Welcome back to my Workflow Series! This month on the blog I’m talking about ways to systematize different aspects of your business in order to be more efficient. Last time I wrote about How to Save Valuable Time Every Single Day so if you missed that post, make sure you check it out! Today I’m going to focus on helping you save time in another way: through the use of checklists. These are items that every photographer should have as part of their workflow in order to avoid wasting time unnecessarily and prevent mistakes from happening. Since it’s only March, it’s a great time to implement checklists into your business before busy season starts. Let’s get started!
Why we all need checklists
If you’re not used to checklists, you probably want to make sure it’s worth going through the trouble of making them. Well, imagine getting to a shoot and realizing you forgot your camera battery. Or getting to a wedding reception and realizing you forgot your light stand. There are so many items to remember that you’re bound to forget something eventually if you don’t have a system for making sure you have everything you need. Having checklists will also save you precious time because you won’t have to go through mental checklists. Instead, you can just print out your checklist and start checking off each item as you finish accomplishing it.
Seven must-have checklists for photographers
There are many different types of checklists that will be useful to portrait, event, and wedding photographers and they will likely always be a work in progress. I know that all of mine change every year, and sometimes even multiple times a year! Here are seven ideas to get you started on checklists:
- The Client On-Boarding Checklist: This checklist should include all the steps that need to happen to get your client integrated into your workflows.
- The Pre-Session Checklist – This one should include everything you need to do before a shoot: checking the weather, confirming date/time/location with client, and packing cameras, memory cards, lenses, batteries, flashes, light stands, etc.
- The Pre-Wedding Day Checklist – This checklist should include everything you need to do leading up to the wedding day such as confirming important times and locations, creating family photo shot lists, connecting with vendors, sending out certificates of insurance, etc.
- The Wedding Day Checklist – This checklist should include all the gear you need for the day as well as the wedding day timeline, styling kit, snacks, extra shoes, umbrellas, etc.
- The Post-Session Checklist – Include everything you need to do as soon as you come home from a shoot or event such as backing up images, posting preview images, culling, editing, and delivering images.
- The Blogging Checklist – This one is a must-have for when you are ready to blog the session or the wedding. It should include everything you need to have an engaging and well-optimized blog post.
- The Social Media Management Checklist – This checklist is for making sure you are pushing out your content to your favorite social media channels (more than once!) and pinning it to your favorite boards.
These checklists may take you a little while to create but they’ll come in handy time and time again throughout the year. It’ll be well worth putting in the extra time to create them when you’re in the thick of your busy season and you have a million things racing in your mind. Having checklists as part of your workflow will give you peace of mind that you haven’t forgotten anything. I promise!
