The System for Connection Through Boundaries with Hope Taylor

Julie: Welcome back to the System for Everything podcast. Today’s system tip, step one, log off. Step two, resist the urge to announce your logging off. Step three, recap like a Human on Monday.

Hope: Welcome back to the System for Everything Podcast guys. Today’s guest is Hope

Julie: Taylor. She is a senior portrait and wedding photographer based in Charleston, South Carolina.

She began her business in high school and has been. Photographing joyful clients for over 13 years. She now educates thousands of photographers across the globe how to feel confident at senior sessions and make more money with senior portraits. If you have heard Hope Taylor speak before, which I am sure you have, you know she is known for starting a business.

Young beautifully shot weddings. Senior photography education today, we are intentionally setting all of that aside. She is known not just for her work, but for something quieter and almost even more radical. Every weekend she logs off Instagram, no stories, no posts, no checking, just in case. And then every Monday she comes back with a recap that feels like you’re sitting down with a friend, not content connection.

In a world that requires constant access and rewards, it. Hope has built something sturdier, a rhythm, a ritual, a boundary for audience respects, and genuinely looks forward to welcome hope. Thank you so much for being here today.

Hope: Oh my goodness. What a kind introduction. Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to talk about this.

Julie: Yay. All right, we’re gonna get started, as we always do with the system reboot. A quick reset to start our episode with some humor and humanity. What is your most used emoji?

Hope: Oh, I’m, oh my gosh, I’m such a millennial. I think it’s the laughing, crying emoji. Same. I’m gonna get made fun of, I’m gonna get made fun of.

Julie: I am about to hit 40, so I’m a real elder millennial in that sense. Okay, you are a mom. I’m mom. You are about to have your second. What is a must have baby product that you thought was silly, but you cannot imagine life though.

Hope: Oh my goodness. I feel like there are so many, so

many.

Hope: Any form of like a snack container that’s fun Right now is, is our go-to.

I have a 2-year-old and so anything that I can easily pass her a snack in the backseat in an exciting container is something we have way too many of, but she loves.

Julie: Oh my gosh. I love that. All right. What is a minor inconvenience that absolutely fully ruins your mood?

Hope: My husband would say that I have a lot of these too.

Um, minor inconvenience. Any form of clutter makes my brain stop functioning. So if there is just anything that needs to be cleaned up, it absolutely has to be done before I can sit down and get my work done.

Julie: That’s fair. All right everyone. You have met the personality. Now meet the powerhouse. This isn’t a content hack.

It is a boundary that became a system. Here’s my conversation with Hope Taylor on the system for connection through boundaries. All right, so before this boundary became your constant rhythm that your audience recognized it was. A decision you had to make for yourself. So I wanna start kind of at the beginning of that.

When did weekends off of Instagram shift from like, oh, this would be nice to being like a firm boundary?

Hope: You know, this is such an interesting conversation because this has become such a natural part of my rhythm and such a natural part of my week that I really don’t know. There was kind of a decisive moment where I said, okay, this is going to be what I do moving forward.

I think it was a very gradual shift of. I didn’t get as much engagement on the weekends anyway. I really needed space to breathe and to not be constantly online. And I, especially having Clara, so probably about two years ago, really wanted to just protect some family time outside of of work because I’m such a constant, my brain is constantly on.

So I would say about two years ago is probably when it became firm, but it was really kind of a gradual progression to get to what it is now.

Julie: Did you have any fears around losing that momentum or visibility?

Hope: That’s such a good question and I really, looking back, I don’t think that I did because I am such a, um, like I want there to be a clear reward for time invested in something in my work.

I’m very particular about where I invest my time and I felt like any content I pushed out on the weekends anyway was getting such little engagement in comparison to what I was pushing out during the week. But it felt like an easy boundary to set for me because it was, it was kind of. Low risk, low reward.

I wasn’t getting a ton of engagement anyways, and so I might as well just let myself check out and get a, a much higher reward of sitting at home and, and not having to think about it because I might as well take that time to myself. Right.

Julie: Somewhere along the way, your audience didn’t just kind of accept that boundary, they began to really almost rely on it.

