’ve secured a discount for us as B Hooked Podcast listeners. And it’s just for you. You can save 20% off your order of $40 or more when you order from Yarnspirations.com.

So if you’re looking to get some Bernat, Caron, Lily Sugar’n Cream, or Patons yarn, now’s the time to do it. Put it in your cart — at the checkout page, enter the coupon code BHOOKEDPOD. That’s B-H-O-O-K-E-D-P-O-D. And once again, that offer expires at the end of April 2018. So make sure you jump on that before it’s all gone.

There are a number of resources that Tara and I mention in our chat today — mainly about business. It’s going to be of interest to those of you who have a business or you’re looking to kind of take things to the next level.

Don’t worry about jotting it down as you’re listening to the episode. I know you’re probably doing other things or you might be on the go, or maybe you have your hook in your hand and you just don’t want to put it down. Well, I take all the notes for you over on the show notes page, and you can find that at behookedcrochet.com/session061.

Well, without further ado, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you fellow podcaster from the Explore Your Enthusiasm podcast, Tara Swiger, to the show. Tara, welcome to the B Hooked podcast. It’s so great to have you here.

Tara: 4:01
Thank you so much for having me.

Brittany: 4:21
But with being an entrepreneur comes a lot of stress, and that’s what we want to dive into a little bit today. But before we get into any of those details, I’m really curious to hear your story — where it all began and how it’s evolved into what it is.

Tara: 4:38
Okay, so it started way back in 2006. I started my first company, a yarn company, Blonde Chicken Boutique, and I started dyeing yarn for a local yarn shop, like custom colors. She had undyed yarn, and she had seen some yarn I had dyed for myself. I started spinning, and then I set up my shop on Etsy. It was one of the first shops when Etsy started.

I didn’t get actively involved for a while, but I, you know, just was into trying all of the things. And from 2006 to 2009, I did it on nights and weekends and took my yarn to shows. Then I got really much more dedicated to Etsy and a website and a blog. And the social media back then was like Flickr.

In 2009, I had grown my company so that it replaced my day job salary. I was a secretary at a local university, so it wasn’t an amazing job, and I was really glad to be done with it.

Since then — basically when I went full-time — people started asking me, “What? How did your company replace your day job salary? That’s crazy!” So I started answering people’s questions, first in just these free Q&A calls I would do in teleconferencing software. And then from there, I really wanted to answer people’s questions in a more thorough way.

I felt like them just asking one question and me saying what I had done wasn’t going to help them figure out what they should do — because everybody needs to do something slightly different. Everybody has a slightly different audience, a different skill set, a different, like… well, what we’d call now “brand” — but like a different personality and voice.

So I put together my first class in probably 2010. I then just kept creating classes for really all makers and artists — not just the yarn world. But of course, because of my background and because of the original internet friends I had, that’s where a lot of people were.

Through the years, I was asked to put my first class together in a book for Cooperative Press. That became Market Yourself in 2012. By 2013, I had shifted — I actually just found a picture or, you know, Facebook reminded me — of my last big wholesale customer order in 2013.

It was beginning to be really hard to fulfill my orders on time. And you know, spinning is so time intensive, as is dyeing. And I sold handspun yarn — so I would dye it, then spin it, then sell it. And in 2013 was the last time I took an order, and I moved entirely to helping people with their businesses.

By that point, I already had a lot of online classes and my online community. I was also traveling to teach at places like TNNA — the Needle Arts Association trade show. So I went entirely toward that in 2013, and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Brittany: 7:32
That’s really cool. So I think the time that I first learned who you were — honestly, it was on Twitter. I don’t spend a whole lot of time on Twitter, to be honest. But I found a video of you spinning. And I was so like… drawn to that video.

I think it was honestly one of the first times that I had really seen somebody doing it, and I was just like, “Wow, that is so cool. I need to do that.” I think I even reached out to you on Twitter and said, “This is awesome. That is so cool.”

Well, once I learned who you were, I started exploring. I was also going through a big podcast phase. For me, that was when I first learned what a podcast was and the value that it could bring to my life. And so I found your podcast next.

And ever since then, it’s just been a big goal of mine to kind of, for lack of a better phrase, pick your brain and figure out what has drawn you to teaching people about business.

If we’re going to be honest, it’s one of those things that a lot of people hold very close to them. There’s somewhat of a competitive nature that makes people feel like they need to keep their secrets close to them. And you’re not like that. And I love that about you.

So what was it that made you feel like you could share all of this with people and not feel like you’re going to, quote, “put yourself out of business” because of it?

Tara: 9:04
That’s such a good question. The business owners I work with today struggle with that because they will get people asking them questions. Everybody gets people asking you questions. You really have to decide, is it worth my time and energy to answer this person thoroughly?

But it comes back to that idea that you’re not going to put yourself out of business — because no one’s going to do what you do.

So I… Spinning and dyeing yarn is so time intensive that I could tell people all day long how to do it, but I knew that unless they dedicated the hours and the time to actually do it, and then label and then schlep to shows and take pictures and post on Etsy, I knew that answering somebody’s question wasn’t going to be the one thing they had to do to have a successful business.

