How to Know When You Can Start a New Interior Design Project
Many designers we talk to say the interior design process can feel very “up in the air” or “loose,” and that’s why they never know when they can actually start new projects - so they just say yes and start them all right away.
Not a good plan!
While interior designers clearly know the “design” part of the process, the timing of onboarding a new client and actually starting the project can be confusing. So today, we’re sharing a few tips for figuring out when you can begin new interior design projects and how to schedule them so you’re not burning the candle at both ends.
And, if you prefer to listen/watch and go more in-depth, we put together a workshop on this topic that is hands down my favorite workshop I’ve ever hosted: The Waitlist Workshop.
Taking on new projects always feels right (if it’s a good fit client, of course!), but the experience of overscheduling yourself or juggling too many balls all at once is the number one situation that leads to burnout, mistakes, and overwhelm in this business. Been there???? Yeah - it can be pretty miserable. This is why your workload and the work allocated to your team needs to be manageable day in and day out.
In order to create a word-of-mouth referral business and to get sincere testimonials to use on your website, it is critical that you create an elevated and stress-free experience for your clients.
This all starts with scheduling your projects so you can properly allocate your resources to them.
Expectations are everything in this industry (especially because you are creating something from nothing for your clients, and they often have to wait months or years to see the final result). By putting some parameters around their experience, they’ll have a much more enjoyable encounter with you and your business instead of wondering, “Why is nothing happening…?”, “Should something happen soon?”...”When will we see something?” and then feeling anxious and frustrated the entire time.
So, let’s talk about how you can better manage your capacity and schedule to stay OUT of overwhelm!
01 | Know how long each phase of your interior design process takes.
This means you have to know how long it takes between each key milestone phase - the first new client meeting to design presentation to revisions to orders to management to installation.
This common-sense approach to time management is not (no offense) so common but is the starting point to establish appropriate timing for new business acquisition. It may be easier for designers who bill hourly to put hourly quantities to the various phases of the process. But, I always say that ALL designers should track and understand hours per phase and the full scope of work, no matter their billing method. This information gives you the critical data you need to analyze your availability and resources for incoming project work.
If you don’t have that data, estimate time commitments based on your experience. But keep in mind that we always tend to underestimate time spent. I recommend tracking/estimating per these phases of the process:
Inquiry phase and discovery call
Consultation of initial meeting
Producing contract and scope-of-work document
Onboarding a new client
Project launch and information gathering
Design development and documentation (a very big phase and dependent on the project type)
Design presentation to the client
Approvals and revisions/re-design
Project management/construction management
Implementation and install
Project closeout and offboarding
02 | Have a general idea of how long tasks take.
Here, you’ll be working at a micro level of analysis. Within Design Development, do floor plans take you a month or a week? Is it 8 days to process revisions or 4 hours? These timelines will be different for each service you offer.
Having this micro-level analysis of time/days needed for specific task completion is very valuable, not only for the broader evaluation of taking on new project work but also for your day-to-day task planning and for assigning work to team members.
03 | Know how many hours you and your team have available each week.
If you’re booking full home designs that will take at least 150 hours of design work, and you only work 20 hours and have other things to do in your business, well, the math doesn’t lie.
How many hours per week is each staff member available? How many hours per week can you count on from anyone who works with you on a contractor basis? Do your contracted team members have other commitments where you have to wait for their availability? Don’t forget to account for an occasional sick day or time off.
What is your availability to devote to project work??? Often, business owners will respond to this question, “Well, at least 40 hours per week.” But wait, you need to remember that designer is only one of the many hats you wear. This leads to the need to analyze the following point: the demands business ownership itself places on your time.
This also means if you WANT to take two vacations a year or you NEED to be unplugged during the holidays, YOU NEED TO BLOCK THAT TIME OFF IN YOUR PROJECT CALENDAR RIGHT THIS MINUTE. No active project phases should span that time.