And your Monday recaps feel like a ritual now to those of us that follow you. So how did the Monday recap format, like come together organically?

Hope: And this is so funny to me because I, it has become something people ask me about all the time. Yeah. And when you’re, you’re sharing it and you’re posting it, you’re not always.

Cognizant of that, of what your audience is enjoying the most from you. And so to get to hear that oh, totally from people that they enjoy it is always just so funny to me because it does just feel kind of like a natural part of my week now. And so I think that that kind of system, I, I don’t know that there was like a specific starting point, but it just kind of became a part of not just my business workflows, but my personal workflows.

I really started to enjoy this. Process of kind of going back through the memories we made over the weekend and almost reliving them and sitting with everything that I got to do, and it became honestly, almost more of a personal reward, like a thing I enjoyed doing for myself more than it was really for any business or strategic reason at first.

Julie: How do you decide what makes it into the recaps and what stays private?

Hope: Really the biggest difference is just what I think is worth picking up my phone to take pictures of throughout the weekend. Anything that feels like a family moment that, um, just doesn’t need clear. We’re kind of particular about how often we share pictures of our kids online, and so I typically.

Refrain from posting too much about our kids. Their faces are definitely there, but it’s not something I’m prioritizing. So it’s typically more content heavy. On weekends where I’m out and about, we’re shopping, we’re going out to eat, we’re doing things out in the wild where I can be kind of sharing activities that we’re doing.

And if we have a stay at home weekend, they’re typically much, much shorter recaps because I just kind of protect those at home moments a little bit more. But there really isn’t kind of a, a hard line or boundary that we have set around what I do and don’t share.

Julie: There’s something that feels very.

Influencer like, but in a really good, positive way. Um, so I wanna kind of talk about that distinction because your content has the intimacy and storytelling that people associate with influencers, but without that pressure or oversharing or at all a transactional feeling that can Sure. I think, come along with that word.

So what feels like. The line between inviting people in and exploiting access.

Hope: So I think when it comes to exploiting access on a personal level, I think the line really just draws at what everybody’s individual comfort level is. I don’t necessarily think there’s like a rule for this. I think everybody has vastly different comfort levels with what they’re willing to let their audience see and be a part of, and be.

You know, involved in. And so for me that again is kind of lies with sharing too much about my kids, exploiting anything funny. I try to avoid exploiting anything funny about my kids. Like if my toddler does something embarrassing or ridiculous or things like that, I try not to share about that. Um, yes.

Unless it’s, it’s innocent, you know? So for me, that’s kind of where the boundary lies. When you talk about the transactional side of things and the influencer side of things. I do have very firm boundaries on what I’m willing to talk about and what. Partner offers and collaborations I’m willing to do with brands.

I actually take very, very, very, very, very few of them. And I get requests for them often, but I don’t, that just isn’t a huge part of my revenue, so I don’t Yeah. Have to accept them, which I think is an important caveat. If it was a huge part of my revenue, yes, it would be a different conversation. Um, it isn’t, and so I am in a position where I’m kind of.

Able to say no to 85% of the emails that come in my inbox asking me to promote a product or a service. And so I think that’s why it doesn’t feel that, like that level of influencer content that we’re used to, because it really isn’t, that isn’t a part of my revenue. It’s really more allowing my audience to get to know me and fall in love with me to then book my services or.

Or by my education. So it is kind of a different business structure in that way, and I think that’s probably why it feels that way, is because it just isn’t a huge part of my revenue. I think if I started to promote and link and share all of those things, it would take away from it feeling genuine a little bit, and I just don’t have interest.

And, and doing that, to be completely honest with you, but it does allow for me to link things occasionally. If I get six dms of somebody asking what color lipstick I’m wearing, I’ll tell you like, I’ll, I’ll tell you whatever you wanna know. Um, but I’m not going to go outta my way to get, you know, partner offers and, and content deals and things like that with these companies.

Julie: Okay, so we’ve talked about kind of the why behind the boundaries, but I know listeners might be quietly thinking, okay, but how does this like actually work in real life? Like,

Hope: yeah,

Julie: what you’re doing feels effortless from the outside, but I mean, it’s clearly supported by a structure. So can you walk me through the literal mechanics of a weekend off?

