Run your craft like a one‑person company to get predictable results

A solo designer felt busy and broke. She answered pings all day, shipped late, and worked nights. She decided to treat her craft like a company. Monday at 8:30, she ran a status meeting with herself. She listed deliverables, chose process goals, and cut two items. She wrote simple SOPs for proposals and handoffs. Then she blocked production time on her calendar and defended it like client work.

By week three, her desk looked calmer. A sticky checklist lived on her monitor. Headphones on, phone face‑down, she worked her blocks. At week’s end, she reviewed a P&L of time: planned vs. actual hours by project. She noticed that unplanned Slack time ate five hours. She set a twice‑daily Slack window. The next week, she gained three hours of deep work and delivered on Thursday instead of Friday.

A photographer adopted the same pattern. Monday meeting, SOPs for edits, production blocks, weekly review. Within six weeks, both had clearer weeks, fewer crises, and better margins. Their work quality didn’t change first. Their systems did.

Why it works: externalizing decisions reduces switching costs and protects attention. Checklists and SOPs turn one‑off heroics into processes. Time‑blocking reduces Parkinson’s Law (work expanding to fill time). Reviewing time like a P&L reveals where to cut and where to double down. You become reliable to yourself, which is the foundation for being reliable to others.

Block 30 minutes next Monday for a status meeting with yourself. List deliverables, choose process goals, and cancel what doesn’t fit. Write one simple checklist for a repeatable task you do weekly, then block two deep work sessions and treat them like paid appointments. On Friday, review where your hours went versus the plan and adjust next week’s calendar accordingly. Keep it simple and repeat it for three weeks. Put the Monday meeting on your calendar now.