13. How to Make Business Simple
We use simplicity and specificity all the time in our work as interior designers. Think about the harmony that comes from intentionally simplifying the design of a room. So, why does planning for the business side of being an interior designer feel so complicated and overwhelming?
So many people have an unconscious belief that creating professional impact requires a complex process. But the truth is, something simple can also be well-designed and thought out. You can do less while being more effective as an entrepreneur, as long as you use simplicity and specificity to your advantage, and I’m showing you how in this episode.
Tune in this week to discover the importance of simplicity and specificity as you plan for the future of your business. I’m sharing how to stop spinning in indecision and uncertainty, so you can create a plan to get into action and gain momentum by always knowing your next move.
Are you ready to Create Your 2023 Roadmap? I’m holding a two-part guided workshop experience to help you set a vision for the year and decide how to get there. I’m sharing my process for setting and achieving any goal in a simple and specific way to guide you throughout the next 12 months, as well as providing live coaching. All of this is $87, we start on January 27th 2023, and you can click here to sign up!
Out of Overwhelm is my signature six-month program designed to take you from overwhelmed and stressed to profitable, in control, and fulfilled. Doors open for the next round in June 2023, so if you love the topics covered on the podcast, click here to get yourself on the waitlist!
Sign up to my Monday Mindset email list to get bite-sized insights on topics just like this that you can use to set your week up for success!
To celebrate the launch of the show, I’m giving away gift cards to Jayson Home, one of my favorite home decor sources. All you have to do to become one of the five lucky listeners to win is follow, rate, and review this podcast.
Please leave your honest feedback, and click here to learn how to enter!
What You’ll Discover from this Episode:
Why entrepreneurs often believe that if something is complex, it will appear more legitimate, professional, and impressive.
What it looks like to thoughtfully approach the design of a process through a lens of simplicity and specificity.
Why it’s so important to keep things simple and specific as you plan for the future of your business.
How to identify the mini results you will achieve on the way to your goals.
My easy-to-implement steps to start getting simple and specific in your own business right now.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
Enter the podcast launch giveaway by leaving a rating and review! Click here to learn how to enter.
If you love what you’re learning on the show, I’d love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm
Full Episode Transcript:
Hey designer, you’re listening to episode 13. This is the one where I’m sharing two of the guiding principles I have in life and business so that you can apply them too.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, welcome back to the podcast. This is the first episode I’m recording since I’ve been back from my two-week break. And it’s been a three-week break, actually, from recording from the podcast because I wanted to make sure that I didn’t have to record one the first week back. I call it reentry or my clients will hear me talk about it as a runway for leading up to a vacation or coming back.
So it’s been a while. My family spent two weeks in Costa Rica. And I did a lot of yoga. We met friends there. We went on lots of adventures with our kids and our friend’s kids. It was just so great. I said to my husband toward the end of the trip it kind of started to feel like I was never going to go back home. But we did come home.
And actually, right before I left, I had an idea for a new pop-up group coaching experience. And essentially, it’s a goal-setting workshop. But it’s going to be a guided workshop experience, and we are going to plan your year together. And I love coaching on goals because it brings together so many of the individual topics I coach on, like time management, setting boundaries, establishing systems, it brings it all together.
I did a goal-setting workshop in December; it was the kickoff to Out Of Overwhelm enrollment. And this was where I taught my five-step process for setting and achieving your goals, even if you’re very busy, which, let’s face it, if you’re listening to this podcast, you are busy.
And now Out Of Overwhelm is kicking off with the latest cohort for the next six months. And you might be someone who joined, or you might not be someone who joined. And you might be someone who’s thinking about working with me or thinking about joining a future round. And if that’s you, get on the waitlist; the link is in the show notes. The next round is going to be this summer.
But I was thinking about how I could support all of you who I’m not currently working with in a really accessible and impactful way. And I had this idea. And it’s the new year, and it’s obviously a big time for setting goals and planning in your business. That’s definitely in the forefront of our minds. And I also know that there’s a very steep falloff as we move into the start of the year, where a lot of you start to abandon ship or place those goals on the back burner. They start to slip from the priority list and out of sight, out of mind.
And there are a lot of reasons that this happens. But one of the common reasons that this happens is because your planning process lacks simplicity and specificity. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. It’s also one of the many things I’m going to be supporting you with inside my new two-part guided planning workshop, and I’m calling it Create Your 2023 Roadmap. Because the intention is you’re going to set a vision for the year, and we are going to create your roadmap together.