Like, do you delete Instagram from your phone on Fridays? Log out, use app limits, use the brick. What is. You know, using just a a mindset boundary.

Hope: Yeah. Um, all of those things are things I should do. Uh, my husband would be pumped if I bought a brick and kept off of Instagram for the weekend. I do still occasionally check it.

I, I’ve been trying, especially lately as we’re expecting baby number two, to just leave my phone in another room as often as I can so that I’m just not even tempted to pick it up and look at anything, let alone Instagram. But on a practical level, it really is just a mindset boundary where I don’t feel pressured to be creating something.

Um, so when I’m opening Instagram, if I’m opening Instagram, it is. Just for personal reasons. I’m gonna scroll through a quick reel really quick when I have five minutes of downtime. But it removes the pressure to feel like, oh, if I’m, if this app is open, I should be posting something, or I should be doing something for my business.

Um, and so it really just removes that kind of mental pressure of, oh my gosh, Instagram’s open on my phone. My brain needs to be in work mode. Which is huge for me because I feel very pressured to be constantly engaged on social media when I am in work mode. And so that is really just kind of a mindset boundary for me.

However, I should delete Instagram off of my phone on the weekends. That’s definitely something that I would like to move towards. Uh, but right now it really is just a mindset kind of boundary. And then when we go out to do something as a family, um, if I’m, if I have, you know, a holiday or an event or something that we’re doing with family, I put my phone on airplane mode, or at least on do not disturb.

I do that during my sessions too. You’ll see I do recaps of, uh, sessions with my clients as well, and I keep my phone on Do not disturb that during those times too, because I don’t want my client to feel like I am, I’m scrolling through my phone or I’m checking my text messages when I’m not. I’m just using my phone to capture, to capture content, and so really it just looks like putting my phone on do not disturb and just taking photos as I naturally would throughout the weekend.

And then on Sunday night, typically I’m a big bubble bath girl. I literally sit in a bubble bath on a Sunday night. I love that. I go back through whatever photos I’ve taken over the weekend, um, and I typically edit them in that in a bubble bath, and I post them the next morning whenever I have a free moment.

So there really isn’t this kind of strict structure around it, but it just has kind of become a part of my weekly flow that I really enjoy doing just for myself as well as for my audience.

Julie: Um, when you’re editing, are you using Lightroom presets or like a consistent editing workflow so that all of your photos feel aligned with your brand without that extra effort?

Hope: Yeah, I do. I use my mobile presets and I actually do sell these in my shop, but they’re just a one click Lightroom preset. There’s five of them, uh, that kind of apply to any situation. And for years I would custom edit each photo in Lightroom mobile and then copy and paste them. And then somebody was like, I would buy those.

And I was like, yeah, I would also use them if I had them. Why have I not done this? And so this was a few years ago, so I do use my own mobile presets. Um, but I’ve been editing my photos like that for years and years and years.

Julie: And then after you share, like what happens to the photos? Do they live on your phone?

Do they get deleted, organized into folders?

Hope: Oh, I love to pretend I’m the type of person that organizes things into folders. No. Um, I think I have somewhere, something like 70,000 photos on my phone. Um, I have to buy the one Tera. iPhone.

Julie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Uhhuh.

Hope: Yeah, because I have storage issues, so I do try to go back and delete the unedited version of the photos.

So at least I only have one copy of them on my phone at all times. Okay. Um, but otherwise they just stack on top of themselves. And then my favorite airplane activity, anytime I have a flight for work, uh, is to try to call and go through and delete some of my backlog of, um, camera roll. But it is

Julie: Oh, that’s smart to use

Hope: that time.

Definitely. Oh yeah. I try. But it, it’s. Definitely massive. It’s just a massive backlog of,

Julie: yeah,

Hope: of weekend recaps is what it is.

Julie: If your business couldn’t run without you, that’s a problem. A haunting your assistant from the beyond kind of problem. Enter the entrepreneur’s death folder. It’s your digital contingency plan.

