A week in the life of a content creator

Daily on TikTok, where she has 480,000 followers, the Connecticut-based creator posts tutorials on how to tackle different arts and craft-based projects. Some days, that’s videos on how to make googly eye earrings. Others, it’s SFX make-up tutorials that guide viewers through making fake blood or creating convincing zombie-style wounds. Then there’s videos on how to craft sculptures, wood carvings, drawings or even pieces of jewelry containing human hair.

Given the rate of her output, you’d be forgiven for thinking this is Geonna’s full-time gig. But during the day, the self-taught creator has a different job – handling photography, videography and social media management for a small company. (A pivot from her original career path – Geonna went to mortuary school with the plan of becoming a funeral director!)

At night, the multi-talent comes home to work on her art and share content online – something she’s been doing for over three years now, though her love of arts and craft stretches back to childhood. 

Balancing an office job with her creative pursuits unsurprisingly keeps Geonna busy. So what does the week in the life of a creator look like – and what can we learn from her approach to doing it all? Linktree called up Geonna to find out.

First thing’s first, work

Geonna’s up at 6am every morning, to be at work by 7.30am. In the office, she gets a few breaks during the day and uses them to get ahead on her side hustle. 

First, she’ll use her breaks to import videos she’s made, so they can upload in the background. And, importantly, she’ll scroll social media to see what’s trending that day – be it Halloween make-up, or Squid Game content – so that she can come up with ideas for content to create and post that night. Geonna shares a new video every day on TikTok, so she’s always brainstorming.

Whenever inspiration strikes, she jots down ideas in a big notebook she keeps with her.

“I probably have a good 10 to 20,000 ideas written down on sticky notes and put in this huge book: notes like, ‘oh maybe I should do this, maybe I should do that’,” she says. “And sometimes I’ll look through it if I’m having a little bit of a mental block as to what I should be crafting.”

At 4pm, Geonna knocks off for the day. Then the work on her side hustle begins.

Creative evenings

After she leaves the office, Geonna often swings past her parent’s house for dinner. Sometimes she even enlists her father – who she cites as her biggest creative inspiration – for help with what she’s working on.

“My dad from a young age was always doing these really wonky, weird things – he sculpts, he makes jewelry, he does a little bit of everything. And he really inspired me to go and create,” she says. “Sometimes I still come over with this elaborate thing that I’m working on like, ‘hey, Dad, I need a little bit of help with this!’ He’s always been my wing man with that.”

Once she’s home and fed, Geonna will start work on whatever she planned during the day. 

“Right now it’s been trying to build a little bit of inventory for my Etsy store, or making simpler videos that I know aren’t going to take a ton of time: tiny sculptures, little wood burning things, silly crafts,” she says. Geonna finds she’s most creative at night anyway, so using her evenings for creativity suits her.

Whatever she’s working on, the goal is always to make accessible tutorials that get viewers excited about arts and crafts. 

“Usually I keep things pretty simple with the different crafts that I’m doing so that anyone who wants to make it, can make it,” she says.

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, Geonna goes live on TikTok from 10.30pm EST, streaming herself creating different arts and crafts while her audience tunes in to ask questions about the process. Each live stream lasts about 90 minutes, and then it’s time for bed.

On Mondays, Geonna’s husband is off work and they spend the night together – though you might still catch her drawing on her tablet while they watch a TV show. 

“I’d say on average, it’s usually about three and a half that I’m working on things at night,” Geonna says. “Certain days, if I have a big idea in my mind, I’ll keep pushing through and work for longer.”

Weekends – and making room for the big stuff 

But Geonna doesn’t rely on being able to turn around content on the fly. 

During covid lockdowns she created a backlog of evergreen content – a whole four to five months’ worth – that’s ready to post whenever she needs to. Sometimes, it’s just because she wants a day off. Others, it’s so she has time to work on a bigger project.

Geonna also creates videos for creating platform HomeTalk, guiding viewers through larger-scale DIY projects. These longer-form videos get a big viewership – sometimes as many as 800,000 views on a single tutorial – so they’re important to her. Having that content backlog ready to go means she can devote the time to commissions when she needs to, though she also works on her HomeTalk videos on the weekend.

“In a normal week, I’ll try to make at least one video a day and at least sometimes, I’ll make a couple extra,” she says. 

“On weekends, I just try to make as many as I possibly can. And then I’ll work on anything else that I want to, and maybe do a sculpture or a couple small pieces if I’m not too fried at that point. Or if my husband doesn’t yell at me,” she laughs.

Of course, what we see online is only the tip of the iceberg of the work Geonna does.

“Creating something might take three and half or four hours – but then I condense that process into a 15 second video, so it doesn’t look like it takes as long as it does,” she explains.

 

Balance, scheduling and making it all work

For Geonna, organization is the key to balancing creating with her day job.

For her side hustle to work, she realized she needed to treat it like she would a traditional job: by making a schedule and sticking to it. Having set times she works – and takes breaks – actually stops her from putting in too many hours and burning out.

“I realized that side-hustling is like working a full-time job. So I have to allocate my time as I would for a job,” she says. “Without a schedule, I wouldn’t have any time to do anything at all. I’d be just so stuck inside, always making things and always running myself into the ground.”

In the early days of her side hustle, Geonna says, she tried to do too much. Creating her schedule was a matter of trial and error but these days, she’s figured out what works for her and aims for balance. 

Having effective processes – like keeping everything she does together in the one place on Linktree – helps keep admin simple and saves time. Geonna likes that she can use Linktree to integrate her Spring store, where she sells her designs. “If someone wants to go and look, they just press the little down button and they’re able to see all the different stickers and stuff that I have for sale,” she says.

Geonna hopes to eventually transition her side hustle to her full-time job. She’s busy, but she loves what she does.

“My passion is honestly just doing things that make me happy – and help make others happy as well,” she says. “I just want to show people how they do little crafts that will make their day a bit brighter.”