What Good Management Looks Like: Our Dashboard

If you’re reading this, you’ve already done something most artists don’t: you chose to work on your practice—not just in it. That single decision protects your creative energy more than any productivity hack.

I’ve spent 10+ helping artists and studios turn vision into rhythm (some more successfully than others). The tool I now return to—weekly and relentlessly—is this simple management dashboard. 

Not a trophy. Not a vision board. A basic table where my goals, numbers, tools and tasks sit together and tell me what I can do today.

What this is (and isn’t)

It’s a management tool, not magic. It won’t make art for you or send emails for you. It will make your next step obvious and your progress visible. Overwhelm isn’t solved by willpower, it’s solved by calculated order. The dashboard is how we organize and help the artists we work with grow—sustainably and predictably.

We break everything into five pillars:

• Strategy: why your practice exists and where it’s going
• Operations:  making, fabrication, and delivery
• Comms & Marketing: who needs to hear from you, when and where
• Sales: relationships that lead to exchange of value
• Finance & Admin: the structure and its maintenance

Use these five as the architecture of your studio. (And maybe your cloud/drive folders. Naming conventions are boring and clear. Chaos hates boring and clear.)

A 5-minute quick start

1. Download the dashboard
2. Make a copy of the Google Sheet (File → Make a copy).
3. On Title Sheet, set your studio name, year, and team (this auto-fills everywhere).
4. Paste your key links into Tools / Quick Access (Drive, portfolio, invoicing, email list, CRM).
5. Add 1–3 yearly goals you actually want under each pillar. Pick one weekly metric you’ll check every Monday or Friday.

And that’s it for today. Consistency is a small deposit everyday that builds compounding interest in clarity and vision.

What “good management” looks like

Goals are specific, owned, and visible

• Annual goals live in Yearly Goals with clear owners and SMART framing.
• Each one is broken into Quarterly Goals—five or fewer per pillar keeps you honest.
• Status is updated: To be created / Being refined / Ready to use. If everyone owns it, no one owns it.

Why it matters: vague goals are where creative energy goes to die. Specifics invite help and momentum.

Measure the right things weekly

• In Weekly Metrics, track a short list of leading indicators tied to your quarterly goals: studio visits hosted, proposals sent, collector conversations, applications filed.
• Money is included but not worshiped—pick some easy things to track like cash on hand, receivables (money on the street) and payables (bills or expenses).
• Watch your capacity so you don’t sell past what you can deliver, or have a hard number to set operational goals.

A good ritual: a 15–30 minute Friday check-in—update metrics, note one win, pick next week’s priorities and set tasks.

Tools are centralized and named purposefully

• Tools is one landing pad for the platforms and files you touch every week.
• Use a simple naming convention (pillar, name, version/date).
• Park future tools and archive past tools so today’s view stays clean.

The outcome: fewer “where is that link?” scavenger hunts; easier handoffs to future you (or a teammate).

Five pillars keep balance

• Strategy steers decisions; shiny objects get vetoed if they don’t fit.
• Operations respects your actual capacity (burnout early-warning).
• Comms & Marketing prioritizes channels you’ll actually use.
• Sales starts with people who already know your work—no performative cold outreach.
• Finance & Admin keeps the basics tidy so decisions are calmer.

A hard truth: creative businesses fail when one just pillar quietly collapses. Seeing all five prevents that.

Signs the dashboard is working

• You can answer “What matters this week?” in one sentence.
• Studio time is better protected because priorities are negotiated before the week starts.
• Follow-ups happen, and relationships strengthen because they stay in front of you.
• Money surprises fade; decisions feel calmer.
• Opening the dashboard feels grounding—you see the path behind and the next step.

Keep going

Developing tools is rarely as fun as developing a new technique in the studio. But the right tool buys you time to make the work only you can make. 

If the dashboard feels heavy at first, that’s normal. Keep showing up for those ten minutes every day. Let momentum do the rest.

No one builds a legacy alone. If you want a community or thought-partner while you tune it for your own studio, join Coworking with Creatives or book that first coffee. We’re in your corner.