Do you sometimes feel like you’re at the centre of a circus with one foot on the tightrope of work and the other on the high-wire of life? Don’t worry, it’s not just you.

I get it. I have once shot 47 weddings in one year, lots of them abroad. All while trying to raise a family and cultivate the Wooden Banana tree. Crazy. I’ve slowed down on the shooting and globe-trotting, but boy, have I discovered some golden nuggets on how to juggle it all without going bananas.

Mood buster start.

Begin with a small task – post a social media update, respond to an email enquiry, settle an invoice. Something that won’t take more than a few minutes but will kick-start your productivity engine and will give a sense that you have already done something.

The Smartphone Photographer:

Don’t have time to edit sneak peeks? Take a couple of portraits with your phone at every event, and send them to your clients before you pack up. It gives them a taste of what’s to come, and you won’t have to worry about sneak peeks the next day. Example? HERE

Need tips? Check out my iPhone photography course!

Fast & Furious Culling.

My secret sauce to cull a 3000 image wedding gallery in about an hour

– Use Photo Mechanic
– Make colour / black and white decision at the time of culling
– Press 1 for colour / 2 for bw
– Export and edit colour images, repeat for black & whites

Automation Tools.

Spend a little time to set them up, and they’ll gift you hours in return. Our favourites at Wooden Banana are Integromat (or Zapier), Monday, and Email templates.

Email zero / do not open strategy.

I try my best to keep my inbox at 0. It’s not easy, so here’s my other tip: Only open an email if you’re ready to reply immediately. This way, unopened emails are your to-do list.

Quick editing.

With a few strategies, I can edit a wedding in 4 hours. Less thinking, more doing! ( And yes, I’m aware there are AI tools that do it in 10min, more about them in few weeks ).

– shoot in manual white balance – it pretty much means that when editing, I only need to set the correct white balance in one image and then sync the setting to all images in the same light scenario

– use keyboard shortcuts for editing – map the keys Power Keys to move the LR sliders without the mouse

– max 3 basics presets – more presets, more overthinking – by limiting that choice I’m not only able to edit quicker, but also keep my style consistent.

Outsource.

Calculate the worth of an hour of your time, and delegate tasks that can be done cheaper and as well as you can. Remember, our All Inclusive Service is here to help you with packaging and album design.

The Self-Care Hack.

This is so obvious I actually feel bad for adding this. It’s also probably the most important. Make sure your office has 3 things – your favourite music, framed photo of your loved ones you’re doing it for, lots of water.

Red Card social media system.

I’m a pretty curious person so I follow way too many accounts on social media – from photographers, tennis players, interior designers to my daughter’s school channel. I have made a rule that kinda helps manage my time there – if I feel someone’s starting to “waste” my time they receive a virtual yellow card – too many of those and I mute or unfollow their account. Nothing personal – it just means that I’m interested in something else at the moment.

Unsocial hours notifications.

This on is tough, especially when you operate a business that serves people all over the world. But for my own mental health and the wellbeing of my family I switch off 99% of my notifications on my phone after certain time of the day. Some fires will have to be put down in the morning.

Gear matters.

I’m not a technical person. I’ve no idea what’s the newest model of Canon or Sony camera, but when choosing my gear weight is quite often the deciding factor. I want my lenses and cameras to feel light. I want to be able to walk like a human after shooting for 14-16hrs, and not to look like a Sherpa when travelling to a shoot abroad.

I’m not a fan of working on my laptop, but I also don’t own the desktop. I simply plug in my MacBook into large 27in Eizo monitor whenever I’m in the office. This allows me to ‘take my work with me” when travelling.

Now, before I sign off, let me leave you with four simple truths that we all sometimes need a reminder of:

Don’t believe social media – even your heroes struggle sometimes. It’s pretty normal to hate your job occasionally.

No one ever died because they got their photos week later than promised. Do your best, communicate, but don’t stress if things go wrong ( sometimes ).

Bride’s photo with the granny is more important than your double exposure of the wedding cake.

Some battles are not worth loosing the sleep over. If your client spent 3 night outside your house with the banner that says “I WANT MY RAW FILES”, you should probably let it go.