They then had to do all of the work themselves. And if they did all of the work themselves, they deserve to have a successful business.

So yeah, there’s no one piece of information or like a way of thinking or organizational system or way you plan your days or planner you use that is going to fix everything and guarantee a successful business.

So it really comes down to doing the work and knowing the foundational basics, which is what I focus on teaching. And then from there, you have to put in the work. You have to do the trial and error. You have to talk to your customers. You have to hear what they want and then figure out if you want to create that for them. And if so, then how do you explain what you created and describe it in a way so that they see the value?

And there is no class you can take or even other maker you can talk to that’s going to give you those answers.

So I just always came from the place of — if they do the work, they deserve to have the great business. And me answering one question about where I got a certain supply or even showing how my spinning wheel worked — that’s a far cry from actually having a handspun yarn business.

Brittany: 11:07
That’s so true. I mean, that was when everything clicked for me — just realizing that, one, I’m an individual person, so nobody can duplicate me. And second, like you said, the percentage of people that will follow through with what you’re teaching is relatively low in the grand scheme of things, because there is so much that goes into having a yarn-related business.

I mean, we’re in the day where you can’t just get your income from one stream. I feel like you have to kind of do a little bit of everything in order to make it a sustainable business. Yeah.

Tara: 11:47
And I was going to say that the other way to look at it is that even if — even if a hundred more people created a sustainable business — it’s not going to hurt yours.

Because like you said, you’re an individual person. No one can recreate what you’re doing. And even people who copy everything you’re doing are still five steps behind. They’re not going to provide the kind of customer service. They’re not going to have the consistency and branding. They’re not going to have, like, your podcast. Only you could do your podcast.

So even if someone copied the kind of products you sell, they’re not going to have all of the other resources you have — because you’re you.

Brittany: 12:27
Well, a lot of this ties in with your mission and purpose with your business. Can you share that too? Because I think it’s something that a lot of people need to hear.

Tara: 12:36
Yeah. So my mission in the world is to help makers and artists and specifically women create a sustainable life that gives them time and money, freedom and independence. So what that means is I want people to be able to create what they have in their heart to create and share with the world and make a sustainable living from it and have a sustainable life.

And by sustainable, I mean, it doesn’t completely burn you out and wear you down to a little nub. Like you’re actually enjoying it and it’s joyful and you get paid fairly for it. And there is a lot of work that goes into creating it, but there’s also some basic foundational knowledge and it’s a lot of mindset stuff and like discouragement that needs encouragement.

And so that’s what I really see my role to be — I want to help provide that foundational knowledge, like profitability, the basics of marketing and how to create a work day that works for you. And then on top of that, just help people feel not so alone and like they’re not a failure. Because so many of the creative business owners I see stop creating because they think that things going wrong is a sign that it’s a failure. When in fact, if they just kept going, they would see the success, but they’re stopping too soon.

Brittany: 14:04
That’s so true. And you’re doing it on multiple platforms too, right? I mean, you’re on YouTube, you have a podcast, you have a blog, you’re on social.

Tara: 14:12
Yeah.

Brittany: 14:13
And I can imagine — well, I mean, I completely understand how much time goes into managing each one of those platforms. You kind of have to treat each one as its own entity and each one has to have its own plan.

So when you’re juggling that many different platforms, I know and I’m sure you know how much goes into that, how much stress can be a result of that. So I want to kind of shift the focus in that direction. First, let’s talk about some of the stresses that you faced maybe before this was a business. When you really just considered it your hobby, what were the things that really just kind of stressed you out and made you feel like it wasn’t relaxing to you at that time?

Tara: 15:04
Well, the thing to remember is that it’s been a business since 2006. So before there was Instagram and before any of my friends had ever heard of Facebook, it was already a business for me.

So, I mean, I have a hobby of knitting and English paper piecing, which is ridiculous, and hand quilting. But that… So the hobby… I know a lot of people are both doing it as their hobby and are sharing it on social media. And the social media just didn’t exist for me back when it was only my hobby. Does that make sense?

Brittany: 16:17
Yeah, totally.

Tara: 16:17
Now, when it comes to sharing my hobby on social media, like it’s… it’s kind of… I look at something like Instagram and Facebook as it’s just me. And that encompasses me — both my hobbies and my business.

So like I’ll share a quote from my podcast or say I have a new episode of my podcast out, but I will also then post what I’m English paper piecing. So for me, it’s all together. And so I still do use social media as a hobbyist, but it’s kind of all… it’s all me. And part of me is that I’m an entrepreneur and I have a business. So I’m also always kind of thinking about it as that.

Brittany: 16:29
I’m curious, was there ever a time where maybe you felt stressed when you were just doing it as a hobby? Like putting the social media aside, do you think it’s really possible to feel stressed out by your hobby?

Tara: 16:29
Oh, totally. I mean, I will get so freaking frustrated at my anything — knitting, crochet, hand piecing. And I find one of the things to be most stressful, actually, is figuring out what to work on or what to give my attention to when I have several projects going.

