Between inquiry calls, blog posting, checking your Facebook groups obsessively, and cleaning out your inbox, you have actual client work to do. But the hours to get the work done in between all of that busy work are few and nothing ever seems to happen in an organized way.

Are you doing the work? Or are you doing the work about work?

Work about work is the busy stuff we do when our brains can’t focus. It’s the reason you checked Facebook before you popped into your inbox and saw this. It’s what made you double check the SEO on your latest blog post or re-do the image for social media sharing. It’s not the work. It just makes you feel like you’re working.

Doing the work looks like booking new clients, getting their contracts and invoices sent out efficiently and returned quickly, setting expectations with project management tools, processing your tasks each day and seeing how it all flows together. Doing the work is what brings in rave testimonials, referrals, and builds your business.

So then why do you do the work about work?

Because, when it comes to doing the work, you don’t know where to begin.

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Instead of having a clear plan laid out based on the way you work best, you wonder what to start with first. You know that successful business owners talk about having “systems” and “workflows” but you just can’t figure out why they matter so much (pssst – it has something to do with that word “successful”) so you stall out before you begin and there you are refreshing your inbox and creating an Instagram graphic.

But where do you begin if you don’t know on your own?

1) Begin with your clients. Begin with the people who take you up on your work (even if they’ve never paid you a dime yet). Your clients are your doorway to doing the work – and they might just be email subscribers right now.

Walk in their shoes, follow their journey. Sign up for your own newsletter or purchase your own product and see how that process goes. Does it leave you feeling cared for, valued, and significant? If that answer is no, what can you do to improve it?

2) Identify the key elements. If you run a product based business, your online shopping experience is crucial to turning browsers into buyers and a hobby into a full-fledged-paying-the-mortgage business. Organize and simplify this process first and work out from there.

3) Get support. Those successful business owners we talked about earlier will also tell you that getting support early and often is a major factor in their success. Sure, when there’s hardly enough money to pay your cell phone bill each month, it’s hard to invest in your business. Believe me, this theatre kid is well aware of that.

I also know what it took to grow a business over the last two years. Investing in someone you trust as an authority on the subject matter at hand, who has a proven track record, and who you genuinely like hanging around (digitally or in person) can propel you forward like nothing else.

I know this because I was once YOU. I get the struggle of starting your own thing and trying to eat something other than peanut butter and jelly (wait, nix the jelly…can’t afford it) sandwiches every day. I get the urge to spend hours in Facebook groups hoping someone will post a job offer. I know that once you start doing the work and the clients are there banging down your door that you want a business you are proud to stand behind, not one that ends every day with a big glass of wine and blood shot eyes. I want you to stop wondering and start knowing. Knowing what comes next, how you operate, and that #allthethings can and will happen in the time you have.

If you just do the work.