Breakfast, computerside, Abby Kerr Ink.

I’m not a business development coach, but I have been doing business online for 6 years: first as the creator and proprietor of an indie boutique that shipped internationally through its website, and currently as CEO of Abby Kerr Ink.

I’ve got a few things to say about how the work of a creative online business gets done. And while what I have to say only applies to me and my business, I bet the paradigm may be useful and/or interesting to you*.

*J’adore productivity hacking, but only when it’s pressed up against ample spaces of non-taskable time, time in which to root around, see what’s shiny and promising, and bring up it up into the light. I also have a dorky voyeuristic obsession with how other creatives get stuff done. For instance, this simple little post on how she rocks time entrepreneurial time management is one of my all-time faves from Danielle LaPorte.

Because if there’s one thing I know for sure about digital entrepreneurship, it’s this: no two online business owners approach staying in creation and out of busy-ness in the same way.

My well-optimized weekly schedule probably looks nothing like yours.

Over the years and across two very different business models, I’ve tried out several {mostly frustrating and short-sighted} approaches to structuring my work flow, tracking my productivity, and optimizing how stuff gets done most effectively and with actual pleasure — as opposed to with heart palpitations and knuckle-biting. {I’ve had the tooth marks to prove it.}

It being the start of a new year, my Mastermind partner and I are especially focused lately on setting up structures to make 2012 our best years in business yet.

We’ve been calendaring our goals, developing content strategy, and planning to build out our businesses the way we want to. Accountability rocks and possibilities reign.

But we know how it tends to go, and so do you: January’s all about great intentions and even better expectations.

Unless you create a structure to contain your brilliance, momentum ebbs and flows, and your $20,000 idea gets lost in the roster of client projects and sessions {which, of course, you’re very thankful for} and you end up in reaction mode instead of in creation, which is where you want to hang out most of the time.

So finally, in Year 6 of creating my own work in the world, I got wise and dared to design a workweek that meets most of my criteria for uptime and downtime, hyper focus and blessed ease, and administrative thrills and creative throes. {I say most of my criteria because while I’d like to schedule in thrice-weekly indolent lunches with friends downtown, those would only slow me down.}

While I can’t tell you what your ideal workweek looks and feels like, I highly suggest you take some time to freestyle on what feels right to you.

What you’re tracking for: the structure that feels like just the right balance of client-centered and self-indulgent, big picture thinking and every-detail-matters delivery, luxurious swaths of time and tightly focused hours to blaze through. Designing your ideal workweek — and then actually allowing yourself to practice working it, sans Twitter Interruptus and other candy-like distractions — could be the most important, rewarding, and lucrative move you’ll make all year, and it’s only January.

Here’s the workweek I’ve designed for myself this year to keep me out of busy-ness and in creation:

Three weeks in and I can report that my weekends feel longer, my skin is clearer, and my client delivery dates {I durst not use the word ‘deadlines’} all magically seem easier to meet. And for the first time in six years of business ownership, I’ve got an entire calendar year of service/product/program releases planned out and an editorial calendar to match. Now, to deliver . . .

:: MONDAYS

Focus: Abby Kerr Ink. Biz dev and planning. Make sure Google Calendar looks tight and right. Light social media planning for the week ahead {I don’t auto-Tweet, but I do frame out my focus for the week based on what’s coming up on the blog, on the creation calendar, etc.}. Write the week’s blog post{s} and e-newsletter. Heavy-ish admin {including personal admin} to set me up for a clear-minded week.

Mindset: Easing in self-indulgently. Focusing on the big picture. Letting it be easy. Re-connecting with my voice. Seeing what’s up on Twitter — taking the temp for the week.

:: TUESDAYS & THURSDAYS

Focus: Client sessions and copywriting projects. Immersion in their brand identity, voice, and right people market segments. In between and afterward, light admin related to client work: emails, preparing Mp3s, scheduling, etc.

Mindset: This is my clients’ time that they’ve invested in me: dollars for value. I make these days all about them. Have planned so that this year, I only take as many 1:1 copywriting projects as I can manage in 8 eight-hour days a month.