So the series is going to kick off with a two-hour planning session. And during our time together, you’re going to be guided through my process for setting and achieving your goals in a simple and specific way, which we’ll talk about, and creating your personal and professional vision for the year that’s going to guide how you plan your year.
You’re going to set a specific business goal based on that vision. And then, we’re going to identify quarterly projects to make your goal inevitable. So you always know what you need to be working on as the year progresses, so there is not this vague unknown of I think I set this goal, but I don’t really know what I’m doing to get there or if I’m on track.
So that’s going to be the first two-hour planning session. And then, one week after that, we’re going to come together for a group coaching call. And during this session, you can bring any questions or obstacles that arise after you’ve had time to reflect on your plan. You can get coached on any of the very normal worries, doubts, fears, or resistance you’re feeling around goal setting. And you can also then watch your peers be coached and create your own ahas while witnessing their coaching, in addition to getting coaching yourself. It’s going to be amazing.
And the reason I’m telling you about this isn’t just because I want you all to come join me, which I definitely do. But it relates so well to what we’re talking about today. As I was closing out my year I was not planning on creating a workshop immediately when I got back from my vacation. I hadn’t planned space for this, but it was something that I felt really excited about. I felt like it was a need that I wanted to fill.
And I posted a poll on Instagram gauging interest. And a lot of you were excited about this. So I wanted to do it, but I hadn’t planned space for it. So I really needed to make a conscious decision to take on something new and be very clear on how I was going to do it. Because I wanted to get this all to you before it was too far into the year and kind of that sparkle of the new year and goal setting and all of that had passed.
So I thought this would be a great opportunity to challenge myself to create something entirely new in the most simple way possible, using my specific planning process so I could create something that’s extremely valuable for you in a very short period of time. And that’s exactly what I did.
It all started with me keeping my planning and execution simple and specific. What I did was not fancy at all. I wrote out a project plan in my notebook that I brought with me on vacation. I took some quick notes for the emails and the workbook I would create when I returned home. And I emailed my assistant to give her a heads-up and then was able to dive right in when we got back to the office.
And if I had allowed myself to go to complexity or confusion, overwhelm, or perfectionism, really trying to create elaborate plans, or even if I just made the planning process elaborate, this workshop would not be happening. But now we get to work together to plan your year, and it’s going to be amazing. And it’s only going to be $87. You can click the link in the show notes to sign up. I highly recommend you grab that link right now.
If you did attend the goal-setting workshop in December or you’re a current or past client, be sure to check your email because I sent you a special code that is going to give you a discount on the workshop.
Today I want to talk to you about the concept of simplicity and specificity in your planning, mainly around goals, projects, and new initiatives in your business. But this really applies to your daily and weekly planning of client work as well, so go ahead and apply it in whatever way feels most appropriate for you.
Before we dive in, I want to give a shout-out to another listener who left a review for me and is one of the selected winners of the podcast giveaway. Ding, ding, ding. I’m excited. All right, this review was left by Stephanie Jane L, and she says, “Great resource for interior designers. Whether you are a recent business owner or a seasoned professional, this podcast for interior designers is a key ingredient to owning a successful interior design business.
Desi breaks down all the tough-to-talk-about topics, including managing productivity and how to be profitable. Can’t wait for more.” Stephanie, I’m very excited that you are excited about the podcast. I can’t wait for more episodes to come as well. So send me a DM on Instagram @DesiCreswell and let me know the best way to contact you so that I can get you that Jayson Home gift card.
There’s one more week left to enter, so be sure to rate and review the podcast and let me know that you left that review so that you can be entered too.
All right, now that we’ve done some celebrating, let’s dive into the topic. I want to talk about specificity and simplicity today because one of the biggest roadblocks I see designers faced with when they’re getting started with consistent planning and follow-through is overcomplicating things. And the other piece of it is being too vague in what you’re setting out to achieve and how you’re going to achieve it.
A lot of times, this over-complication comes from a belief that you’re thinking that more complex is better or that creating really impactful results requires the plan or the doing or the how you get to that result to be complex. Now, I’m guessing you’re probably not thinking I’m going to make this as complicated as possible, and that will be better, consciously.
But I do see this happening in an underlying unconscious belief that if it’s more complex, it’ll be more legitimate. It’ll be more professional or more impressive. Or it needs to be more complex because that’s what a real business or a business of this size should have. And this isn’t true. This is a thought error. Just because your plan or planning will be simple, or the ways that you decide to follow through on that plan might be simple, doesn’t mean it’s not well thought out or that it won’t be incredibly impactful. In fact, it’s the opposite.
