When you start your career as a photographer, it usually is kind of a side hustle – you either go to school, have another 8-5 job or do something else too most of the time. Because you basically have 2 full time jobs now, it can be really hard to balance the two. Plus there’s this other thing called free time, which a lot of us self employed people often forget about.

Today I’m going to tell you some tipps on how to balance everything, how to change your mindset from hobby to job and how to treat it as exactly that.

At the end of this post you will find a “productive day in my life” video, don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel to not miss any of my videos :)

Number one – as I’ve already said you need to treat photography as your job, not a hobby that makes you some money (if you’re making money from it of course). Now that you have this other job we just created you are your own boss. Bosses want the best for their company, sometimes forgetting what’s best for the employees – and you’re probably one of those bosses to yourself right now.

So what I would do is schedule a set amount of time per day your spending on your business. Write it down in your calendar. Let’s say on Friday you get off from your 8-5/school at 14:00. You’ll get home at 14:30, eat something and take some time off. At 16:00 you’re gonna take an hour to edit photos you took that week. At 17:00 you’re gonna plan your Social Media content for the upcoming week and at 18:00 you’re gonna walk away from your computer and enjoy your free time.

I know that working on photography just for 2 hours a day seems very little, but you need to utilize those hours like you were at your 8-5/school. Put your phone away, don’t watch Netflix and just focus on what you have planned in your schedule. You’ll get a lot more done this way.

Number two – Going along with the first tipp, you need to be the best boss possible for yourself, and that means giving yourself time off! So don’t do any editing or any computer stuff on Sundays. I try to not take any shoots on Sundays either, only if there really is no other option or if it’s a really really high paid shoot.

Working non stop is exhausting and you’ll lose your love and creativity slowly. We don’t ever want that to happen, so take at least one day a week to not do anything, and listen to yourself if you need more time off take it.

Number three – Set priorities. The most important thing always is the thing that provides you with what you need to live, so this is either your 8-5 or school if you’re living with your parents and don’t have a seperate income yet. Those things come first. Next thing are paid shoots/bookings. If you have a shoot with a paying client and a tfp shoot the same day, you’re going to edit the paid shoot first and once that is completely finished you can start editing the tfp shoot.

The paid shoots will eventually become your source of income and you need to put that first. You also want to leave a good impression with your paying client, and a rather fast delivery always does that.

Having said that, don’t overpromise your clients. This will set unrealistic expectations and stress you out. If you need 4 weeks to edit a shoot, be honest and tell your client that. Don’t tell them that you’ll try to have it done in 2 weeks and then making excuses. Tell the client what you can do and how much time it will take and stick to that.

Number four – seperate your jobs and your life. Photography is seen as a hobby for a long time usually, even when you start to make money from it. And even if you might not see it as a hobby anymore, your friends and family might. They might ask you to bring your camera to every “event” and don’t take this job seriously.

If that’s too much for you and you don’t want to take photos at your mom’ cousin’s friend’s birthday party, don’t do it. You’re allowed to enjoy those events too and not work all the time. Because at some point the camera puts you in work-mode and sometimes you really need to snap out of that.

This was a pretty long post and I could talk about this subject for hours, so I might make a second part on this one. If you have any questions or suggestions feel free to dm me on Instagram about it or leave a comment below!