Hi everyone, welcome back to Lavendaire.
Today I want to show you
how I plan and organize my life to achieve my goals and get things done.
I'll show you all the different tools that I use from my calendar to my actual planner
to my to-do list app on my phone.
Before I go into the tools I want to share
how I block out my week to create content.
Generally I have:
Mondays and Tuesdays are my shooting and editing days where I only mainly focus
on shooting and editing.
I don't try to take any meetings.
I don't try to answer too many emails
during those days.
I don’t do a lot of the admin/behind-the-scenes work
on Mondays/Tuesdays, because those days I'm just me, my camera, or my editing program.
Wednesdays is when I usually post and on Wednesdays I have my posting
and social media and email writing days.
It's a lot of replying to comments,
writing the social media captions and emails, and things like that.
Thursdays and Fridays I generally block out with meetings with other people.
Thursday is mostly a podcast day and Friday I try to keep open to finish off anything
that needs to get done, especially this year since I'm doing two videos a week.
I kind of need to shoot and edit a little bit on Thursdays and Fridays as well.
Today is a Friday, I'm shooting it.
See, my schedule's changing, but that's generally how
I like to do things.
I like to block things out, you know, set days or set times for just
focusing on one task and then other days for meeting with other people,
because I don't like to switch on and off between those two.
Weekends I try to make space to just relax and give time to myself, go out to eat,
things like that.
But I do work on weekends as well.
Sometimes I'll find myself emailing,
organizing, and planning and prepping for shoots which is not too intense.
Alright, onto the tools that I use to plan and organize my life.
First off, I have my iCal calendar on my laptop and on my phone.
I just love that it syncs together.
I keep mine open at the monthly view because I like to see what I have to do in that month.
I like to look in the two weeks I'm in, kind of looking in advance.
I like to use this as a visual content calendar to see what videos I have planned
for the next month or two, so I always try to plan out my content at least a month in
advance.
I also use this to see what events, meetings, and podcast interviews I have coming up.
So everything that's a set appointment, I put it into my iCal so I can always see
what I have that day on my phone.
I also use this calendar to see what
meetings, events, and podcast interviews I have coming up.
So everything that's a hard appointment, I use this calendar for, and I like that
because I can just open my phone to the day and see what exact appointments
I have that day.
I don't usually add to-do list stuff in my calendar.
I just use it for appointments and my content calendar.
And real quickly, I want to share a tool that's changed my scheduling life:
it's called Calendly, and this is what it looks like.
Basically it's a tool where you can send a link to
people and they could schedule a time to meet with you.
It's made my life a lot easier;
I don't have to go back and forth with scheduling and proposing times to meet
and talk on the phone.
I just send people this link and then they can schedule
a podcast interview time with me, and once they confirm that schedule, it will automatically
show
up in my iCal which is really nice because I don't have to do much on my end.
Next up I want to share a tool that helps me plan out the details of my goals:
it's called the goal book, and I actually have this in my 2017 Artist of Life Workbook.
If you have it, then you know.
If you don't have it, feel free to check it out, the link is below.
Basically the goal book is a tool to plan out big goals, goals that need several steps
to reach.
For example, one of my goals this year is to redesign the Lavendaire website.
That kind of goal is something that requires a lot of baby steps to get there,
so in order to plan out something like that I use the goal book.
How it works is:
you write out your goal on top, then you write out why you want to achieve that goal.
(I think it's always important to know why you want to achieve something
so that it motivates and fuels you to get there.)
And then I set a deadline for myself.
When do I want to achieve this goal by?
Setting a deadline always helps me get things done
because I realize if I don't set a deadline I will just be lazy and relaxed
and not work on it until I have to.
After that I brainstorm all the little action steps
that I would need to reach this goal, and they don't have to be in specific order.
For example: if I want to redesign the Lavendaire website, I would either have to
search for a theme that I'd like to use for my blog.
If I can't find a theme that I like
I might have to find a web designer and web developer, and before I even go into that,
I probably should decide a color palette or gather some photos for inspiration.
