So in the last few conversations we've had I think we've cracked the door
towards developing a tighter relationship. I've opened up about being a certified
overthinker at times, which allowed us to have a real and honest conversation.
Now to add to that we've also talked about building habits and systems and goals here on
the channel that truly supports our core, who we are, what we value and what we're striving
to achieve. If you remember I did a pretty cool water trick visual and used it as a metaphor for
how these things affect our lives. See the reason I'm bringing these conversations full circle again
is because I want to share with you how I'm managing and organizing the different pieces
of my life in a way that's changing the game for me mentally. It's keeping the overthinker
in me at bay and to be honest depending on the day I'm extremely grateful for that.
Now this video is sponsored by notion which is an all-in-one workspace for every piece of your life
and let me tell you, the moment I discovered this app I lit up like a little kid on christmas day. I
mean look at me I'm sure you can feel my heartbeat through this screen right now because this,
this is truly helping me. Let me show you why.
Ok so I'm going to structure this conversation in a pretty interesting way
and what I mean by that is I'm first going to highlight what I believe is one of,
if not the key reason why it's important that we have organization in our lives as well as
a system to help us manage all of the moving pieces. Now yes we're traveling this journey
together towards intentional and purposeful living, but sometimes life is life and it
can be hectic and overwhelming at times but it can be managed with the right system in place.
Now as we start to talk through these ideas together I'm also going to show you how I'm
personally doing this in my life using a notion and really quick if you don't know
who notion is or if you're only the slightest bit familiar with them they're an all-in-one
workspace like I mentioned that is changing the game. I'm talking note taking, journaling,
task tracking, habit building, goal setting, project managing, everything
right and the thing that makes notion stand out to me is the fact that you can set up and
organize your workspace in a way that works for you. Like you can truly mode notion to fit your
life and work however you want and here's the kicker, it's 100 free for personal use.
So there's no real excuse not to get organized and manage the moving pieces in your life.
Now if you want to sign up and start laying out your workspace while I'm showing you parts of mine
and talking through these ideas then you can do that by using the link in the description below.
Alright now the idea that I want to highlight and throw out there to you, is the importance of
having and creating structure in life. Now out the gate this can mean a few different things right,
however to me this is all about building focus and developing a sense of direction. See without
structure in our lives whether it's family life, our personal lives as individuals, our career in
a professional sense, without that structure. You know the ability to focus on what matters
and then develop a sense of direction, without that, we'll just end up distracted by everything,
extremely unproductive and then running around like a chicken with his head cut off
but see if we create structure in our lives. Now we have the opportunity to
sort through and focus on what matters and then question the things that we aren't 100% set on.
Asking ourselves: How important is this? and Is this the right place to devote my attention?
Now an example of how I'm doing this in my life using notion is through my to-do list.
Now I'm sure you use some form of a to-do list in your life as well. Maybe you write things
down on a piece of paper, or you text yourself reminders, or maybe you're really old school
and you have a calendar hanging on your wall that you pencil things in on as well. However,
notion is really taking this idea of a to-do list to the next level. Let me show you why.
So if we take a look at my notion workspace I have a page here or a dashboard if you will
that I've titled the action zone, which is my to-do list. The space in which I
take action on the things I need to get done on any specific day however I've structured
this in a way that really drives home the overarching ideas we're talking about here
creating structure, building focus and developing a sense of direction.
Now why is this two reasons the way it's laid out and how it functions.
First I have a few toggles here that I've created. I have one listed for today, I have one for
tomorrow, one for upcoming which is anything that is scheduled within one week of today.
I have a future dated. I have one for projects, anything that I'm working on currently. I have
a few reminders for myself and then a calendar view of my to-do list as well, now within each
of these toggles I have a database or a table of information that I'm using to show my to-do list.
Now notion has this really cool feature where you can create tables or databases of information
and then link to and view that information in multiple different ways across multiple
different pages in your workspace. Now that in itself is really powerful but
the really cool piece in this is the fact that I've created filters for these tables so that
way they only show me the information that I want to see when I want to see it. So for example I
created a filter for this table here in my today toggle that is filtered to only show me items that
have a due date that is on or before today and then also have a done box that is not checked.
