With things moving so fast in the world and so much panic and despair around, it's easy to just freeze - "rabbit caught in the headlights" style. Don't. Just do small things - I believe that lots of small steps and quick actions are often better than trying to take on huge projects.

Here are a few small things to do - some trivial, some more profound. It doesn't matter - but do something:

Write a good blog entry
Find a great picture (and remember to tag it well) for your blog
Make comments in some blogs you like
Look at your products and do some (gentle) planning for enhancements this year
Take a look around the web at others in your field. What can you learn?
Be active today in a forum that's relevant to you
Offer some support or help to someone else running a creative business. In that awful cliche - "reach out".
Do that small bit of web site improvement that you've been putting off
If you have an online shop - settle down to list a few new things

If you freeze up, you can lay yourself open to longer term depression and inertia. So don't do it - instead remember that there are good aspects to this global financial stuff - some whole new ways of doing things and, I bet, some of the most exciting art, writing and design we've seen for years will emerge from this. Just make sure you're around to be part of it.

As the recession bites, take a minute now to consider if you can be all things to all customers. Can you really sell at the retail prices that will keep your distributors happy AND give your direct retail customers a good deal? After all, one of the advantages you have as a small company is that you do not have to do a 1 to 8 or 1 to 10 cost/price ratio, as all the "biggies" must. You can sell for a price that makes your goods far better value - and in the current climate, that counts more than ever.

We solve this dilemma by setting our recommended retail prices higher - for distributors - and giving our direct customers a deep discount. It's one way and seems about as fair as anything can be. But is it the time to consider other ways? Look at your customers, your distribution and your prices (and, as ever, costs) and see what's really working and what needs to be changed.

If you can provide value that's way better than the corporates can - whether because of individualism, innovation, price or a bit of all three - don't hang back, now's the time to make this happen.

Manufacturing and producing have been SO declasse in the past couple of decades. Businesses were supposed to do anything but actually make tangible things.

But - right now, if you control the whole process, from design to manufacture to retail it gives you a huge advantage.

As I've pointed out, it allows you to change things quickly - we have very definitely altered the range planned for this year in response to the recession and we were able to arrange this in months, not years. It also lets you have far more control over prices - we know that if times get really tough, we are not stuck with the prices coming from a wholesaler, we can find ways of bringing down manufacturing costs and passing this on.

If you can control the entire supply chain process, or at least a good chunk of it, it will give you many advantages of flexibility and responsiveness. Okay, manufacturing is, as one of our customers said to me recently, "tough" and the feasibility does depend a great deal on the field you are in. But if you can take it on, whatever you do, it will help you become much more recession proof.

I had a conversation with a financial guy this afternoon - he looks after my pension matters. "It's all so irrational" he said, talking about the way currency is going up and down so wildly nowadays. He sounded tired and worried.

When things are chaotic and unpredictable, as they are right now, the important thing is to be able to change aspects of your business fast - not in a panicky way or daily, but at least with speed and decisiveness when it's needed. We set up our new online shop in Euros last year as we could see the need for basing our prices on Euro as it's more tied to the local currency. But we also knew that many of our customers like to shop in US dollars, so we also expanded our Etsy shop (it's USD) and installed an online currency converter right from day one of the new Baba Store. This last year, we have adjusted our pricing according to currency, bought silk in dollars when the dollar was way down, changed our non-US wholesaling prices to Euro-only when the Euro seemed the more stable currency. Almost every month, we did something to respond to the changes sweeping through the economy.

If we were a corporate, or even a large private business, can you imagine how many committee meetings and strategy documents and redeployment of staff moves like that would have taken? As a very small business, you have a huge advantage right now. Use it. Be swift.

This is a time of change the like of which we haven't seen in the West since the 1960s. It's going to be hard - and it's going to be wonderful. Even in the middle of the tough periods, remember that this just could be the time that allows you to do your best work, the work you always dreamed of doing.

Okay, we are now officially heading into a depression rather than a recession, it's going to be harder running any business (though as you know I think smaller businesses may have the advantage of being able to respond quickly) and we're all going to have to:

• Market harder
  Price keenly
  Cut costs
  Come up with new products that are desirable and affordable
  Work on keeping customers
  Be prepared to put in more hours

and it's all going to be demanding and at times draining.

BUT - in the midst of all this, please remember that you're running (or starting) a creative business because this is what you want to do.

Years ago, I allowed my design consultancy in London to become nothing but a burden. I worried about it constantly, it felt like a weight on my shoulders and if at any moment I wasn't over-worked, exhausted, flu-ridden and miserable I felt it just showed I wasn't working hard enough. I suppose this attitude showed a lack of real confidence - or maybe I just didn't really want to run a corporate design consultancy, however successful. Maybe I wanted to design - which is not the same thing.

This time around, I love what we are doing with Baba Studio. This autumn/winter I am hugely enjoying getting all the new designs ready for next year. I sat the other day blissfully going through old Bohemian folk ribbons with a new idea in mind. I refused to be dismayed when I realised that one large bale of silk I bought on the internet has a gold medalion pattern that's too large scale to be used - they will make fabulous curtains and perhaps a party skirt for me. I didn't get flustered by the saga of two large parcels (one to us, one from us) that were both sent "express" and both got delayed - it all worked out.

However hard it gets, don't lose the love for what you do, and the enjoyment in building it. Take some time out to revel in your materials and tools, whatever they are, to take pride in your skills, to indulge in the most sensual and affirming parts of your craft/art/artisanship and generally to keep in touch with why you decided to do this in the first place.

Today I plan - slightly irresponsibly - to spend a bit of this afternoon away from emails and postage and invoices (which make up most of this time of the year - in spite of recession) doing some design. The kind of design I really like, that feels good to do, and that makes me happy.

Oh - and the picture is, by the way, Alex wearing an old Bohemian folk costume (kroj) hat - that hat is pure joy.