Like, sometimes I’ll get ridiculously stressed. Just like stuck with “Should I work on A or should I work on B?” Like, should I knit on socks I’m working on or should I quilt on this quilt that I’m working on? Because I’m going to make faster progress on the socks, but I really want to see the progress of the quilt.

And like, I will spend a ridiculous amount of time debating — whereas if I just pick one up and do it. So like, I kind of find that stressful because I’m a person who has multiple projects going on at a time. And also I really love finishing things. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Brittany: 17:20
Yeah, it totally does. So what do you do to try and combat that feeling that you have?

Tara: 17:30
I try to just pick something and I remind myself that it is all just for fun. And I think that we — especially now that there’s like Pinterest and Instagram and we can see all the progress that everyone else is making on all the things — it’s really easy to think, “Oh, I’m just not doing it very fast. I’m a slow knitter. I’m a slow sewer. They’re making so much more progress than I am on the same project.”

And I just remind myself, like, this is what I do for fun. So it needs to still be fun.

Brittany: 18:01
Yeah. I think social media has a tendency to paint a picture that’s not exactly accurate too. I mean, we post what we want the world to see, right?

And that’s not exactly what I’m talking about, but with the new algorithm changes for so many platforms, it’s not like — I remember when Instagram first started, everything in your feed was in time order. And I actually really loved that.

But in the past, gosh, it’s probably been six months or so, they’ve made a big algorithm change so that they show you things that they think you would find cool or important. And so a lot of things happen out of order.

So you might see — and let me say too that when you interact with that person’s post, you’ll be more likely to see their posts in your feed on Instagram — so it might look like there’s one photo right after the other. You might have three photos in a row that might show someone’s progress that looks like to you that it’s happening like bam, bam, bam right away, when really there could have been days or several hours in between each one of those posts.

So it can make us feel like we’re just not doing a great job or that we’re behind or that this person is doing a lot more than you. So I think it’s important to point that out.

Tara: 19:22
Yeah. And it’s crazy that the technology can change how you think about something.

Brittany: 19:29
Yeah.

Tara: 19:29
And it’s important to understand what the technology is doing and how that is interacting with how you feel about yourself or your craft or your productivity.

Brittany: 19:39
Yeah. I am… For me personally, my biggest frustration in just doing something for a hobby — so back before crochet was my business, it really was my hobby. And I dabbled in a few other things too. I do like sewing. I really wanted to get into quilting, but I just couldn’t.

I didn’t have the space to kind of fully spread out. And I really wanted to do it in the evening hours when my husband was home. So I wanted to do something that I could still kind of be present with him. So that knocked a lot of things off of my list.

I did scrapbooking and card making for a while and I really, really enjoyed that. But again, it was just such a hassle to like bring all the things down to the living room, spread it all out everywhere. And so a yarn craft really just worked very well for me.

I found myself — well, and still even to this day — my biggest frustration when I’m knitting or crocheting outside of my business is my desire to be perfect all the time.

So if I’m working on something, if it’s an unfamiliar pattern that I really have to, that I should pay attention to the pattern, if I’m just following somebody else’s and I get comfortable with what I’m doing, or maybe I’m not paying attention and I make a mistake — or let’s say that I have a slightly more loose tension at this day than I normally do.

And so if things don’t look 100% perfect, my immediate response is to rip it out. And I hate that because most of the time, a lot of things can be corrected with blocking. So if you have any tension issues, you can almost always fix it there. And I would say nine times out of ten, that one little mistake — nobody’s going to notice.

So I constantly fight myself, fight that urge to rip back to fix that mistake just because I know it’s there.

Tara: 21:35
Right. Yeah, so I’m not a perfectionist so my knitting has crazy differences in tension. But I understand the urge of wanting it to… of recognizing that it doesn’t have to be perfect.

And that’s almost like — I like to think that a lot of times our crafter hobby helps us. It reflects issues in our regular life. So maybe this fire for things to be perfect, even when no one else will notice, comes up for you at other times too.

Brittany: 22:12
Oh yeah, it totally does.

Tara: 22:12
So it’s an awesome kind of low-impact way of dealing with your other issues too.

Brittany: 22:12
It really is. That’s a really good point. I definitely — and I have been very vocal about that here on the show — that I am a perfectionist and it’s something that I’m trying to… that I’m working on, because I know that you don’t have to be perfect all the time.

I’m curious, have you ever heard of the book How to Be an Imperfectionist?

Tara: 22:34
I feel like a student has mentioned it to me before.

Brittany: 22:37
Yeah. Well, I guess if you’re not a perfectionist, it may not be very beneficial for you. But I found that book to be really eye-opening. It’s a quick read. I think it was only like 90 pages. I binge-read it in like two days. And it was kind of that book that opened my eyes and really helped me to figure out that I don’t have to be perfect. And this thing that I’m working on doesn’t have to be perfect.

Tara: 23:02
Good. Well, I’m glad because like doesn’t that take away all the fun of what’s supposed to be your hobby?

Brittany: 23:11
It does.

Tara: 23:11
If you’re stressed about its mistakes.