So there are all these baby steps that I need to take to reach that goal,
but they're not necessarily like, "I have to get them all done now."
There's a sequence and there's a priority.
After I kind of 'word vomit' all of the to-do list items
that I know I would have to do eventually, I list them out then I star
the three most important items on that list: the three highest priority
or the three immediate next actions that I would have to take in order to achieve that
goal.
Then I would take those three immediate next step items and put them into
my Wunderlist to-do app so that I can do them as soon as I can.
Wunderlist is my app where it's basically my huge to-do list bucket.
I organized it into several different categories and also I love that you can star
your important tasks so that, for example: if I have something I really need to do that
day,
I would star it and work off that starred list.
After I knock out those tasks in Wunderlist,
I check them out.
I go back to the goal book again and star the next three important items
and then transfer them to Wunderlist again.
To be honest, I'm not always that organized.
I don't always use the goal book.
Sometimes I have an idea and I just put it straight to Wunderlist.
Whenever I'm like, "Oh, I should get this done," I put it into Wunderlist
and I just try to organize it as best as possible.
So I've shared about my calendar, my goal book, and my Wunderlist to-do app.
Next up is my Muji planner and I use this to see my life at a week.
I plan my to-dos and my focuses on a weekly basis.
So basically I would look at my Wunderlist
and transfer whatever I need to.
Sometimes there are things that I know
off the top of my head and I write it into my Muji planner.
What I love is the right side is empty
so I can use that space to take notes, and I use it to write down what is my focus this
week,
what kind of videos do I need to shoot and edit.
I'm also using my Muji planner to track my habits.
This year, one of my main goals is I want to meditate daily, and I want to exercise
three times a week.
I've drawn in these boxes for meditating and working out,
and I also have boxes on Thursdays and Fridays to write my book and work on that.
To be honest, I've been really good at meditating daily since the new year
but not so great at working out three times a week so far, and not so great at working
on my book
every Thursday and Friday because with this new schedule I find myself working on videos
and I haven't kind of gotten into the flow of this new schedule that I'm doing.
But the habit tracker is there and I'm going to keep trying this method
throughout the end of the year because I do like to physically cross off if I do a habit
or if I worked out today, I love to cross it out physically so that helps with motivation
sometimes.
On a day-to-day basis I'm either working off my Muji planner, what I've written
in those daily to-dos, or I'm working off my Wunderlist starred list
because sometimes I don't have my planner with me and I just want to look at my phone.
And other times when I really want to focus down and simplify and not feel so overwhelmed
when I look at these huge lists, I take this notepad, this physical notepad,
and literally just write out the three or four most important things I have to get done
that day.
Sometimes it feels good for me to just have a simple one notepad for what I need to do
that day,
and I know you guys out there might think all of this is redundant,
like I write out my to-dos in every way and form possible but this is the way that works
for me
because on the day-to-day basis I like to have it simple.
I like to have just three or four things
I need to knock out but I also like the feeling of knowing that I have everything,
all my to-dos, all my goals, written down somewhere, so that I won't ever lose it.
It’s off my mind, onto paper, and that's what helps.
Maybe the night before
I'll look through my Wunderlist or my weekly planner and then I'll decide what to put
on my daily to-do list.
So that's how I organize my life from the monthly view to my goals
to my weekly planner to my to-do list to my huge bucket to-do list
and then my small daily to-do list.
I hope this helped you guys, I hope this showed you a little insight on my life.
At the end of the day, my way is my way and you might find another way that works for
you.
For example: bullet journaling is a popular method that probably might work for you.
I haven't tried it, I don't have an interest in trying it.
I'm happy with my style.
But do what works for you, and try to find your best way to focus and prioritize,
and keep it simple.
Don't overwhelm yourself, and just have fun.
Thank you so much for watching, let me know if you have any life organization tips
in the comments.
I'll be sure to check them out and get inspired from you.
Love you all, see you next time.
Bye!