If you’re feeling a wee bit overwhelmed by alll the hats you have to wear in your small business, maybe try this 3-step process, for simplifying how you do business, and see if it helps.

I have been overwhelmed by my creative mind most of my life. My brain is a busy place. I am a multi-talented person, and I have had a really hard time figuring out where my place in the world is.

My many interests have made me unable to pick one education to give me a title I could serve the world. A title that told everyone, this is the box I belong in.

Through this blog, I have found out that I’m far from the only one who has this problem. We don’t belong in a box. We want both order and chaos. We get new ideas, but we also want to see them brought to life. We are often both introverts and extroverts. And we want a job title but don’t want to do the same job forever.

As the saying goes; how do you square that circle? The answer is, you don’t!

As creative business owners, we have a tendency to want to do too much, and all at the same time. This makes us overwhelmed and is a breeding ground for feelings of guilt, frustration, and low self-esteem.

What I do as a creativity coach, is help creatives and entrepreneurs, many of whom are multi-passionate creatives, with the way they do business and creativity. It matters how you work, and it matters how you feel about yourself and what you do.

My hope is, that this 3-step process to simplify your business, and will help you avoid getting stuck in feeling overwhelmed by the whole thing.

Simplifying business processes with these 3 steps

This method is a holistic approach to how you work and looks at your process from an external, internal, and personal perspective.

You can use a journal or notebook to help you find out what task needs simplifying for each step.

1: External, internal, and personal

Pick one thing from each of the following areas that you want to focus on in your quest to simplify your creative business process.

• External.
  This could be anything from tidying your desk, simplifying the number of external tools you use in your business, worrying about what other people do (comparison), to how much time you spend on social media. Have a look at the external influences in your creative business, and ask yourself how you can simplify the time and energy you use on external perspectives in your business.
  

• Internal
  Simplifying your internal process could be dealing with your negative self-talk, and how you practice self-compassion or affirmations. Do you have a long list of things you feel you “should” do in the morning when actually, saying just 1 affirmation a day makes you feel better? How can you simplify your internal process, and give yourself a break, when doing business?
  

• Personal
  This would be a project you’re working on, a business, a goal, interests, and passions. Simplifying your business can trigger resistance for multi-passionate entrepreneurs, but simplifying your process doesn’t mean giving up your multi-passion. It just means simplifying how you work on them. Maybe it means putting 3 projects on hold and prioritizing the project that will make your business more profitable. Maybe it means setting 2 hours aside every week to work on a new project. Whatever it is, how can you simplify your personal process in your creative business?

See if you can pick only 1 thing from each area you want to begin simplifying this year. This is a process and it’s way better that you pick one thing in total and get good results, that make you feel better than picking several things you don’t make any progress on.

2. Answer this one question

For each of the things you’ve picked to help you simplify your business processes, answer the following question:

• What will be the best result for me, if I simplify this in my business?

For example, is there something you want more of (time, energy, space) and/or something you want less of (mess, clutter, stress, overwhelm)?

It’s always good to be clear about why you want what you want. Or at least give it some thought. Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly, just have a think about it.

3. Now to the how…

How are you going to go about simplifying your 3 chosen subjects?

Are you going to write a single sentence of affirmation and keep it by your bed?
Will you set 2 hours aside on Saturday to work on simplifying your pick?

I’m a fan of small steps and not a fan of putting big pressure on myself. Pressure creates resistance, avoidance, and procrastination.

I recommend you break your chosen tasks down into small chunks that make sense to you, and that fit into your life. Being led by inspired action in small steps you feel you can easily do, is better than being led by forced action and putting pressure on yourself.

Simplicity is a mindset

Living a simple life and simplifying your life, is a way of thinking. I’m trying to put the breaks on my thoughts, and instead of more, I try and think less. It’s a process, I won’t lie to you. But simplifying and decluttering feels soooo good. Even in small steps. Every little step counts.

I thrive when my surroundings are clean, tidy, and aesthetically appealing.

I love things, collecting books, notebooks, plants, and nice interiors but I CRAVE simplicity and minimalism. I get easily overwhelmed. How does one madwoman accomplish this?

By thinking in terms of less.

Instead of thinking more work, more ideas, more notes, and more books from Amazon (OMG, my list of books I want to buy is huge as are the books lying waiting for me to read them), I am practicing thinking where I can simplify my interests, my process, my home, etc.

When will you begin your simplifying process?

I know you’re busy and life is busy, so go ahead a plot 30 minutes into your calendar for next week, where you will begin to think about, how you can simplify your creative business processes.

This way, you’re not just reading another blog post about how to do something you won’t do (hand raised), but you will actually set aside time for some business TLC. You deserve TLC.

If you found this post useful, I’d love for you to get my emails too. That’s a place I share most of what is going on in front and behind the scenes. .)