Brittany: 23:11
Yes. Yes. So you have to go back to the basics and figure out why you’re doing what you’re doing. And that’s relatable to anybody. If this is a business for you or if it’s a hobby for you, I think always going back to the root of why you started is like — that’s going to be your aha moment.

Tara: 23:33
Yeah, definitely. And remembering, like, did you want it to be fun? Did you want it to be a stress relief? Is it doing that? If not, what can you change so that it is?

Brittany: 23:42
Yeah, exactly. Well, let’s bring it into kind of the current stage because I know that you have a website that you work on and there are a lot of bloggers in the audience. So I want to… I know there are so many things that us as bloggers can relate to in terms of stresses.

What’s kind of the number one thing maybe that you’ve been struggling with or that you find stressful with maintaining your website or your blog? I know I kind of put you on the spot here. There’s probably a lot of things.

Tara: 24:15
Yeah. No. Well, it’s the — well, I’ll be honest with you. So I have alleviated one of the things that caused me the most stress by having a system.

So my website or my blog isn’t separate from my podcast or my YouTube or my social media. They’re all the same thing. Creating content for one creates content for all of them. And that is huge.

So what do people feel frustrated about? Like, “Oh no, if I want to have a YouTube channel and I want to have a website and I want to have an email list and Instagram” — like those are just four really common things. What do I put on all of them?

So like, create one piece of content and then spread it to all of them in slightly different ways. And creating that content for me — I used to do it very, very last minute off the top of my head, like on the fly. And then if I missed a week, I would feel horrible because consistency is really important for building trust and letting people know you’re going to be there and also building an audience.

And I had so much stress about that. And I honestly — just the hugest part of having content for my website was alleviated when I created a system of like: I always record my podcast on Tuesday, and then it gets edited and uploaded and the transcript — I write my transcript right then. And that becomes the blog post.

So like I do everything on certain days and basically at the same time each week. And yeah. Then if I travel, I will do it. Like I will do two weeks the week before, if I know I’m going to be traveling the next Tuesday. I just do two weeks a week before. And having that system alleviated the stress.

And now my website doesn’t… I can’t think of a lot of things that I — I mean, there’s always new technology and I just really resist learning new technology that’s behind the scenes. Like I love learning new social media or ways to connect with people or something like that.

But I don’t like learning the like, “Oh, this is going to manage my membership options and payment plans.” That stuff is just — it can be so overwhelming. And I really don’t enjoy it at all.

Brittany: 26:31
Yeah. I don’t blame you there. I love how you said that you kind of do the same thing every day or like– it sounds like you and I kind of work in the same way. I have themed days and that’s where each day there’s a central theme.

So one of the things, one of my biggest, I wouldn’t say stressor, it’s kind of the biggest thing that I’m focusing my attention on right now, and that’s time management. But it’s really figuring out the proper approach to scheduling that’s going to work with me or work for me. And themed days is by far like that was the thing that when I implemented it, I was so much more productive because I learned that through reading another book. And honestly, I can’t remember if it was The One Thing or Essentialism. Those are two books I read like at the exact same time.

Tara: 27:23
They’re both really similar to each other.

Brittany: 27:25
Yeah, they really are. And they’re great reads. But it takes our mind a certain amount of time to shift from one thing to the next. So I use a tool called CoSchedule and that allows me to have tasks for each day. And that’s great. I love going in there every morning and seeing like, okay, I need to do this task, this task, and this task.

But what I found myself doing is I was kind of bouncing all over the place. So when I learned about themed days, I set myself up so that, okay, I’m filming on Monday. So when I wake up, I’m in that right frame of mind. I have my best face on and I’m ready to just kind of be behind the camera all day. Tuesdays are more about editing because the video is still very fresh in my mind at that time. And then I move on through the week writing on Wednesdays, kind of social admin stuff on Thursdays. And Fridays are kind of like my catch up in design in crochet or knit days.

And that has worked really well, but I’m taking it one step further this week and really trying to time block because even though I have a themed day, I have all the tasks that I have right there in front of me, I still find myself not getting everything done and in the time that I have allotted and honestly time that I feel like I could actually accomplish all of those things.

So that’s kind of like my new thing. That’s kind of like the stressor that’s really on my mind right now, not really blog related, but I think a lot of people can relate to the struggles of time management, whether you’re a business owner or somebody who works for a large or small corporation. I don’t think it matters. I think we can all relate to that.

Tara: 29:09
Absolutely. And that, and that theme day thing is actually something a lot of my students do. I talked about it in my creative life class, actually about time management, because for some people that’s the, it’s structure, but it’s not too structured.

Like I have one client who has literally everything on her calendar. So everything is time blocked by like 15 minute increments. And some people need that amount of structure. And then like slightly looser is to say, okay, I’m going to do this. And here are two hours for it or you know that this Monday will always be like you said recording day and then there’s even like people need even a looser structure which is like here’s a whole list of things I need to do this week I’m going to just pick what I feel like doing right now.

And knowing yourself and knowing what’s going to–and honestly just trial and error is how you figure that out. But I love that you’re trying it so how intensive is your time blocking?

