Out of all the questions I'm ever asked, one of the questions I'm asked most by my friends and family is "what do I do all day?" Before I decided to pursue photography as a full-time job, I was under the impression that professional photographers had the privilege of doing whatever they wanted all day every day, except for when they were shooting. I can't help but assume this is what people think I do when they ask me what I do all day. I imagine they picture me, sitting in our apartment, playing video games and eating junk food all day while Devan is at work. I wish this were true, but over the years, it has become apparent that this scenario rarely happens.

I've done a post like this before, but it was a while ago and my daily routine has changed since then. I have a fairly strict schedule that changes every couples of months that I follow religiously. This is what my schedule looks like at the moment when I'm not shooting.

I try to wake up sometime between 8 and 9 every morning. I hate sleeping in because I feel like I miss out on a large portion of the day, so I try to wake up sometime before the late morning. Waking up at 9 usually isn't too much of a problem, but if I happen to wake up earlier, all the better. I also feel somewhat more like a responsible adult if I wake up at a reasonable time every day, instead of sleeping in until noon or later like I used to in college. 

For the next half hour, I play a game of NHL 14 (which will soon be NHL 15). My philosophy is that if I get playing video games out of my system right away and only play one game of NHL, I won't be as tempted to not do any work throughout the day and I'll be able to focus better. So far, this has worked out. I also like to have some personal time every morning, and that half hour allows me to wake up a bit. 

After my game of NHL, I'll clean the coffee maker, and get a pot brewing. I used to work at a coffee shop when I was in high school, but since then, I didn't drink much coffee until my last semester in college. Now I'm one of "those people" and can't get work done without it. As the coffee is brewing, I take a shower so the coffee will be ready when I get out. 

Once I'm out of the shower and have poured a cup of coffee, I turn the computer on, and begin my actual work day. This is usually sometime between 9:30 and 10:30 am on a good day. Sometimes I don't start work until noon, but that's pretty rare. The first thing I do is I look at my website and record the number of unique visitors that my website has. I just started doing this in July, and it really isn't that important to me yet. I used to check my website views whenever I thought of it, but then I could never remember what it was at the last time. It's pretty cool when I look at the views and see that I've had 10 new unique visitors in one day. On the other hand, it's not exactly a morale booster when I don't receive any new visitors over two or three days. Recording the views on my site usually takes me less than 10 minutes each day.

After I record the views on my website, I begin talking to people. From the time I first began taking photos until around January 2014, I was under the impression that I didn't have to reach out to anyone. I used to think that I would be able to create photos, people would see those photos, and then approach me and hire me. I also thought that someone would "discover" me, and pay me a large amount of money to do work for them. In general, I thought that I would be able to just sit around and do whatever I wanted, and people would come to me without me doing much of anything. It wasn't until around January that I realized I could be doing much, much more.

I'm not going to get very specific with this part of my routine, because I don't want to give away too much, given how much competition there is. But I will say that this portion of my routine is the bulk of it, and can take anywhere from half an hour to two hours. I imagine myself as those business people you see in movies or TV shows that are constantly emailing and calling people, although I probably don't look that cool and am not really that important. This is probably the most important thing I do for work during the day.

Once I'm done talking to potential clients, I usually check Craigslist. This is probably the most useless part of the day, because anyone looking for a photographer on Craigslist is usually looking for someone to do it for free or for way less that what I charge. I have gotten a couple of decent paying jobs from Craigslist, though, so I check it anyway. This usually takes anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. 

The next thing I do is jump on social media and try to build my social media presence. Social media is the only advertising I do really. The only other advertising I get is through word-of-mouth, which I don't have a whole lot of control over. I upload a photo of the day to both Facebook and Twitter, and also respond to any comments or mentions, and other fun social media stuff.

After this, I take my lunch break, which is usually a game of NHL 14.

Next, I get back on the computer. This time is basically dedicated to replying to any emails that I've received since the morning, to motivating myself, or to learning how to run a better business. This can take anywhere from half an hour to two hours.

And there you have it. This is what I do every day unless I'm taking photos. If I'm taking actual photos, I still try to do at least a little bit of my work routine. I've been taking photos professionally since 2012, but this is basically my first full year in business. School took up a lot of my time until I graduated in December 2013, so I'm still trying to figure things out. I think this routine is working pretty well for me, but I'm sure there will be changes sooner or later. 

I hope this post helps people understand that although I'm my own boss and can take days off whenever and however often I want, I still have to put in work if I want to be successful. When I first started, I realized that most people have to apply for a job a handful of times, while I have to basically apply for a new job every day. It isn't as easy as people often think, and there's times I feel like my work is terrible and I'll never make it, but I can't imagine myself doing anything else. 

www.danpomykalski.com