When you plan using simplicity and specificity, you are better able to prioritize your actions. You can actually do less and be more effective and make the whole process of execution more enjoyable because you’re not fighting yourself. And I’ll talk more about what I mean by that in a bit.
You could even think about this in the context of designing a room. The most beautiful spaces, in my opinion, have a specific point of view and have simplicity running through the entirety of their design. There might be a lot of different layers of colors, patterns, details, and textures. But there is a harmony that comes from simplifying what is in the room and, more importantly, what is not in the room.
The end product, when you thoughtfully approach the design of a space through the lens of simplicity and also specificity in very concrete details, is much, much better than, let’s say, if you went to Home Goods or Target and you just dumped a bunch of stuff in the cart and filled a room without a clear intention for the space.
In a lot of ways, though, this is what we do with our goal-setting and planning, is we just dump a bunch of ideas somewhere, and maybe we don’t even write them down, and then hope for the best. You’d never do that on a client project, but that’s how you’re a protein achieving the goals that you really want to achieve in your business.
So if you’ve struggled with planning and follow-through either in your daily schedule, your habits, and routines, or with your yearly goals, I want you to apply the concept that I’m sharing with you today.
Let’s define what I mean by simple and specific before we go into how to use those two principles. Simplicity, to me, really means freedom from complexity. Or, in the way that I think of it with planning, is something easy to understand or explain. When you’re planning, you want to be able to understand your plan so that it is easy to explain to yourself, and I’ll share why this last part is important in just a moment.
Planning with specificity means clearly defined or identified. This looks like being clear on the result or outcome you want to achieve. And also being clear on the steps you anticipate you’ll take to get yourself to that end result.
So why is simple and specific so important? Simple and specific makes it easy to get into action quickly, with more ease, and with more consistency. The combination of simple and specific is really like having a sharp knife in the kitchen that cuts through a tough-to-cut butternut squash. If you’ve ever cut up a butternut squash, the rind on it is very thick. You need a sharp knife.
Now, you could get it done with a kind of dull knife. But then I have the question to ask you of why make things harder than it needs to be? And that’s where specificity and simplicity come into play. It makes things easier. If you listened to episode three, Overwhelm is Optional, you know that our feelings are the fuel for our actions. And certain emotions can also halt our actions.
Feelings like overwhelm, confusion, indecision, and uncertainty, they all feel very active. I kind of experience them as this buzziness in my brain. The thing is, though, even though they feel very busy and active, we’re not actually taking action from those emotions. It’s very difficult to gain momentum or even just get started when you are spinning in one of these emotions.
And when it comes to creating or executing a plan, when you’re feeling confused, overwhelmed, indecisive, you are going to get stuck in inaction. Or you might find yourself taking a lot of action, but you’re doing everything but the thing you’re meant to be doing, like maybe cleaning up those samples around the office or checking your email a gazillion times, hit refresh, refresh, refresh.
When you’re clear and specific in your planning, you don’t have to fight yourself because you know what to do. You’re much less likely to get stuck in procrastination and avoidance and then need to cajole or judge yourself into action when you plan this way.
The reason you’re able to skip a lot of that unnecessary drama with this approach is because when you break your plan down into simple, specific steps, you’re making it easier for yourself to hold two key beliefs or thoughts that get you into action. And these two beliefs are, this is simple, and I know what to do, or I know what to do next.
Consider the difference between making a plan or executing a plan when you’re believing this is simple, or I know what to do, versus this is going to be hard or I don’t know where to start. The first set of beliefs, this is simple, I know what to do, creates the feelings of focus and decisiveness. And from these emotions, you can take deliberate, consistent action.
Whereas when you’re believing that something will be hard or complex or that you don’t know where to start, you’re going to generate the feelings of confusion and overwhelm. These emotions then lead you to spin in your head or just abandon planning. The first part of this is always going to be mindset, deciding on purpose what thinking you want to fuel your planning and execution when it comes to your goal setting.
Once you have that mindset, then you look at this strategy of simple and specific planning. And as you’re going to learn in my upcoming workshop, Create Your 2023 Roadmap, I like to break a yearly goal into quarterly projects, and definitely no more than three quarters, but I like to section it off that way. And then, for each project, I create a simple and specific project plan. And that consists of all the mini-results that, when combined, create a larger result, which is the completed project or end result that I want to arrive at.
