i would imagine considering you clicked
on this video that you're looking for a
way to organize your life
maybe get a clear idea of the way
forward i'm going to share with you how
i do it
it's easy to get lost in the weeds but
fortunately i found that with a few
simple practices
i can see my life and what i need to do
a lot more clearly i'm gonna split this
up into three parts
step one fireworks to organize my life
i have found that i must see what i'm
organizing
it is amazing to me how few people
actually do this
there's truly nothing like creating the
space between yourself
and what is going on in your head by
writing or drawing it out
i am asking you in a sense to channel
your inner da vinci
i love using notepads to organize my
ideas you can use a journal
or software if you prefer that the
important thing is to keep all these
ideas in one place
as being disorganized in where you
offload these ideas can
potentially lead you to losing them if
you're familiar with my videos the next
thing i'm going to say is not going to
surprise you at all
i'm a strong believer in analog which
means
a pen and paper and not anything digital
not at this stage at least
there isn't a productivity app or piece
of software in existence that comes
anywhere close to the power of the pen
and paper in my opinion
i just love how it feels i love
offloading and organizing my ideas in a
tactile
way
i know i'm such a weirdo about this but
it's the sounds it's the feeling
something about physically doing this is
really really important to me i'll leave
a link in the description to what i use
but these are
basic notepads and any notepad or
notebook will do there is another thing
to think about which is that whenever
you're on your phone or your computer
you're always two clicks away from a
distraction
it's not your fault if you had a
brilliant idea and go to your phone to
write it down
and end up distracted by a notification
that leads you to watching a video
of a dog petting a cat that actually
exists
anyway that is done by design do
yourself a favor
and put it all away and try going old
school for once
i think it's worth it i really do so why
am i calling this first stage
fireworks you know that scene in
ratatouille where remy
sees fireworks when he tastes the
flavors of different foods
this is kind of how i feel when there's
a flow of ideas out of my head and
through my hand
i've always found that feeling very
exciting and i would just say to drop
the expectations
it's normal not to feel clear about what
your future holds there's a lot going on
in all of our lives and in the world
today in my experience this first stage
is really quite chaotic and that's
totally fine
i think it's better to embrace that than
to fight against it order will come
later
and if ever i'm unhappy with how i'm
laying out my thoughts and ideas i can
always
redraw and rewrite them out i think
refinements are totally fine
and i will often do that and each time
brings greater clarity
the point here is that there is great
power in seeing what is going on in your
head and not just thinking those
thoughts
so oftentimes it's to do's it's doubts
it's
questions that i have i'm often
wrestling with ideas or themes or
concepts
and i regularly give myself the
challenge of visualizing
these things as in coming up with a
visual that i can draw out
that pairs up with that thought or idea
or concept
so for example failure this is something
i did recently on
no backup plan i found myself thinking
about failure quite a bit
and so i took the time to draw out
my thoughts on this i had something of a
visual
along a timeline that i thought would be
nice to see
and i went through this process i think
i drew it out maybe four times
and each time i iteratively brought more
clarity to
what i had in my head but of course at
first it just had to come out because i
wasn't sure where it was going to take
me there's a skill that i see people
seriously lack it is the ability
the capacity to externalize their ideas
and this is the place to start step two
prioritization
i talk a lot about two resources that
we all have a limited amount of and that
we all must confront and deal with in
our own ways and those two resources are
time and attention and having limits on
these two resources
requires us to prioritize you can't do
it all i wish i had a thousand lives
that i would have the time
to do all the things that i want to do
to create all the things that i want to
create
but i don't i have this life and so the
next best thing
is to make the most of it
there are a whole variety of different
ways that you can go about prioritizing
and for example an idea that i recently
came across
is what is known as the eisenhower
matrix popularized by the ex-president
eisenhower who would lay out the things
he
had to do in his life in terms of
important
and not important and urgent and not
urgent
this is great what matters more than the
system itself whether you use
a matrix like this or not is this kind
of thinking
this sort of distinguishing between what
needs to get done
and what doesn't necessarily need to get
done my favorite way of doing this
believe it or not
is actually through conversation i think
conversation is underrated
in many ways and i find that i walk away
with
a tremendous amount of value when i
bounce off ideas
of course ultimately i'm the one that
makes the decisions on
what is important to me and where i
place my time and energy but it doesn't
hurt to have
certain outside perspectives i have
found for example that i have a tendency
to be
pretty unrealistic about what i can
accomplish in a certain span of time
so it's helpful to have people that
bring you back to earth there's a lot
that i could say on this topic
but what i found is the most valuable
people to bounce your ideas off of are
people that you respect
people that believe in you but that are
also willing to tell you the truth
and not be yes yes men step three the
timeline
what i have found throughout my own
experimentation in organizing
myself and my life and my thoughts is
that i cannot see clearly
beyond three months from now actually i
think the magic number is more like
two two and a half months but three
months remains a very round
number that i like to work with it's a
manageable chunk of time
to work with it's a quarter of a year 90
days a lot
can happen in 90 days but at the same
time it's not too much to handle
i feel like in the span of 90 days you
can see
measurable progress even if it's just a
tiny amount
i've done videos on how i organize
myself both on a shorter
and longer time frame and i'll link to
both of those down below
but for now we're going to focus on
three months what i do is i transcribe
a lot of my notes and crazy scribbling
and chaotic messiness from step one
with a deeper understanding of what i
need to prioritize from step two
on a hand-drawn timeline that i
create for myself and it's helpful for
me to see when certain projects are
happening
and what comes first and what comes
after and
seeing it all laid out often i'll
separate different kinds of projects
that i'm working on
with the vertical access which helps me
see them more clearly you know you can
color code this you can do whatever you
want now again
there's a lot of ways that you can
actually go about doing this it doesn't
have to be
a literal timeline years ago i would
create
mood boards for myself based on a
similar concept of what i wanted to
focus on in the coming three months
things absolutely never pan out a
hundred percent as we planned them to
but i have found that on a three-month
time frame you can
consciously work towards specific goals
that you create for yourself and that's
basically how i do it
so to recap it's extremely important to
get your ideas
out of your head first to write them
down to scribble them out to list them
to draw them doesn't matter get them out
of your head and make that a skill of
yours where you're not editing
you're not preventing this from
happening you're just
going for it it's hard to have a clarity
on what you need to prioritize when you
don't even know what you're prioritizing
for example
and that's the second step prioritizing
and finally i lay out these to-do's
these projects these ideas
across a timeline what are the things
that i want to be focusing on
over the next three months and if a
timeline doesn't work for you
a mood board or something along those
lines is an alternative it's another way
to approach this
that's how i do it i hope this helps
this video is sponsored by skillshare i
have a new class on there by the way
that i just released it's my second one
after seeing the
incredibly positive reaction to the
first class i decided to make another
one and i made this class on what i call
intentional documentation how to capture
your life
in a way that brings meaning to the
things that you do it's about
intentionally channeling your attention
and creating things that have great
personal meaning to you i break down
four methods to go about doing this
that are accessible to anybody even if
you are just starting out the other
class
the skillshare original is on creativity
and how to develop your voice online so
they kind of complement each other
and that isn't an accident the first 1
000 people to use the link in my
description will get a free trial of
skillshare premium membership a
year-long membership comes out to less
than 10
a month so check it out and i'd love to
know by the way
if you do if you find it helpful and
interesting i feel like i've built
my entire career on the intentional
capture of my experiences so
it only made sense to make a class on it
plus there are a ton of really
interesting classes on there as well
so it might be interesting to explore
what they have to offer thank you to
skillshare for sponsoring this video
and thank you for watching i'll see you
soon