:: WEDNESDAYS

Focus: Abby Kerr Ink service, product, and program development. Creating content to sell. Developing income streams. Writing sales pages. Co-working on Skype with a peer.

Mindset: Deeply tuned in to my right person avatars — their needs and wants, business phases, desired results. Honing and articulating the unique value I provide.

:: FRIDAYS

Focus: Connecting with peers on Skype. Big picture strategizing with Mastermind partner. Finish early — keep it to a half day.

Mindset: Shaking out what worked this week and why. Fine-tuning approach for immediate future. Big convos: strategy, sustainability, what thrills me. Lots of love flowing.

And, a few nuances I’ve discovered work well for me:

On studio hours: Monday-Thursday, 8/9 AM – 5 PM, with 60 minutes or so of unstructured time for eating, stretch breaks, textfests with friends. Friday, 8/9 AM – Noon. No evenings, Saturdays, or Sundays, unless I’ve gotten myself off-schedule and need to make up hours for a client project in order to meet a delivery date. {Though I set my own delivery dates for my copywriting projects and am not above adjusting them as need be.} Three days a week, start the day off at a park with a friend and our dogs.

On connecting: I’m an introvert, albeit a decidedly un-shy one. I’ve learned {the hard way} that even one non-client hourlong-plus Skype session early in the day can toss me out of my flow to an unrecoverable degree. It’s not worth it. My personal rule: no more than 3 peer Skype sessions a week, including my 90-minute long Mastermind session. And never more than two hours of Skype on any one day, including client sessions.

On email: We all know how many hours a day email can eat up — if you let it. Back in the darker days of my shopkeeping career, I used to let it consume the better part of at least a couple days a week. {Upside: I’m really great at teaching/consulting/advising over email.} Not no more. Email gets processed almost immediately as it comes in, but segmented into mental folders like 2-Minute Reply Now, Reply By End of Day or Tomorrow By Noon, and Reply Within the Next Week If Possible. No free consulting over email, ever.

On working conditions: Usually at home. Occasionally at a coffee shop with free Wi-Fi, which is my preference, but on client session days, I prefer to be at home where the acoustics and the noise level are better and I can get a clean recording for them. Often in loungewear/yoga-type clothing, but better in my favorite Gap Long & Lean jeans and a top I love. And earrings.

On productivity tools: I live Monday-Friday by Google Calendar, color-coded and time-blocked to the hilt. Because my inner taskmistress is a linear thinker, I maintain my prodigious To Do list on WorkFlowy. And I like TickTockTimer for structured writing or admin bursts. All free tools. I schedule client sessions via TimeTrade [not an Affiliate link] for a very reasonable yearly fee, and it syncs with Google Calendar.

Hope this dissection of how I’m doing business lately is interesting for you.  While a nuts-and-bolts post like this is a departure from the usual convo, planning for success has been top of mind lately and I felt compared to share my personal approach.

Have you figured out your ideal workweek? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

This post was inspired by Megan Auman’s annual “Best Things I Did for My Business” posts. You can find her 2011 post here.

2011. What. a. year.

3 best things I did for my business & brand in 2011

If you were alive on Earth this year, I’m guessing it was a challenging one for you in at least one major area of your life {health, finances, relationships, creativity, etc.}. I can’t think of a single person I know — online peer, client, personal friend, or family member — who didn’t have what they’d describe as a really rough year.

Was it in the water? In the stars?

Regardless, I’m seeing and feeling us all breathe a collective sigh of relief to be stepping out of this year and into a new one.

This last week of the year is always a good time to be thoughtful and critical about not only what didn’t work so well that year, but more importantly, what did work well.

Inspired by Megan Auman’s insightful post, I’m collecting my own ‘best practices’ for Abby Kerr Ink for 2011 right here. Perhaps this’ll become an annual tradition for me, too.

The 3 best things I did for my business & brand in 2011:

1} Discerned my truest teachers. Drank deeply. And wised up.