When you join the guided workshop series, you’re also going to get access to my previous goal-setting workshop as a bonus, where I walk you through this. And then, of course, I dive into this very deeply with my Out Of Overwhelm clients. But I want to give you an overview of what this might look like.
When you’re making a plan, and again, this could apply to a goal, a back-end project in your business, a client project, get very, very detailed and break down everything you think you need to do to achieve that end result into the simplest steps possible. This will take a little bit of time on the front end to really break down the project. But the amount of time and mental energy you will save is worth it every single time.
Let me give you an example of how I used this process when I outlined the Create Your 2023 Roadmap workshop. The workshop is the final result that I want to create. And then, within that, there’s many mini results that are going to lead to the workshop being completed. In order for you to read about the workshop and sign up, I need to have a landing page, which is just a page on my website that gives you all the details. And then, within that landing page, there are even more mini results.
Now, if I just put create workshop, or even create a landing page on my calendar, this would have for sure had me in procrastination mode. Creating an entire workshop or even just an entire landing page, to my brain, sounds like a lot of work. I don’t know where to start, I don’t know exactly what I need to do, and I’m for sure not going to have the time to do it all at once.
So I know my brain, and I know I’d be putting this off until I thought I had “enough time.” If you could see the air quotes, right? I’m using air quotes right now because even though I have been doing this work for so long, my brain still likes to offer up the excuse of not enough time.
So this is what I do. Instead of spinning in procrastination and confusion, I wrote out a simple and specific plan for each of the mini results. For the landing page even, there’s quite a few components. And I’m going to give you a rundown here so you can see what this would look like.
So one of the mini results would be defining the problem I was going to help you solve and the result you’d create by attending the workshop. Another mini result is a decision list, essentially a list of decisions I had to make about what I was going to put on the page for dates, times, and price.
Another mini result is a rough draft of the landing page copy. I had to edit the copy. I had to send my assistant an email with a request to make the landing page with design cues. I had to review the landing page.
So you can see, I break it down very specifically. And I did this for everything I needed for the entire workshop. The emails I would write. The thank you page that happens after you enroll. The reminder and confirmation emails. The workbook. All of those things were broken down into a simple and specific plan.
Slowing myself down to get simple and specific allowed me to then pick these mini results off the plan as soon as I got home and work them into my week with other commitments so that I could finish these tasks and get this workshop out into the world.
When I referenced my simple and specific plan, I knew what to do and could go piece by piece with efficiency. When you use the principles of specificity and simplicity, planning and execution in your business becomes so much easier. You get to stay in action far more than in spinning. And you get started faster on your work because you’re not wondering what you’re even supposed to be doing.
When you break down your actions into specific simple next steps, you know what to do because you’ve already taken the time to outline that for yourself. You know where to get started, you know what you can do next, and you know what you’re going to need to do to finish things off.
When I think about defining mini results, I like to think about how can I break this down into a simple and specific task that is only going to take me about 15 to 60 minutes. And I love this, and it works so well because we always can create 15 to 60 minutes within a day or a week, depending on what your current capacity is.
So it allows you to fit these pieces into your existing schedule and really plan accordingly. And what’s really fun about this is that you get to feel accomplished along the way because you’re starting and finishing multiple things along the way. Not just feeling accomplished at the end because you’re closing the loops as you go.
What’s also so effective about this approach is that you’re going to end up missing a lot less along the way. A lot of times, when we don’t get specific and simple with our planning, important steps are entirely missed, or we get surprised by something that we didn’t think we had to do that maybe wasn’t even on our radar, and then we have to scramble to fit it in.
So when you take the time to make that simple and specific plan ahead of time, you are thinking through all of the many results, all of the steps, so that there are far less surprises. All of this together means you’re going to have more completed projects. It’s more progress and more ability then, to also relax when you’re not working. Because one, you are more effective during your work hours. And two, you know what to do next. So you don’t have to have something looming over your head while you’re trying to take a break.
What I want you to do is remember that when you’re making a plan, start with the beliefs that this is simple and I know what to do. From there, you’re then going to plan. You’re going to break the final result down into mini-results that are simple and specific so you have actions you can complete in 15 to 60-minute increments.
Once you have your plan, be sure to ask yourself, is this simple? Is this specific? And if it’s not, I want you to take another pass at the plan. As a reminder, your brain is probably going to tell you that you don’t have time to plan like this, but trust me when I say you don’t have time to not plan this way. Your goal and its achievement really depends on it.
The other reminder I have for you is to know that this is a practice, and keeping things simple and specific is going to get easier and faster as you go, as you practice. So if it does feel a little bit clunky at first, nothing has gone wrong. You’re just learning a new skill.
