If you are about to fill in your first brief, checklist or pricing sheet, start here. These are four plain-text worksheets, shown blank and filled in with an example, so you can see what a good answer looks like. Paste the one you need straight into Trello, Notion or a Google Doc.
The filled examples are illustrative, not real client files. If you are launching, fill them in top to bottom. If you are already busy, start with the workflow checklist on the request that is causing the most noise this week.
Get a request brief right before the first job
The design request brief tells you whether a request is ready to go into the queue. Use it on the first call with a new client, and again for every new request after that. A solo designer's first subscription client sends in a landing-page request. The filled example shows which of their answers are good enough to start and which send the brief back.
Track each request through review and approval
The workflow and approval checklist keeps queue decisions apart from review decisions, so an uploaded file never quietly counts as sign-off. Copy it onto each request once clients start changing priorities. Follow that same landing-page request through an urgent priority change and two review rounds to see the checklist in use.
Check your price against the hours you actually have
The pricing and capacity worksheet puts your price, your available hours and your revision allowance on one page. Fill it in before you publish a price, and again before you take on another client. Filled in for a solo designer launching at an illustrative $3,995 a month, it works out how many clients that price can carry.
Test software before you move the studio
The software evaluation and migration worksheet runs every candidate tool through the same client scenario and records what would make you roll back. Use it when a tool change starts to feel inevitable, because it can just as easily tell you to stay put. In the filled version, a six-person studio weighing whether to leave Trello for a client portal runs through it.
Paste them into the tools you already use
Every template is plain text with [ ] boxes and blank lines, so it survives a paste into a Trello card description or card template. In Notion, paste it onto a page and turn the boxes into to-do items if you want them clickable. In a Google Doc it works as it is. If a field needs a policy behind it, such as what counts as a revision, see our guides on scope, revisions and approvals.
Keep client passwords and payment details out of these worksheets
Complete a copy privately; this website does not collect your answers. These are working worksheets, not contracts, so have your own agreement cover what a client is promised. Do not paste passwords, payment-card details or confidential client assets into a worksheet intended for broad circulation.