Now this date here is the other really important piece in this and it's also
part of the reason why this system is changing the game for me mentally and that's because this
date allows me to schedule my to-do items for a specific to-do date, the day I'm planning to
do it and I can schedule this as far out in the future as I want. Now this date in combination
with the filters I created is making this entire page fully automated with no extra help for me.
Mind blown right, all I have to do is add new items to this list whenever there's something
I know I need to get done and then I'll set it for specific to-do date and that's it.
Then when I wake up in the morning and go through my routine and then sit down and look at this page
this first table is always going to show me everything that I need to get done for that
specific day and that's it now I don't have to waste time trying to figure out what I need to do
because this is automatically updating for me every time I input new information. Now the only
reason I'm able to see these other toggles here is for the sole purpose of visibility, in case
I need to pull something forward or push something back and reschedule it for a later date that's it.
See without structure like this, the overthinker in me would kick in almost immediately and start
getting in the way of my productivity. It's happened more often than I would like to admit,
however this do date driven to-do list is really helping me to manage the moving
pieces in my life. Like my entire content creation process is linked to this table as
well so every time I have a new video or podcast or newsletter or private podcast
from our patreon community, the next thing that I need to get done for that piece of content shows
up here. Which helps me constantly create content on a consistent basis, say that 10 times in a row.
Now there is another piece to this that I want to quickly share with you that I think you'll also
receive value from and that is my brain dump exercise. See I strongly believe that if you
want to build focus and create a structure you have to have a clear mind first now I recently
shared a video talking about overthinking and in that video I shared a brain dump exercise
that I do periodically whenever I feel myself starting to overthink too much to the point
that my mind feels crowded and clouded. So if you haven't seen that video I highly recommend
you check it out but really quick here's how that brain dump exercise is set up.
So because you can also take notes in notion among other things I have a note taking dashboard that
is linked to this notes and ideas table right here on my action zone page. So if
I click this new button I can open up a new note and we can open that as a page as well.
Now it's important to mention that every time you create a new page or workspace in notion
it's always going to start off as a blank page and really quick you can do that in the menu
right here on the left hand side, just click the plus button next to workspace and that's
going to open up a blank page similar to the blank note we just created a few seconds ago.
Now the cool thing about starting off with a blank page or a blank workspace is that you can
literally set this up however you want and there are a handful of options you can choose from.
You can just click and start typing away. You can create a database of information by choosing one
of the views listed. You can even pick from a list of templates notion offers to help you get started
regardless of what you're trying to create. I mean if you want you can embed images or videos, tweets
from twitter, google maps, just about anything it's crazy the flexibility you have with this
but the feature I really like is the fact that you can create your own custom template and then
use it in your workspace whenever you need it and that's something I did specifically for my
brain dump exercise. Now if we jump back over to the blank notes we created earlier we have
the option to give it a name in this case this is a brain dump so we'll name it brain dump.
Now we can also pick an icon or an emoji for it, so let's pick a brain for that and then we can
pick a cover image as well if we would like. So let's look for a pretty cool cover image,
let's look for a brain oh that's cool, I like it. Now when we scroll down to the
workspace you will see that I have a brain dump template that I created so if we click
that it's going to populate the brain dump template that I created for this exercise.
So on the left hand side here I have a spaces to dump all of the things I've been overthinking
right, everything my mind has been holding on to, I can spill it here and then on the right
hand side I have a space to sort and organize through those thoughts. Now I talked about this
exercise in more detail in the video I did about overthinking so definitely check that out if you
haven't seen it but as a quick gift from me to you I'm actually going to make this template
available publicly and what that means is once you create your own workspace in notion you can
duplicate this page into your workspace and start using it in your life and workflow. So if you're
interested, if you want it, there will be a link down below for you to duplicate that as well.
See being able to lay out everything that I'm working on in one workspace like this
and have the flexibility to view it and interact with it however I want is powerful and it's
changing the game for me mentally. I mean I'm also using Notion to track my health and fitness
and one of these days I'll actually walk you through my training routine and show you exactly
how I'm doing that as well as how I'm being intentional with the way I exercise my body.
Now if I share something in this video that you found interesting
comment below so we can talk about that also if you plan to duplicate my brain dump exercise
I'd love to know how it's working out for you so comment below so we can talk about that as well.
Always remember to stay true to you and I'll see you in the next one.
Peace!