When you plan with these concepts at the forefront of your goals, your results are going to become inevitable. And I want to do this work with you of setting your 2023 goal and planning out the year in a simple and specific way. So remember to sign up for Create Your 2023 Roadmap.
The link is going to be in the show notes. It is only $87. We are going to coach and work together, and I am going to support you in creating a solid plan for the year to come. The two calls are on January 27th and February 2nd, and I would love to support you and see you there.
In the next episode, I’m going to be sharing about re-deciding in your business. It’s something I’m doing a lot of right now, and I want to give you a look inside what redesigning means to me and how to use the process for yourself. I can’t wait to dive into that topic. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
To celebrate the launch of the show, I’m going to be giving away gift cards to Jayson Home, one of my favorite home decor sources. I’m going to be giving away $50 gift cards to five lucky listeners who follow, rate, and review the show.
Now, it doesn’t have to be a five-star review, although I sure hope you love the show. I want your honest feedback, so I can create an amazing show that provides tons of value. Visit desicreswell.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. I’ll be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies, visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.
Hello, welcome back to the podcast. This is the first episode I’m recording since I’ve been back from my two-week break. And it’s been a three-week break, actually, from recording from the podcast because I wanted to make sure that I didn’t have to record one the first week back. I call it reentry or my clients will hear me talk about it as a runway for leading up to a vacation or coming back.
So it’s been a while. My family spent two weeks in Costa Rica. And I did a lot of yoga. We met friends there. We went on lots of adventures with our kids and our friend’s kids. It was just so great. I said to my husband toward the end of the trip it kind of started to feel like I was never going to go back home. But we did come home.
And actually, right before I left, I had an idea for a new pop-up group coaching experience. And essentially, it’s a goal-setting workshop. But it’s going to be a guided workshop experience, and we are going to plan your year together. And I love coaching on goals because it brings together so many of the individual topics I coach on, like time management, setting boundaries, establishing systems, it brings it all together.
I did a goal-setting workshop in December; it was the kickoff to Out Of Overwhelm enrollment. And this was where I taught my five-step process for setting and achieving your goals, even if you’re very busy, which, let’s face it, if you’re listening to this podcast, you are busy.
And now Out Of Overwhelm is kicking off with the latest cohort for the next six months. And you might be someone who joined, or you might not be someone who joined. And you might be someone who’s thinking about working with me or thinking about joining a future round. And if that’s you, get on the waitlist; the link is in the show notes. The next round is going to be this summer.
But I was thinking about how I could support all of you who I’m not currently working with in a really accessible and impactful way. And I had this idea. And it’s the new year, and it’s obviously a big time for setting goals and planning in your business. That’s definitely in the forefront of our minds. And I also know that there’s a very steep falloff as we move into the start of the year, where a lot of you start to abandon ship or place those goals on the back burner. They start to slip from the priority list and out of sight, out of mind.
And there are a lot of reasons that this happens. But one of the common reasons that this happens is because your planning process lacks simplicity and specificity. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. It’s also one of the many things I’m going to be supporting you with inside my new two-part guided planning workshop, and I’m calling it Create Your 2023 Roadmap. Because the intention is you’re going to set a vision for the year, and we are going to create your roadmap together.
So the series is going to kick off with a two-hour planning session. And during our time together, you’re going to be guided through my process for setting and achieving your goals in a simple and specific way, which we’ll talk about, and creating your personal and professional vision for the year that’s going to guide how you plan your year.
You’re going to set a specific business goal based on that vision. And then, we’re going to identify quarterly projects to make your goal inevitable. So you always know what you need to be working on as the year progresses, so there is not this vague unknown of I think I set this goal, but I don’t really know what I’m doing to get there or if I’m on track.
So that’s going to be the first two-hour planning session. And then, one week after that, we’re going to come together for a group coaching call. And during this session, you can bring any questions or obstacles that arise after you’ve had time to reflect on your plan. You can get coached on any of the very normal worries, doubts, fears, or resistance you’re feeling around goal setting. And you can also then watch your peers be coached and create your own ahas while witnessing their coaching, in addition to getting coaching yourself. It’s going to be amazing.
And the reason I’m telling you about this isn’t just because I want you all to come join me, which I definitely do. But it relates so well to what we’re talking about today. As I was closing out my year I was not planning on creating a workshop immediately when I got back from my vacation. I hadn’t planned space for this, but it was something that I felt really excited about. I felt like it was a need that I wanted to fill.