2010 was my first year as an online-only business {95% non-local clients at that time; currently 100% of my clients are non-local}. That year, if I subscribed to one e-newsletter or RSS feed, I subscribed to 250. {No joke.} My inner archivist/curator was flattered . . . and nearly maxed out.

I entered 2011 unsubscribing from lots of feeds and email lists, which was a terrific decision. I honed my weekly blog reading down to about 15 or 20 subscriptions, and as soon as two or three installments in a row from any one blogger failed to educate/enrich/deepen my learning in a way that I experienced as meaningful, relevant, and timely for my phase of business growth — I clicked the Unsub button. I still follow this precedent for myself.

I intuitively honed in on about 5 or 6 entrepreneurial/business coach voices that resonated deeply with me in terms of strategy, mindset, and perspective. I vetted these teachers carefully to make sure that as far as I can see, the talk they talk is the walk they walk. I watched and learned from these teachers through their blogs, their launches, and the way they conducted themselves in the space. {“The space.”}

Also, I selected 3 branding/copywriting peers to keep an eye on for business development, impact, and strategy. I think of them as my Worthy Peers. Two of them were a bit ahead of me in terms of reach and biz growth, one of them behind me. All three I deeply dig, respect, and have watched this year {mostly from afar} as they connected with their audiences, launched their own products and services, turned out great content, and grew their influence. I highly suggest you ferret out your own Worthy Peers, too. It helps you track of how you’re different from your competition, and gives you extra incentive to keep upping your game. {A full post about Worthy Peers to come.}

I also chose one business mentor with whom to invest deeply in my learning. Something interesting happened when I did that. Not only did I start having a more lucrative and sustainable experience in my own business, but I reconnected with my own power center. I got shaken free of the belief that one person has the system, the answers, the template for a successful business. {Not that this was the promise I was sold, or bought into.} I re-embraced the truth that ultimately, at the end of every phase of learning, it’s your business and you, plus your right people. There are no gurus. Learning is a wonderful thing — my inner Sage really gets down with some good learning — but my inner Ruler writes my own story, 100% of the time. I’m responsible for my results — the triumphs and the flops. And that inner knowing is worth every penny.

2} Deepened and strengthened friendships with online peers. And realized afresh the interconnectedness of everything and everyone.

2011 was the year I formed and solidified my brain coterie — my group of  trusted peers who are growing their online businesses at about the same rate I am, and with similar values underpinning the biz dev — but more than just mastermind partners and people to work through new ideas with, these women rapidly became some of my dearest friends.

{You know who you are.}

I can’t speak enough about the value in sharing this online business experience with likeminded friends. If you haven’t found those deep friendships in the entrepreneurial community yet, be patient. Don’t rush it. Your people will appear around you when the time is right.

3} Raised my prices.

Raising my prices allows me to filter for — no, not wealth — commitment. As consumers, we invest most in what we value most, or in what we can’t get at the same quality for a lesser price. More than what the market dictates, brand experience truly does govern what consumers pay for goods and services. Time after time, I will sow my dollars with the brand I most want to affiliate with because of how it makes me feel, the possibilities it allows me to open up for myself, or the experience it creates for me. When it comes to investing in services {and sometimes in physical products}, I choose brand experience over features articulated and over price. And I’ve found that my right people clients do, too.

Time after time, I found that clients who questioned my prices upfront or wanted to negotiate in some way about features-for-dollars, well, they just weren’t my right people. Not by a longshot.

One note about price-raising: I raised my prices not arbitrarily, but when I could better articulate and actually deliver more value over time to my clients. And when I noticed that I work better with fewer people at a deeper level, over time. And in order to do that, prices have to go up as smaller, lower-priced services go by the wayside.

So that was my business in 2011 in a nutshell: deeper learning, deeper connection, and deeper value reflected in higher prices.

Thanks to Megan Auman for inspiring this reflection. Now I’d like to hear from you.

What were the 3 best things you did for your business and brand in 2011? Tell me in the comments. And Happy New Year!

Photo by Powi.