Trust the process, trust the routine.

It’s taken me many months since starting a one-woman pottery business to emotionally accept that only half my time is spent with the thing I left my corporate job for: clay. The other half is marketing and other computer-y, admin-y type things.

Making vs. Marketing

Intellectually, I knew this was going to happen. If you’ve spent any time looking at a potter’s social media, you’ve likely heard some comment about how much (or how little) time is really spent in a studio with the express purpose of making (video content doesn’t count because that’s marketing). Kara Leigh Ford dispelled any dreams I had of a 9-to-5 spent with my hands in mud in an online workshop about transforming a pottery hobby into a business: expect only 40-50% of your time to be making. The rest of the time belongs to, mostly, marketing.

This was a blow to my starry eyes. I figured after several months, maybe a year or two, I would get into enough of a groove with the business stuff that most of my time would be spent in the studio. Nope, nope, nope. Still only about half. I begrudgingly admit there is some sense to this. If you want to make a living off things you make, you need to be able to sell the things you make. You need to market. And that shit doesn’t stop.

Why I established a routine

How I’m able to juggle making pots and marketing/business (two very different skills!) during a day or week is by crafting a routine. I seriously love a routine. It helps my chaotic brain. I’m too often thinking of too many things at once and the more I can eliminate from that noise the better. There’s nothing so overwhelming to me as having to think about “what do I have to do today” because I end up also thinking about what I need to do next month and way in July.

The routine means I don’t have to think and scheme and debate if pottery stuff or computer stuff is more efficient in a given day (because I’m always looking for efficiencies). I know I’ll work on marketing in the mornings. I make pottery in the afternoons. It’s a simple rhythm but I don’t worry so much about one taking over the other, or not enough time in one area because I’ve already set aside time. Of course, there is more and involved, like spreadsheets and to do lists, but this is the gist.

Still, I bristle sometimes about lost studio time. I know this isn’t how I should think about it, but the thoughts can creep up. I do worry that < 20 hours isn’t enough to earn any real money. But, as they say, trust the process. The time is additive, and a sustainable business requires a long term view.

Me, pulling up the walls of a cylinder/future bud vase.

You can only make one pot at a time.

Bird by bird

Anne Lamott, in her excellent book on writing, expained how to tackle projects this way: take it bird by bird. I read this book over 15 years ago, and I continue to think about it. When confronted with the hugeness of a project, you don’t need to do All The Things at once. You shouldn’t even think about the hugeness. Instead, break it down. Small things over a stretch of time (an hour, a week, a year) add up. In other words, one thing at a time. For me for pottery, this means instead of thinking of all the different pots I want to make for my Spring Collection, I take it one throwing session at a time, one type of pot at a time. This week, bud vases. Next week, big vases. There could be a lot of disasters or wonky pots in one session. I might end up with only a couple worth firing, which would prompt a thought spiral that I’ll never make enough. But as long as I keep showing up, one session at a time, I’ll make the pots I need.

Avoiding burnout

In another pottery workshop, Tim See called himself a lifetime potter (not production potter or someone who turns out vast quantities with incredible speed). That resonated because I too don’t want to burn out on something I love because I did too much of it too intensely over too long a period. The lesson is in how to give yourself a nudge so you do work and make and sell (market!), but not so much that it consumes you until you never want to do it again. But also, price your pottery appropriately. Take into account the 20 hours a week spent answering emails and ordering supplies and taking photos and drafting marketing plans is work too. It is part of the business. It’s realllllly hard to sell something if you don’t spend time on all these other tasks.

Trust the process

So for me this all circles back to establishing a sustainable routine that I can do week-to-week, month-to-month, year-to-year. Trust the process. Vases and planters and other pots will get made. And over the course of a month, those 80 hours can add up to quite a few pots. Pre-determined time for all those admin tasks ensures that I’ll eventually get to them. Like learning to make decent Reels. (Yikes). It’s not all bad. I don’t mind staring at spreadsheets on Monday mornings when I’m feeling a bit sluggish.

Right now, this routine is working for me. Even when some computer issue blew up my plan for a couple days, I knew my trusty routine was waiting for me once I got it sorted. I got myself to my studio and made new bud vases this week. Bird by bird, pot by pot.