And I posted a poll on Instagram gauging interest. And a lot of you were excited about this. So I wanted to do it, but I hadn’t planned space for it. So I really needed to make a conscious decision to take on something new and be very clear on how I was going to do it. Because I wanted to get this all to you before it was too far into the year and kind of that sparkle of the new year and goal setting and all of that had passed.
So I thought this would be a great opportunity to challenge myself to create something entirely new in the most simple way possible, using my specific planning process so I could create something that’s extremely valuable for you in a very short period of time. And that’s exactly what I did.
It all started with me keeping my planning and execution simple and specific. What I did was not fancy at all. I wrote out a project plan in my notebook that I brought with me on vacation. I took some quick notes for the emails and the workbook I would create when I returned home. And I emailed my assistant to give her a heads-up and then was able to dive right in when we got back to the office.
And if I had allowed myself to go to complexity or confusion, overwhelm, or perfectionism, really trying to create elaborate plans, or even if I just made the planning process elaborate, this workshop would not be happening. But now we get to work together to plan your year, and it’s going to be amazing. And it’s only going to be $87. You can click the link in the show notes to sign up. I highly recommend you grab that link right now.
If you did attend the goal-setting workshop in December or you’re a current or past client, be sure to check your email because I sent you a special code that is going to give you a discount on the workshop.
Today I want to talk to you about the concept of simplicity and specificity in your planning, mainly around goals, projects, and new initiatives in your business. But this really applies to your daily and weekly planning of client work as well, so go ahead and apply it in whatever way feels most appropriate for you.
Before we dive in, I want to give a shout-out to another listener who left a review for me and is one of the selected winners of the podcast giveaway. Ding, ding, ding. I’m excited. All right, this review was left by Stephanie Jane L, and she says, “Great resource for interior designers. Whether you are a recent business owner or a seasoned professional, this podcast for interior designers is a key ingredient to owning a successful interior design business.
Desi breaks down all the tough-to-talk-about topics, including managing productivity and how to be profitable. Can’t wait for more.” Stephanie, I’m very excited that you are excited about the podcast. I can’t wait for more episodes to come as well. So send me a DM on Instagram @DesiCreswell and let me know the best way to contact you so that I can get you that Jayson Home gift card.
There’s one more week left to enter, so be sure to rate and review the podcast and let me know that you left that review so that you can be entered too.
All right, now that we’ve done some celebrating, let’s dive into the topic. I want to talk about specificity and simplicity today because one of the biggest roadblocks I see designers faced with when they’re getting started with consistent planning and follow-through is overcomplicating things. And the other piece of it is being too vague in what you’re setting out to achieve and how you’re going to achieve it.
A lot of times, this over-complication comes from a belief that you’re thinking that more complex is better or that creating really impactful results requires the plan or the doing or the how you get to that result to be complex. Now, I’m guessing you’re probably not thinking I’m going to make this as complicated as possible, and that will be better, consciously.
But I do see this happening in an underlying unconscious belief that if it’s more complex, it’ll be more legitimate. It’ll be more professional or more impressive. Or it needs to be more complex because that’s what a real business or a business of this size should have. And this isn’t true. This is a thought error. Just because your plan or planning will be simple, or the ways that you decide to follow through on that plan might be simple, doesn’t mean it’s not well thought out or that it won’t be incredibly impactful. In fact, it’s the opposite.
When you plan using simplicity and specificity, you are better able to prioritize your actions. You can actually do less and be more effective and make the whole process of execution more enjoyable because you’re not fighting yourself. And I’ll talk more about what I mean by that in a bit.
You could even think about this in the context of designing a room. The most beautiful spaces, in my opinion, have a specific point of view and have simplicity running through the entirety of their design. There might be a lot of different layers of colors, patterns, details, and textures. But there is a harmony that comes from simplifying what is in the room and, more importantly, what is not in the room.
The end product, when you thoughtfully approach the design of a space through the lens of simplicity and also specificity in very concrete details, is much, much better than, let’s say, if you went to Home Goods or Target and you just dumped a bunch of stuff in the cart and filled a room without a clear intention for the space.
In a lot of ways, though, this is what we do with our goal-setting and planning, is we just dump a bunch of ideas somewhere, and maybe we don’t even write them down, and then hope for the best. You’d never do that on a client project, but that’s how you’re a protein achieving the goals that you really want to achieve in your business.
So if you’ve struggled with planning and follow-through either in your daily schedule, your habits, and routines, or with your yearly goals, I want you to apply the concept that I’m sharing with you today.
