When we are working on building a professional artistic practice, creative career or business there is administration involved. What I mean by that is that there are tasks that we need to engage in to manage our activities, plans and transactions. We need tools to perform these tasks and we need practices and routines to stay on top of these tasks as needed. We’ve all had these moments when everything grinds to a halt because we put off or didn’t have some admin task on our radar, didn’t have the tool to get the task done or found ourselves having to reinvent the wheel on some basic yet critical component. When it comes right down to it, getting a handle on these admin basics helps us keep our creative practices, careers and businesses going!
As a coach for creatives my work frequently involves helping my clients working in various creative disciplines and industries to better understand the admin tasks that are critical to their work. I also support them to learn what tools and routines help them get those tasks done so that their creative flow, professional opportunities and financial sustainability doesn’t get held up or side tracked by not having crucial materials or resources organized, missed application deadlines or getting behind on communications or financial admin.
Together we work on these admin basics:
Getting clear and focused on what tasks are necessary
Choosing the right tools for those tasks
Developing routines and practices to tackle doing the tasks.
Truthfully there are basic admin tasks that support each and every aspect of our work. Whether it be our creativity and productivity, visibility and promotion, our finances or building of our professional networks, there is some admin required to keep the wheels turning.
Here’s how you can get on top of your admin basics as a creative professional:
Identity Your Tasks: Depending on the nature and scale of our work, common admin tasks might involve:
Scheduling
File Organization - Physical or Digital
Invoicing and Bookkeeping
Communications
Inventory or Supplies Management
Planning Projects And New Initiatives
Tracking And Reporting - For example: time, costs, sales, growth or engagement of subscribers and other metrics that are important to ourselves, stakeholders and funders.
Documentation - For archival or promotional purposes and to support generation of new opportunities.
Applications, Pitches, Quotes
What admin tasks do you need to be on top of in your
creative practice, career or business to keep things going?
If you need help identifying specific admin tasks, download my Wheel of Creative Practice/Business/Career and consider the task types listed above in relation to each aspect of the wheel as they relate or not to your creative practice, career or business.
Choose Your Tools: Depending on whether you prefer old school tools or if you are someone who embraces new technologies, the stage, nature and size of your creative practice, work or business you may consider these types of tools as makes sense to you:
Templates and boilerplates - create once and re-use, adapt or customize as needed. Templates and boilerplates can be helpful tools for communications, marketing, documenting, planning and for elements required for applications, quotes and pitches.
Spreadsheets - Spreadsheets are tools that are crucial to my practice. I use them literally every day. I’m old school in that I believe Excel is a life skill - I know there are other creatives who feel the same but I get that spreadsheets are not a tool that works for everyone and there are certainly more sophisticated tools available as noted below.
Software, Apps or Virtual Tools - There are myriad options and applications that can be helpful to automate scheduling and communications and countless other admin type tasks. Many of these have template and tracking tools built in as well.
Delegation - A tool that’s often overlooked!
What tools are you currently using to perform your admin tasks?
What new tools or upgrades would be worth investing in
to handle your admin tasks more easily or efficiently?
Develop Practices and Routines: This is often the part we struggle the most with. Because this is the part that requires our personal commitment, focus and action taking. Developing practices and routines is core to actually getting the admin tasks done - consistently - on an ongoing basis - so that the wheels don’t fall off. Especially for those tasks that we can’t or choose not to automate for whatever reasons. And we need to be ready to evolve or ditch and change our practices and routines as our career or business grows or changes and as context or our creative work or industry evolves. I'm reminded of this when I cross a bridge near my house that has a saying above it “The river I step in is not the river I stand in”. The practice or routine you establish today won’t likely work forever or for all things. For example, a practice of “Admin Mondays” may work really well for independent artists and practitioners or at a start-up stage of development or for addressing admin tasks in specific areas of your work. Other aspects of our work, contexts or stages of growth are best served by integrating admin tasks directly into our processes or automating altogether. And so we must also make it a practice to assess and upgrade practices and routines along the way. I could write a whole separate article on developing and evolving practices and routines! All of that said, going back to our list of tasks we need to consider:
When do you really need to do the task?
Circumstance - is the task proactive, part of a process or reactive?
Urgency - how quickly does this task need to be dealt with typically or ideally?
Frequency or volume - how often and how many times do you need to do it?
What’s actually involved?
Why do it? What does this task ultimately impact?
We can then start to develop practices and routines that consider these factors and help us adapt to meet our specific goals and needs.
Approaching the doing of our admin tasks as practices or routines that keep our creative practices, careers or businesses going can prevent those tasks from piling up or getting lost in a big “to do” list. The doing of these tasks simply becomes part of how we operate as creative professionals.
Image Credit: Michael Evans
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