Think of it as the world’s least spooky survival guide for your business. All your logins, contacts, workflows, and need to knows in one tidy place because peace of mind is the ultimate productivity tool. Grab yours today@dallasgirlfriday.com before life throws a plot twist. You have been quietly kind of challenging the idea that consistency means like daily constant visibility.

So how do you define consistency now, both for yourself and your audience?

Hope: Oh, this is such an ongoing. Kind of thought process in my brain in terms of marketing, in terms of social media in 2026. I feel like we’re all so frustrated with it right now. Oh my gosh,

Julie: yes.

Hope: Oh, it’s driving me crazy. And so for a long time I did have a lot of boundaries around social media and I just kind of shared when I felt inclined to share.

Yeah, I am from a. Business perspective, if we’re shifting away from boundaries and into strategy, I am going into 2026 with more of a consistent approach to social media. Again, for the first time in a long time, uh, where I am trying to share multiple reels a day and play with trial reels and kind of incorporate those things into my marketing from a business perspective.

Um, but that does. Still shut down on the weekends. So my last post would be Friday afternoons and come back on Mondays. But from a 2026 strategy perspective, which is a whole other rabbit hole we could go down, um, Instagram is making it very hard to not have some element of consistency and visibility built into your, your systems and your workflow.

I would be, I would be lying. They’re killing me right now if I told you they weren’t. Yeah, it’s, it’s rough

Julie: and just the amount of time that I spend trying to get one reel. Out the door.

Hope: Mm-hmm.

Julie: And it’s not complicated. I just like couldn’t get music to SI. Oh, I’m so elderly. Hope.

Hope: No, I am. I mean, it takes me forever too.

It drives me crazy. Figure it out. It’s. It’s just and back talk. Going back to what I said at the beginning about being so particular about where I’m willing to invest my work time and how much reward I want that to have in my business in order to spend hours and hours doing something. It is tough to streamline something like that.

That does require a lot of effort. It’s hard, but ask me, ask me again in a few months and I’ll tell you how it’s going. Because this truly just started in 2026 of me kind of wanting to really reengage my audience in a way. They could expect some level of consistency from me because I haven’t given them that access in a long time.

So we’ll see how it goes. It’s an interesting time to be asked that, but

Julie: yeah.

Hope: Um, I used to be so consistent and engaged on social media in the years of growing my business, and yeah, in the last five years I’ve kind of stepped away and I am stepping back into that kind of consistency a little bit. So we’ll see what happens.

Julie: That’s excited. I’m, I’m excited to see how it turns out.

Hope: Well, thank you.

Julie: How has, has batching your life updates invigorated any creativity in you or like protected your energy?

Hope: Yeah. Oh, I definitely think that it’s protected my energy. I also think from a creativity perspective, it allows me to be creative outside of work in a way.

Because if we do something like go to the farmer’s market as a family on the weekend, I kind of wanna get a cute little picture of, of Clara with whatever. Snack she’s gotten at the farmer’s market. And I maybe otherwise wouldn’t take the time to do that if I didn’t know that I was gonna be doing these fun little recaps each Monday.

And so sometimes I give myself permission to not worry about it. But other times I do enjoy that kind of desire to create something fun and cute to incorporate into those recaps. And at holidays, like my, when I go to my in-laws for the holidays, I do. Go out of my way to take cute pictures of the food and, and they’re like such a not social media family.

So it’s just fun because like my family, my sister is in social media and, you know, yeah. And so like, it, it’s normal for all of the girls at my Thanksgiving table to like put together a styled photo. But I try to go outta my way to do that anytime. And so it’s just fun because it allows, it kind of forces me to create more memories than I normally would in a creative way that maybe I just wouldn’t otherwise be thinking about.

Julie: On the opposite side of that, have boundaries ever hurt your business or have they just consistently strengthened it?

Hope: Ooh, this is such a good question. I think personal boundaries that I set to protect my time and energy have only ever grown my business. Or resulted in a loss that I, that was calculated that I expected.

I think that there are definitely boundaries I’ve set that have resulted in lower revenue. For example, I have set the boundary to not do any form of coaching that involves access to me while I’m on maternity leave. That is obviously going to result in lower revenue, but it’s a calculated decision. It’s a calculated boundary.