Let’s define what I mean by simple and specific before we go into how to use those two principles. Simplicity, to me, really means freedom from complexity. Or, in the way that I think of it with planning, is something easy to understand or explain. When you’re planning, you want to be able to understand your plan so that it is easy to explain to yourself, and I’ll share why this last part is important in just a moment.
Planning with specificity means clearly defined or identified. This looks like being clear on the result or outcome you want to achieve. And also being clear on the steps you anticipate you’ll take to get yourself to that end result.
So why is simple and specific so important? Simple and specific makes it easy to get into action quickly, with more ease, and with more consistency. The combination of simple and specific is really like having a sharp knife in the kitchen that cuts through a tough-to-cut butternut squash. If you’ve ever cut up a butternut squash, the rind on it is very thick. You need a sharp knife.
Now, you could get it done with a kind of dull knife. But then I have the question to ask you of why make things harder than it needs to be? And that’s where specificity and simplicity come into play. It makes things easier. If you listened to episode three, Overwhelm is Optional, you know that our feelings are the fuel for our actions. And certain emotions can also halt our actions.
Feelings like overwhelm, confusion, indecision, and uncertainty, they all feel very active. I kind of experience them as this buzziness in my brain. The thing is, though, even though they feel very busy and active, we’re not actually taking action from those emotions. It’s very difficult to gain momentum or even just get started when you are spinning in one of these emotions.
And when it comes to creating or executing a plan, when you’re feeling confused, overwhelmed, indecisive, you are going to get stuck in inaction. Or you might find yourself taking a lot of action, but you’re doing everything but the thing you’re meant to be doing, like maybe cleaning up those samples around the office or checking your email a gazillion times, hit refresh, refresh, refresh.
When you’re clear and specific in your planning, you don’t have to fight yourself because you know what to do. You’re much less likely to get stuck in procrastination and avoidance and then need to cajole or judge yourself into action when you plan this way.
The reason you’re able to skip a lot of that unnecessary drama with this approach is because when you break your plan down into simple, specific steps, you’re making it easier for yourself to hold two key beliefs or thoughts that get you into action. And these two beliefs are, this is simple, and I know what to do, or I know what to do next.
Consider the difference between making a plan or executing a plan when you’re believing this is simple, or I know what to do, versus this is going to be hard or I don’t know where to start. The first set of beliefs, this is simple, I know what to do, creates the feelings of focus and decisiveness. And from these emotions, you can take deliberate, consistent action.
Whereas when you’re believing that something will be hard or complex or that you don’t know where to start, you’re going to generate the feelings of confusion and overwhelm. These emotions then lead you to spin in your head or just abandon planning. The first part of this is always going to be mindset, deciding on purpose what thinking you want to fuel your planning and execution when it comes to your goal setting.
Once you have that mindset, then you look at this strategy of simple and specific planning. And as you’re going to learn in my upcoming workshop, Create Your 2023 Roadmap, I like to break a yearly goal into quarterly projects, and definitely no more than three quarters, but I like to section it off that way. And then, for each project, I create a simple and specific project plan. And that consists of all the mini-results that, when combined, create a larger result, which is the completed project or end result that I want to arrive at.
When you join the guided workshop series, you’re also going to get access to my previous goal-setting workshop as a bonus, where I walk you through this. And then, of course, I dive into this very deeply with my Out Of Overwhelm clients. But I want to give you an overview of what this might look like.
When you’re making a plan, and again, this could apply to a goal, a back-end project in your business, a client project, get very, very detailed and break down everything you think you need to do to achieve that end result into the simplest steps possible. This will take a little bit of time on the front end to really break down the project. But the amount of time and mental energy you will save is worth it every single time.
Let me give you an example of how I used this process when I outlined the Create Your 2023 Roadmap workshop. The workshop is the final result that I want to create. And then, within that, there’s many mini results that are going to lead to the workshop being completed. In order for you to read about the workshop and sign up, I need to have a landing page, which is just a page on my website that gives you all the details. And then, within that landing page, there are even more mini results.
Now, if I just put create workshop, or even create a landing page on my calendar, this would have for sure had me in procrastination mode. Creating an entire workshop or even just an entire landing page, to my brain, sounds like a lot of work. I don’t know where to start, I don’t know exactly what I need to do, and I’m for sure not going to have the time to do it all at once.
So I know my brain, and I know I’d be putting this off until I thought I had “enough time.” If you could see the air quotes, right? I’m using air quotes right now because even though I have been doing this work for so long, my brain still likes to offer up the excuse of not enough time.
