When it's just you, editing status lives in your head and that's fine. The moment you bring on a second editor, that stops working — nobody else can see what 'almost done' actually means, or which shoot is next in line.
Give editing real stages
A simple set of stages does most of the work: Raw Import, Culling, Editing, Client Review, Final Delivery. Each shoot sits in exactly one stage at a time, and moving it forward is a single action instead of a message to someone.
- Raw Import — files are in, nothing touched yet
- Culling — selects picked, ready to edit
- Editing — actively being worked on, assigned to one person
- Client Review — sent out, waiting on feedback
- Final Delivery — approved and delivered
Why this matters more than it sounds
The real value isn't the labels — it's that you can answer 'where's the Sharma wedding album?' in five seconds, without pinging your editor and waiting for a reply. That question, multiplied across every active shoot, is where most of a studio owner's mental load actually comes from.
A workflow you can see is a workflow you can trust. One you have to ask about, isn't.