So I think that they have always benefited me on a personal level, and if it’s a boundary like that where I’m going to set something. That is going to decrease my revenue. I, I plan in advance to compensate for it, but I do think they’ve always benefited me on a, on a personal level.

Julie: All right. What would you say to somebody who is afraid that they will be forgotten if they log off?

Hope: Oh my gosh. I would tell you that all of us are so unbelievably bombarded with content all of the time that in yes, nicest way possible, no one will even notice. Um, no one will know that you’re gone. And, and I mean that in the most freeing. Kind, encouraging. Please log off for the sake of your sanity way.

We always convince ourselves that more people are going to notice than are actually paying attention. Um, and that is not a negative thing. That’s not me saying nobody cares about what you’re posting. It’s just me saying that none of us have the brain capacity to even notice if somebody takes a few days off of social media.

We just don’t. Yeah, there’s no way because we’re too

Julie: busy noticing ourselves.

Hope: Yes. We’re too busy worried

that

Julie: somebody’s forgetting

Hope: Right and consumed with just short form video and constant ads and constant content. Yes. I mean, our brains are bombarded with information 24 7, and so I would challenge you to believe that nobody’s going to notice it is not going to hurt anything.

It is only going to benefit you to take a break if somebody does notice. It just makes them more excited to see what you were doing when you get back. And I think that the, these kind of weekend recaps are testament to that.

Julie: Uh, I love that hope. Tell everyone where they can find you online, uh, how they can follow these Monday recaps, how they can work with you and learn from you.

Um, I know you’ve got a free trial of your senior Scoop membership going on right now. I wanna hear especially about that.

Hope: Yes. How

Julie: about yourself?

Hope: You can, oh, you’re, you’re sweet. You can follow me on Instagram. Hope Taylor Photography is my Instagram. Um, that’s where I do these recaps that we’ve been talking all about.

I also educate senior photographers specifically. That’s been my niche since I started my business when I was only 15, and I love, love, love. Senior portraits. And so if you are a photographer, that would benefit from getting to watch an entire session from start to finish, if you feel like you’re a visual learner, um, and that that would be helpful to you.

I am offering a free trial to anybody listening. You can get three hours of shooting and editing tutorials. It’s basically like coming along with me for a session in Charleston, but without having to leave your couch. Um, so that will be linked below. And I also have a YouTube channel if you want. Learn more from me in terms of marketing strategy, business, all things related to photography.

Uh, you can just search for my name on YouTube and it should pop up, but there’s years of content there that you can binge watch.

Julie: Thank you so much hope. And yes, that will be linked in the show notes and I’ll also link it on Instagram. Um, before we close, I wanna switch gears just slightly. Um, I am a somewhat new mom myself as of reporting this.

My daughter just turned one and hope is expecting her second. But systems. Do not disappear when you become a parent. They just look different. And sometimes that system is Googling at 3:00 AM.

Hope: Mm-hmm.

Julie: So these are five of the weirdest things I’ve Googled about my baby. And these are actual things that I Googled.

In the early months, uh, number one, when will my baby laugh Because everyone else’s baby on the internet was apparently hosting a comedy special. Number two, can a baby forget how to eat? Asked calmly, not panicked at all. Definitely not staring at the bottle like it betrayed me. Number three, can a baby dream followed by watching her sleep for far too long?

Number four, how to know if your baby is cold while touching. Hands, feet, neck, cheeks back repeatedly. And number five, why do my babies farts smell so bad? No follow up. Just acceptance.

Hope: Oh my goodness.

Julie: If you have Googled any version of these questions, welcome. You are not behind. You are not doing it wrong.

You are just learning a brand new system in real time. One without a manual, but with a lot of heart. Sometimes the most important system isn’t the one that makes life efficient. It’s the one that reminds you. You’re not alone. If today’s conversation with hope resonated or made you rethink how available you’ve been trying to be, take a second to subscribe or leave a review.

It is what? Simplest ways to support this little show of mine. Thank you for spending part of your day with me and for building systems that protect your life, not just your business. I’ll see you next week.