Brittany: 30:02
Today, I will say today is the first day that I have time blocked my entire day. And it’s down to the 15 minute mark because I figured I’m going to go as detailed as I possibly can and see if that works. See if I feel suffocated or if I feel like I’m in control.

And we’re recording this around lunchtime. So I’ve already been working for about four hours. It’s awesome. I’m loving it. I don’t mind that my calendar reminds me five minutes before I’m supposed to start the next task. And that’s just like a reminder for me that, hey, you have five minutes, wrap it up, get it done, and then get yourself ready to move on to the next thing. And we’ll see. We’ll see if that sticks or if I’ll be a little bit more flexible with it in the future. But for now, I’m loving it.

Tara: 30:51
That’s awesome. So that actually addresses the problem that is for most people, a huge stressor. And I kind of mentioned it when I was just talking about my hobby is that not knowing what to do.

Brittany: 31:02
Yeah.

Tara: 31:03
So a lot of people in their business or their hobby, like get really, um, a lot of the stress comes from not being sure what they’re supposed to do, like quotes around supposed to do, because when you’re your own boss, it can be whatever it needs to be.

But, um, not knowing what to do and, uh, you got to find a time scheduling something that tells you what to do in a way that like you’ll listen to it. You won’t rebel against it. And that’s probably why it feels so awesome to have the time blocked because you aren’t spending any time wondering. Like you already pre-thought it out. You already pre-decided how to spend your time. And so now you can just do it without thinking. Should I work on this longer or should I move on?

Brittany: 31:41
And, you know, it’s interesting because I– when I first started working for myself, this was at the beginning of last year, I– was really in an exploratory phase, just trying to figure out what works and trying to memorize or, I don’t know, keep the muscle memory up of the routine of getting up, putting clothes on, putting makeup on, eating breakfast, going to work, and then having a shut-off time too.

And I found myself… wanting to time block, but I was doing so in a planner that I could physically write in. And I did this for a few months and I would spend like 30 minutes to 45 minutes every day kind of writing out everything. And it’s actually called the Panda Planner. And I still recommend it because it’s a great thing. It allows you to set daily goals and think about the tasks that you need to do. But there’s only a set amount for each day. So you can’t like overload yourself. And I really liked this structure.

But there was a column that was like a schedule column, like an hour by hour sort of thing. And I always found myself avoiding that because I felt like I was spending so much time. And ultimately, I kind of abandoned that because I felt like I was spending an hour– at the beginning of every month going through like my monthly plan and then I was spending one to two hours every week going through my weekly plan and then I was spending a half an hour every single day to like fix my daily plan.

And what I found was that I’m spending so much time planning I feel like I could get those hours back if I just work. And so I tried that for a while and now I’ve gone to digital. And that has been– I think it’s really solved the problem in terms of not taking so long to physically handwrite everything. And so we’ll see. I really do think that this is going to stick, though.

Tara: 33:46
That’s so awesome. I’m so glad to hear it. See, and, like, I have to handwrite. So I handwrite my list each morning because– uh, I need to like, I need to like connect with it. Cause if it’s just in my calendar, my brain is like, yeah, yeah. Right.

And I do a project management software cause I have a couple of people who work with me. And, um, so I have my tasks there, but I actually have to write them in a list for myself. And that’s my way of committing that that’s what I’m going to work on that day. And that’s what my brain needs to really buckle down.

Brittany: 34:20
Man, there are so many stressors. I feel like we could probably make an entire episode of just talking about the things that stress us out and the strategies.

But I want to touch on the importance of making sure your work is fun. You have been doing this as a business for a lot of years. So clearly, you’ve figured out how to keep work fun. Because if it wasn’t fun anymore, you probably wouldn’t do it anymore. So why do you think it’s important for people to keep work like this work fun? And then maybe we’ll talk about some tips or the things that you do that helps you keep work fun.

Tara: 35:01
The thing about being self-employed is there’s no one else to make you work. So some people handle that by just working themselves to death because there’s no one to tell them to stop working. And I have been in that place before. And other people will just kind of never buckle down and do what they need to do.

And so the answer to both of those problems, because one is like very sustainable long term, you won’t have a business for very long if you don’t work on it. But you also won’t have a business for very long if you wear yourself out and get burned out. So I think the answer to both of those is to be having fun, be doing things that are having fun, be working with people who are fun, doing the projects that get you enthusiastic.

Brittany: 36:05
Right. And you won’t want to go back to that thing, whatever that thing is.

Tara: 36:28
Exactly. And if your business is full of too many things that make you miserable, you just won’t work on it. Like no amount of self-discipline is going to make you work on something that makes you miserable, especially when it’s your own project, because you’ll make excuses. You’ll make like, well, I don’t really have to, I could always do this. This isn’t working out. I don’t know why I ever decided to do my own thing.

Like there’s just, there’s just so much kind of momentum that you need to keep up in order to make your thing sustainable and profitable that you’re– the only way to keep that up is if you’re having a good time at least some of the time and you find your work meaningful.

Brittany: 37:05
Yeah. I think this is really relatable to topics of stress too because when we aren’t having fun or when we feel like we have to do something and not the mind frame of we want to do something, right?