**The key to my annual summer slowdown (where my team and I greatly reduce our capacity) is scheduling clients so their projects wrap BEFORE we move into the summer months. We don’t just book people in and cross our fingers that we’ll be able to work less over the summer. We know how long each phase of our process takes, what each of our availability is, and what else we have going on at the company - and THEN we schedule new clients.
04 | Know how much time you allocate (or should allocate) each week to business development, marketing, admin, team management, etc.
Here again, do not underestimate the time needed for these vital tasks — they are the lifeblood of your business.
Sidenote: you (or someone) must ALWAYS.BE.MARKETING your business. Even when you’re slammed. Even when you’re about to burst. Even when you’ve hit your goals for the year. A.B.M.
So, with the computation of how many hours you and your team have available each week to work on project execution, compared to a good estimate (based on your historical hourly billing data or tracking of hourly expenditures per project) of time needed to get each project to completion — you will have a fairly accurate idea of the commitment of weeks (or months) needed to complete current client work.
I would say even in the most streamlined businesses, you should still be allocating at least five hours per week to administrative, management, and business development tasks. Typically, the non-billable (back-end) vs. billable (client work) is a 25/75 split.
NOW you can see what you have available for client projects.
Once you have the data from steps 1-4 above, you should be able to see very clearly if you currently have availability for new client projects or when you can begin work on a new project.
Some designers want to document this analysis graphically as an aid to scheduling. A Gantt chart is the typical way this can be done most effectively. A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart that displays the start date, duration, and projected end date for each task in a project with all key milestones mapped. Charting all of your active projects can help you plan every week’s activities for you and your team, and you can easily find online Gantt chart templates.
05 | Plug new client start dates into your calendar.
Pencil that client start date into a week you know you’ll have time to focus on starting that project on the right foot. It is much better to plan a start date for when you will actually have the time, rather than squeezing it in sooner and stressing yourself out (and creating a negative experience for the client - WE CAN ALWAYS TELL WHEN WE’RE BEING SQUEEZED IN!!).
If you communicate to a new client that there will be a delay before starting their project, they’ll understand and will appreciate your candid communication and effective planning skills. Plus, “while they wait” is a great opportunity to support them and prepare them for a seamless experience with your company (check out our Waitlist Email templates that do just that).
06 | Add key milestones to your calendar based on the data you have from step one.
Whatever way you chart or calendar your time commitments, the key is to document what needs to be done so nothing falls through the cracks. Asana is a great software program to track projects and tasks within your team and task completions. The important thing is to continue monitoring progress toward project completion compared to what you projected — to ensure your sequence planning is on track.
Do all your planned dates still align? Are you able to do the work to meet those milestones on those dates? If not, adjust.
Adjust your timelines.
Adjust your schedule.
Adjust the information going out to potential clients.
Adjust your client’s expectations.
Possibly even adjust your pricing (if something is taking much longer….then the price likely needs to be adjusted).
Then, communicate very clearly to potential and waitlisted clients any adjustments that may need to be made to a scheduled project start date. If you communicate proactively and thoroughly, clients will understand any need to adjust timelines. And they will appreciate your candid and thorough communication even before their project begins.
Still feeling wobbly about figuring out your capacity and project start dates?
If any of this seems difficult to figure out or implement, I have two ways we can help:
The Waitlist Workshop - created for precisely these situations. Trying to figure out your capacity, figuring out how long each phase should take (plus industry averages by service for each phase), how to tell potential clients there is a wait to start, and how to support clients while they wait. Check it out here.
The Designed to Scale® Method- this 10-week program walks you through every aspect of streamlining and improving your services and processes in your existing design business. We cover it all: handling sales calls, choosing aligned services, pricing your services, preparing contracts and scope-of-work documents, onboarding clients, presenting your design to a client, getting approvals, and implementing and delivering the final design. Details here.
Asana Workshop - learn how to run your interior design business seamlessly using Asana. Whether you're managing client projects, your growing team, big picture business goals, or just trying to stay on top of your daily to-dos, this workshop will give you the tools and strategies to make Asana work for you.
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