Entrepreneurs don't have to feel alone
As an entrepreneur you know there aren’t many books written to fit your exact situation - it can feel like you're alone on a long journey. We need mentors to speak into our lives - others who are a bit further ahead than us. I have a film mentor Brian Hunt, a whole life coach Mark Anderson, and other entrepreneurs pouring into my life. After having a conversation with a friend and Chief Experience Designer at GenesisXD I decided I needed to change the way I spent my time. Philip Yan suggested I split my time into 3 equal categories: shoot, edit and manage social media. I snuck the espresso part in myself. And if you're not in video production, insert your own practice in place of shooting and editing.
Embrace change
Maybe splitting your day into 3 equal parts is not realistic. Most of us shoot on location all day and other days we have nothing going on. Or maybe it's more like we have on/off seasons. That’s what life is like being self-employed - it's feast or famine. However, you can look at your day/week/month and plan to spend equal time shooting, editing, and managing online presence. Get out of your comfort zone and try changing the ways you've always done things. Don't worry, you're not committing to 'forever'.
A balanced approach
If you're like me you tend to be unbalanced and spend too much time in one area. For instance, if you spend most of your time shooting then you are going to have a backlog of editing to do. Or maybe you spend too much time in front of a computer screen and need to get out there and shoot. Either extreme is not healthy and is going to hurt your business in the long run because you'll fall behind in the other important areas.
Shoot - edit - manage social media
Remember, this variety is what attracted you to the job in the first place! Getting to shoot on location in a factory one day is interesting. If you had to shoot in a factory everyday then you might be looking to change careers. Chances are that's not the case and you'll be shooting somewhere different the next day. Other days you might be sitting in front of the computer editing videos to share with your network. If you had to sit in front of a computer and edit for 8 hours a day everyday then you might not be excited either. Same goes for managing your social media though. You might be excellent at video production but if you aren't communicating that to the world through social media then I'd argue there is lost potential. Learning how to share with your followers what you're doing will only remind them of your services when they think of video. Entrepreneurs thrive off the variety and that's why we get excited about what we do.
In my opinion, being a entrepreneur in a creative field is really the best job in the world. The problem is when we have an imbalance. As a freelancer in video production you need to have discipline to manage your time between shooting, editing and managing your social media because no one else is going to do it for you.
Have suggestions for future topics? Let me know.