Tara: 37:20
Yeah.

Brittany: 37:20
When we feel like we have to do something because it’s our job or because it’s on our list to do today then I feel like a lot of stress can come from that– stress that did I make the right decision by quitting my job or did I make the right decision in choosing this project or should I really have taken on this project because I already have so many other things going on.

And I think if we’re able to figure out what we think is fun then that’s one way to like really deal with a big stressor that self-employed people have, no matter what your industry is.

Tara: 37:57
Yes, exactly. You could relieve some of the stress. This is my favorite question, actually, and this might go into the second thing we’re going to talk about, which is how to get things fun again, is ask yourself the question, what is the most fun way I could do this? Or how can I make this fun? That question, and it seems really simple, but if you stop and you sit down and you ask yourself that and you journal on it for a little bit or you talk it out with a friend, if you’re more of a talker and less of a writer, you can come up with actually lots of solutions.

We get stuck thinking this is the way it has to be done. This is the way I have to work. This is the way I’ll be most productive. This is the way people always publish designs. This is what a launch should look like, whatever it is. But if you ask what would be the most fun way for me to do this, a lot of times you come up with great solutions. Great, amazing ideas. Like all of the good marketing ideas I’ve seen in my own business or with the students that I work with have come from the question, what would be really fun for me? And then they come up with like crazy, amazing, awesome things that are super effective because they’re different—because they’re not doing things the way that they thought they had to do things.

Brittany: 39:05
Yeah. And that is one really good differentiator too. If you’re trying to stand out in a very busy crowd and what works for you and what makes things fun for you is probably going to be different than the next person. And so by finding these unique ways to keep yourself kind of satisfied and happy in what you’re doing, that’s going to be the thing that really sets you apart from other people.

Tara: 39:32
Totally. Totally. Because it’s going to be different for everybody. Everybody’s going to go about building their business in a slightly different way. And that’s going to… Yeah, it’s going to just make you stand out. It’s going to make people realize why they want to keep listening to you or following you on Instagram or buying your product.

Brittany: 39:52
So how can we get to that place? Let’s say we’re in a position where we’re just feeling a little bit of burnout. What is one thing that somebody could do today to turn things around, even if it’s just one little baby step?

Tara: 40:09
Well, ask yourself the question: What is the most fun thing I could do for my business right now? And just do that. Like give yourself permission to not do the other stuff on your list. I promise you your business will not fall apart.

And ask yourself, what is the most fun thing I could do in my business right now? It might be like, if you’re a designer or an artist, go get inspired—go to the museum, go read a big art book, go watch a movie that has amazing clothing design in it. If you’re a knitwear designer, it might not be something that looks like “work” to anybody else.

What is the most fun thing? And also: what is the easiest way this could work out? What is the easiest way to do this? Sometimes we make things overcomplicated and we stress ourselves out because we are trying to live up to some standard or do some list of things.

But by asking yourself the easy question—which is one of my most favorites for every instance—you will take off the pressure. Because your job, and this is what I want you to like really firmly tell yourself, your job is to get it done effectively and sustainably, not…

Brittany: 41:35
So true. And it made me think, too, of another possibility. For those of us who have a business and we call ourselves a solopreneur—and I’m pointing myself out here—I think it’s important to give yourself permission to not do everything in your business.

It’s okay, if it’s possible, for you to hire somebody to do the things that maybe you don’t want to do. I mean, there just really is no fun way to sit and maybe tag something or… I don’t know, I mean, nothing’s really coming to mind. But if there’s one task that you just dread every single time and you can’t figure out a way to make that fun, maybe you should just have somebody else do it.

Tara: 42:19
Absolutely. Something like video editing is really—um, I have someone who edits my videos and then uploads them in the places they need to be uploaded. Like that’s something… The question to ask yourself around that is: What is the thing that my business actually needs me to do that I bring something to it that no one else could bring to it?

So if you’re a filmmaker, maybe editing is where the magic happens. But if you are doing a tutorial, maybe not.

Also things like… I actually—the first person who ever worked with me, my first VA—she now has moved on because she works with clients who need her to write things. So she writes newsletters and blog posts and in their voice on the topics that their people care about. And these are people who are designers and artists, and like their job is really to make awesome stuff—not necessarily to write a blog post about it or announce a launch or a newsletter that links to five other things.

So you can hire that out too. Like for me, writing is my business—writing and then talking on my podcast starts with my writing. That’s entirely what I do. So I can’t hire that out. That’s why she and I don’t work together anymore—because she wanted to focus more on that. But she helps tons of people and she’s super great at it with that writing part, because writing is not the thing that their business needs from them.

Brittany: 43:42
Yeah.

Tara: 43:43
And the more you focus on what your business needs from you, the more your business is going to grow and thrive and be awesome because you’re going to bring to it the thing that only you can bring to it. And you can get help with the things that anyone could bring to it.

Brittany: 43:56
Yeah. And you’re focusing on the things that you truly are good at and that you want to do. And I think it’s perfectly fine—I’m actually, I’m giving myself a little bit of permission here too—because that is definitely the next step for me.

