My Favorite Time-Saving Hacks for Busy Creatives

Being a multi-passionate creative entrepreneur has its perks - you can do it all! But there's only so many hours in the day, and we don't want to work for 18 hours EVERY day, do we? I use the below time-saving tips to free up more time for my fun creative work! 

EMAIL SCHEDULER

What do you do if you're a night owl but have a bunch of important emails to send? I would recommend NOT sending emails at 2 AM. Why? Your clients will think you're nuts. It also sets poor boundaries - even if you work after-hours, you don't want people expecting you to email them back around-the-clock. 

The solution? An email scheduling app or plugin! You can write emails at 3 AM till your heart's content, and schedule them to go out during normal-person hours. I usually schedule mine for 8 AM - everyone is like, "Wow, Bonnie gets up really early to start working!" Little do they know, I'm snoozing! There are a bunch of apps out there, but I use the Right Inbox plugin for Chrome. 

TAILWIND FOR PINTEREST

Pinterest is a fabulous and effective social media marketing tool. However, you need to pin multiple times a day at peak times to fully optimize its capabilities - and no one has time for that.

The solution? Tailwind for Pinterest. It's my favorite time-saving tool of all! You simply spend about 30-45 minutes scheduling a month's worth of content, and Tailwind plugs those pins into the optimal times. It's the ultimate set-it-and-forget-it social media tool! Want to try Tailwind? Get $15 off by clicking here!

STYLED STOCK PHOTOS

I love photo styling - the actual styling part of it, that is. Pulling out my DSLR, getting the lighting perfect, transferring the styled photos to my computer, organizing them, editing them - it can take HOURS that I'd be more effective doing something else. .

For certain projects, I've started purchasing styled stock photos from sites like Creative Market. This way, I can plug in my product to create a mockup without spending hours photographing and editing. 

SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULER

There are a ton of social media scheduling apps out there - I've been using Later for my Instagram & Facebook. Later has a really cool Instagram viewer that shows you your grid, so you can make sure all your pics look perfect in grid form! Later is great because its free option is perfect for most entrepreneurs. Try it here!