So this is what I do. Instead of spinning in procrastination and confusion, I wrote out a simple and specific plan for each of the mini results. For the landing page even, there’s quite a few components. And I’m going to give you a rundown here so you can see what this would look like.
So one of the mini results would be defining the problem I was going to help you solve and the result you’d create by attending the workshop. Another mini result is a decision list, essentially a list of decisions I had to make about what I was going to put on the page for dates, times, and price.
Another mini result is a rough draft of the landing page copy. I had to edit the copy. I had to send my assistant an email with a request to make the landing page with design cues. I had to review the landing page.
So you can see, I break it down very specifically. And I did this for everything I needed for the entire workshop. The emails I would write. The thank you page that happens after you enroll. The reminder and confirmation emails. The workbook. All of those things were broken down into a simple and specific plan.
Slowing myself down to get simple and specific allowed me to then pick these mini results off the plan as soon as I got home and work them into my week with other commitments so that I could finish these tasks and get this workshop out into the world.
When I referenced my simple and specific plan, I knew what to do and could go piece by piece with efficiency. When you use the principles of specificity and simplicity, planning and execution in your business becomes so much easier. You get to stay in action far more than in spinning. And you get started faster on your work because you’re not wondering what you’re even supposed to be doing.
When you break down your actions into specific simple next steps, you know what to do because you’ve already taken the time to outline that for yourself. You know where to get started, you know what you can do next, and you know what you’re going to need to do to finish things off.
When I think about defining mini results, I like to think about how can I break this down into a simple and specific task that is only going to take me about 15 to 60 minutes. And I love this, and it works so well because we always can create 15 to 60 minutes within a day or a week, depending on what your current capacity is.
So it allows you to fit these pieces into your existing schedule and really plan accordingly. And what’s really fun about this is that you get to feel accomplished along the way because you’re starting and finishing multiple things along the way. Not just feeling accomplished at the end because you’re closing the loops as you go.
What’s also so effective about this approach is that you’re going to end up missing a lot less along the way. A lot of times, when we don’t get specific and simple with our planning, important steps are entirely missed, or we get surprised by something that we didn’t think we had to do that maybe wasn’t even on our radar, and then we have to scramble to fit it in.
So when you take the time to make that simple and specific plan ahead of time, you are thinking through all of the many results, all of the steps, so that there are far less surprises. All of this together means you’re going to have more completed projects. It’s more progress and more ability then, to also relax when you’re not working. Because one, you are more effective during your work hours. And two, you know what to do next. So you don’t have to have something looming over your head while you’re trying to take a break.
What I want you to do is remember that when you’re making a plan, start with the beliefs that this is simple and I know what to do. From there, you’re then going to plan. You’re going to break the final result down into mini-results that are simple and specific so you have actions you can complete in 15 to 60-minute increments.
Once you have your plan, be sure to ask yourself, is this simple? Is this specific? And if it’s not, I want you to take another pass at the plan. As a reminder, your brain is probably going to tell you that you don’t have time to plan like this, but trust me when I say you don’t have time to not plan this way. Your goal and its achievement really depends on it.
The other reminder I have for you is to know that this is a practice, and keeping things simple and specific is going to get easier and faster as you go, as you practice. So if it does feel a little bit clunky at first, nothing has gone wrong. You’re just learning a new skill.
When you plan with these concepts at the forefront of your goals, your results are going to become inevitable. And I want to do this work with you of setting your 2023 goal and planning out the year in a simple and specific way. So remember to sign up for Create Your 2023 Roadmap.
The link is going to be in the show notes. It is only $87. We are going to coach and work together, and I am going to support you in creating a solid plan for the year to come. The two calls are on January 27th and February 2nd, and I would love to support you and see you there.
In the next episode, I’m going to be sharing about re-deciding in your business. It’s something I’m doing a lot of right now, and I want to give you a look inside what redesigning means to me and how to use the process for yourself. I can’t wait to dive into that topic. And until then, I’m wishing you a beautiful week. I’ll talk to you in the next episode.
To celebrate the launch of the show, I’m going to be giving away gift cards to Jayson Home, one of my favorite home decor sources. I’m going to be giving away $50 gift cards to five lucky listeners who follow, rate, and review the show.
Now, it doesn’t have to be a five-star review, although I sure hope you love the show. I want your honest feedback, so I can create an amazing show that provides tons of value. Visit desicreswell.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. I’ll be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode.
Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies, visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.
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