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 work can be confusing. Those decisions often get made on the fly, with a client in front of you and no clear framework to reference.

Today, we’re sharing a few high-level tips for figuring out when you can begin new interior design projects and how to think about scheduling them so you’re not burning the candle at both ends.

If you want help applying this to your real services, pricing, team, and workload, we help designers do that inside our signature group program, The Designed to Scale® Method. But first, let’s walk through the foundational pieces every designer needs to understand.

Taking on new projects always feels right (if it’s a good-fit client, of course!). But overscheduling yourself or juggling too many projects at once is one of the fastest ways to create burnout, mistakes, and constant overwhelm in this business.

Been there? Yeah. It’s miserable.

This is why your workload (and the work allocated to your team) has to be manageable day in and day out.

In order to build a true word-of-mouth referral business and collect sincere testimonials, you need to create an elevated, low-stress experience for your clients. And that starts with scheduling projects in a way that allows you to properly allocate your time, attention, and resources.

Expectations are everything in this industry. Clients are investing in something that doesn’t exist yet, and often waiting months to see the final result. When timelines feel unclear, anxiety creeps in. When you put structure around the experience, clients feel informed, confident, and taken care of.

So let’s talk about how to better manage your capacity and project timing — without running yourself into the ground.

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. 

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