I want to talk about time intention, as it’s an important topic. I think there’s a silver lining for us coming out of COVID-19, and that is people are paying more attention to their homes. They’re couped up and not so happy with their surroundings. Since they’re not traveling or spending money on other activities, they are more interested in making changes with their home.
This situation puts interior designers front and center. It’s a fun place to be in because people are finding that they need us a lot. We have a God-given gift to help people live more comfortably. However, it’s also a challenge to handle all that business, serve that many people, get the job done, and still have a life. And don’t forget, be profitable!
We can often get lost in the creative part of design because it’s what we really enjoy. The problem is that if you allow that to happen, the hour or so it should take you to do the work ends up being much more than that. Then, the job won’t support that much paid time. It’s essential not to get lost in the creative by being intentional about what you’re going to do.
There’s a relationship between the project’s size and the amount of time you spend on it. For example, if you have a $30k project, you have about $4,500 allotted for time. And if you charge $150 per hour, that gives you 30 hours. If you promised your client four meetings in your Letter of Agreement, that would take up half that time, meaning you’re left with 15 hours to work on the project. You will have to be intentional about how you use your time to get the job done.
What this boils down to is that if you want to take the time to research everything there is to find the perfect chair, you won’t make $150 per hour. To pull that together, you need to have a strategy in place called time intention.
Watch the video above, where I go more in-depth into how time intention works and how it applies to the example I provided. It will help you make better decisions and end up closer to the actual amount you charge for the work you complete. Once you start doing this, you will get better at it, and it will show up in your bank account and the amount of free time you have in your life.
Until next time, design something beautiful and get paid what you’re worth.