And I’ve been keeping track of all of the things that maybe I feel a little bit of dread towards or maybe I’m just like, “Oh, okay, I gotta do this again.” And also taking note of the things that maybe I’m not great at, because I don’t pretend to be perfect at everything and I’m continuing to learn.

And I love that part about being a business owner—the opportunity to continue to learn. But it’s so important to realize that you don’t have to be the hero. Like you don’t have to be the person who’s doing everything all the time because, like you say, that’s not sustainable.

Tara: 44:52
Yeah. Yeah. And I’m a huge fan of hiring people. What you said is just perfect. You’re keeping track of the things you don’t love to do.

Also, I recommend—I’m just going to get advicey for a minute—make a list of what actually goes into it. So step by step by step, like a checklist, you could turn over to someone else on exactly how they do it and exactly what the steps are. Because then that will become what you pass off. But whoever you hire won’t know how to do it unless you give them instructions.

And it’s also really good for you because I have a lot of tasks that are handed off to someone else, but I still need to do one weird part of it. So it’ll be like—my husband works in my business. He edits my podcast and he’ll do… I’ll record it, then he’ll do steps two through five, then I’ll do steps six or seven, and then it’ll be posted. So just knowing, “Oh, these are the parts I really need to do, and these are the parts someone else could do”—super helpful.

Brittany: 45:53
Yeah, really helpful. Let me ask you this. Is there a certain place that you would recommend people go to to find help?

Tara: 46:03
Well, so… this is kind of not that answer, but I use—what I want to recommend everybody use—is Asana, which is a project management [tool]. It lets you make tasks and subtasks. And if you do that for all the tasks in your business, it’s really easy then to assign them to someone else.

But then as for finding help, there are some sites that collect up VAs, but honestly, if you’re looking for a VA who works in the yarn world—the very first, I was her first client. She was my first VA—Jen. I think it’s just jesscookonline.com. She is amazing. And then she also has a whole bunch of people she can refer you to if you’re looking for something other than what she does.

So I always send people to her, even if they’re not going to hire her. She now has a bunch of connections with other VAs. I also use Holly Chayes—C-H-A-Y-E-S. And she also has people that she’ll recommend out. What I love about both of them is that they’ll say like, “That’s not what I’m great at, but I do know someone who’s great at it. Let me recommend them for you.”

And the thing to keep in mind is that:
A) You need to figure out what you don’t want to do anymore and make a list.
B) Remember that you can hire people for super small amounts of time. Like two hours a month, right? So it’s not a giant commitment. I think people think they’re going to have to have 40 hours of work for somebody and be able to pay hundreds of dollars a week. No. You can start really, really, really small. And then it might change and grow as you get more and more comfortable with the person.

I actually did—I just was realizing as I was talking—I did a whole podcast episode about how to hire somebody.

Brittany: 47:42
Ooh, yeah. We’re going to have to link to that in the show notes so people can have a listen to it.

Tara: 47:46
Yeah, if that’s something that you are feeling ready for, that hopefully will help.

Brittany: 47:50
Yeah, definitely. I will definitely check it out. I’m curious to just really quick to maybe get some tips from you about how you juggled the deadlines when that was the part of your business. That was—I mean, that was kind of like your bread and butter of your business. How did you stay on top of deadlines?

Tara: 48:10
Well, it’s funny because when my yarn business didn’t actually have a lot of deadlines other than craft shows, my way of staying on top of it was to make a production calendar. So, figure out how much I needed to bring with me in order to make the amount of money I wanted to make above my break-even point, which I talk all about in my class Pay Yourself. But then, figure out how many skeins of yarn that will be and how many do I need to make? Okay, I have 20 days in between now and then, so how many skeins of yarn do I need to make each day? So… a production calendar.

If you are a designer and you sell your patterns, a production calendar might be like, well, if I make so much with each pattern launch and my income goal is this for this amount of time—say, this quarter or next three months—how many patterns would I need to release? And then from there, okay, when do I need to be designing them, getting them tech edited, et cetera, et cetera. And you might find when you do that, that it’s unrealistic. And then you need to change things up, right? Either you need better marketing, or you need to change your prices, or you need to change your timeline.

And like doing that kind of math though, which I think a lot of people skip, especially in the beginning, it can help you figure out that question we were talking about: How should I spend my time? What should I be doing with my time? If you go backwards from the goal you want to hit into the production, it becomes easier to see how you should spend your time and if your goals are even realistic for where your business is right now.

Brittany: 49:43
I love the idea of kind of like reverse engineering it. I know for me, the big thing when I first started kind of assigning deadlines just for myself—because pretty much the entire first part of my business, I was really creating content for myself. But now I’m actually working with brands and sponsors.

And so when I got to that point, I feel like I had almost a leg up because for so many years before that, I was logging the amount of time that I spent on each task that needed to happen in order to complete or meet that deadline. Because then I was going in with an educated approach and I wasn’t just guessing that, “Oh yeah, it’ll probably take me four hours to crochet this,” when in reality it might actually take me eight or ten hours.

I feel like that’s one thing that people tend to do is maybe underestimate the amount of time that it takes to do something. And so I’m using this app on my phone. It’s called Timesheet. And I literally log every single thing that I do all day long. And so over time, I’ve collected a lot of data that I’m able to look at and say, “Well, I’ve done X number of projects in the last 12 months. And this is the total amount of hours that it’s taken me to edit all of these videos.” Just doing a really quick calculation to figure out, okay, this is my average time that I’m spending on editing a video.

That was a big thing for me because I always underestimated that one—because I do spend a lot more time editing than maybe I should. But once I realized that I could take an educated approach to it, and it just required a little bit of self-discipline to get me to that point—for me to meet a deadline, it’s not a stressful situation because I know that I have taken an educated approach based on my personal performance, not somebody else’s, and I don’t have to stress about whether or not I can do that thing in that set amount of time.

Tara: 51:51
Yes, yes, that’s so excellent. Like, basically, you’re using math and reality. Yeah, I think that that’s where people in every business, like in every kind of job, get really messed up with their deadlines is that they’re not being realistic about things. Time in hours. What is the math involved in this and how long will it take me?

And often it’s because you don’t know. But like you said, it’s easy to figure that out. You can track your time at any job and figure out how long things take and thus how long you need to plan for it. And then that can also impact—especially when you’re working with a client—what you charge. Because you’re going to be charging for the time you know it actually takes and you’re not going to undersell yourself.

Brittany: 52:33
And that’s so important too. You definitely want to make sure that you are valuing yourself and your time. And I think the only way that you can do that in a fair way—a way that’s fair for you and your client—is to actually know what time it takes to do those things.

Tara: 52:51
Yeah, exactly.

Brittany: 52:52
Man, well, this has been so much fun. I feel like I could talk to you all day because it sounds like we’re really on the same wavelength of things that we geek out on. But I want to give people a chance to connect with you because you have so many great and helpful things going on. So let’s talk about those things first. Where would you send people to go to just soak up all of your knowledge?

Tara: 53:19
Well, my website, tarasweiger.com has my weekly podcast there in both audio and video form, and then links to Instagram and Facebook, which is where I spend most of my time now—Instagram and Facebook. And I mean, with the weekly podcast on YouTube and iTunes, but it’s all linked up at tarasweiger.com.

Brittany: 53:39
Awesome. All right. So that’s the central hub. We’ll send people there. And Tara, thank you so much. It’s been such a pleasure having you today.

Tara: 53:47
Thank you so much for having me.

Brittany: 53:50
Well, I hope you enjoyed that chat just as much as I did. It was one of those situations where I didn’t realize how much I had to say about the topic until I was actually talking about it with somebody who experienced what I experienced. And that’s a really key point there. I think if you can find somebody in your life who can relate to the stress that you’re going through, that’s going to be one way to get through those hard situations.

Now, I also want to mention something that happened to me actually after recording the episode and before I am processing this. When I was experiencing a lot of stress and I kind of just reached that point to where I felt overwhelmed. And I felt overwhelmed because I had so many things that were on my mind that were causing me stress that it was just a mental overload for me.

So what I did was I opened up Evernote. I created a new note that was called Stressors. And I just brain dumped everything that I felt stressed about at that time. And let me tell you, when I did that, I felt… literally a weight come off of my shoulders. It wasn’t so much that I was really stressed about each one of these things, but I was stressed because there were so many of them that I was trying to keep track of in my brain that I was kind of afraid to forget some of those things.

And once I had it out on paper—or had it out in this Evernote—right in front of me, it made it seem like it was no big deal. So that’s my tip for you today. If you feel super overwhelmed and you just feel like you’re being weighted down by maybe things that you have to do or things that you need to take care of or just situations that really stress you out, just try that. See if it works.

I’m not saying it’s going to work for everybody, but for me personally, it made me feel so much better. Give that a try. Let me know if that worked for you over on the show notes page, bhookedcrochet.com/session061. Tell me in the comments section. I’m really interested to see if this strategy helped you—or maybe it was a strategy that Tara and I mentioned in the episode. Either way, go to the show notes page and let me know. I would love to hear your thoughts on this and maybe even get some more tips from you of how you manage your stress.

Thank you so much for listening to today’s show. And once again, I’d like to thank our sponsor, Yarnspirations, for sponsoring today’s episode. Whether you knit or crochet, Yarnspirations.com should be the site that you bookmark for inspiration, free patterns, and you can even order the yarn directly from the source and you don’t have to worry about whether or not your local craft store has the colorway that you need.

You’ll find your favorite brands like Patons, Bernat, Caron, and Lily Sugar’n Cream. And I do want to stress one more time that the offer they’ve extended to us to save 20% off expires at the end of this month, April 2018. So be sure to get your orders in before then. And at checkout, enter the coupon code BHOOKEDPOD when your order is $40 or more—you’ll save that 20%. And let me tell you, every little bit adds up.

It’s been a real pleasure chatting about Stitch Away Stress. It’s one of those topics that I really love talking about. But we will march on with a new month and a new topic next week. Same time, same place. I’ll see you then, guys. Until then, bye-bye.