Hello and welcome back to The Bliss Bean!Just as cavemen needed their fire and
their rocks and sticks and whatever, us modern humans need our tools as well so
in this video I'm going to attempt to show you all of the tools that help me
be a more productive 21st century human being. Make sure you stick around because
at the end of this video I'm going to be talking about a giveaway that I'm doing
to celebrate reaching a thousand newsletter subscribers. By the way thank
you so much for that. The first category of tools that I want to start out with
is the digital tools. While I still do love using paper for creative things and
brainstorming and studying, there is great value in digital tools. They are
very portable and efficient. So these are the digital tools that I use right now
Number one is Google Calendar which I use for keeping track of things that
happen at a certain time, so like appointments that I have to go to. I love
having my schedule synchronized between my computer and my phone. I pretty much
always have either one of those with me so if an event comes up I always have a
way to enter it into my calendar and then you can also have it set reminders,
you can put in additional information like an address and color label. I also
really like being able to visualize my schedule, like if I open up the view of
the day ahead or if I open up a view of the week, I like being able to see like a
visual view of how much of my week is scheduled out and how much free time
there is. The second tool is TeuxDeux. I am like their unofficial unpaid
spokesperson. You can also call it a fangirl. They even sent me their tote
bag, so basically we're best friends. TeuxDeux is what made me switch over to
digital planning. It was the absolute simplest tool that I was able to find, it
had all the simplicity that I loved about paper planning except it was
digital, so I could carry it around with me, I could cross things out and move
them around without having to use whiteout. Next up is my habit tracker of
choice. It's called Productive Habits. You can create habits, assign colors to them,
schedule on what days you want to do them or what specific times of the day. I
use it to track everything all the way from my morning routine to my bedtime routine
and then all of the stuff in between, which is like language practice and
meditation and reading and chores that I have to do. I really like that it does
the scheduling for you, so like if I'm doing something every other day or like
two days per week, I don't have to think about that, the app will just show me the
habit on the day that it needs to get done, which is a lot less work than the
paper tracker that I used to use. Next up is Now Then Pro which is my time tracker.
I have a whole super detailed video on this so I'm not going to go into depth but
I just like to track exactly what I do during the day and how long I spend
doing it because it creates a better awareness of where my time is going and
it also just makes me a heck of a lot more productive. So if you want to learn
about that, you know what to do ;) Number five is the Gmail app. I deleted
the Apple email app because I think it sucks. I think just the fact that the
Gmail app is made for Gmail accounts makes it function a lot more smoothly
than the Apple one does. I feel like pretty much everyone uses Gmail which is
why I'm recommending the app to everyone. Honestly whenever someone tells me their
email and it's like yahoo or something I'm just like... it's 2019, like get a Gmail
account. It's ok here at The Bliss Bean we do not judge based on email providers.
Okay the next tool is Google Sheets. I use Google sheets pretty much just for
budgeting. If you wanna learn more about my budgeting system I talked about it in
this video, but basically I really like Google Sheets for it because it's just
super simple. You just have categories and then income and expenses that go in
each category. It's really good for someone in my situation who doesn't have
very complicated finances, but everyone needs to keep track of how much they're
making and how much they're spending so it's a good, like, beginners' budgeting
option. The next tool is Trello. Trello is a productivity workspace that has boards
and within boards you have columns and then finally within columns you have
cards so in that way it's pretty simple, but there are so many features. So like
every single card can contain a ton of information like text and to do's and
assignments and attached files, reminders... And then every board can have power-ups
applied to it. So I use Trello for my photography business
and for my blog content calendar. For my content calendar I've applied the
calendar powerup which allows me to see all of my cards on a calendar based on
when their due date is. The last app is Venmo and I feel like I probably don't
need to explain this but it's basically an app that lets you pay people very
easily. You just put in their user name and then the amount of money that you
want to send and I love this because I hate carrying around cash, I just hate
dealing with cash in general, so it makes it really easy if you're like out with
friends and you guys need to split the bill. It's much easier than like digging
around in your wallet trying to find the exact amount. Instead you just type into
the app and you're done. Actually I do have one more digital tool that I want
to mention, but I haven't started using it, I've just heard so many good things
about it that I made an account but I haven't, like, taken the time to learn
about it yet. So the app is called Notion and it claims to be the all-in-one
productivity workspace. Like you won't need anything else once you start using
thought of it like I'm really happy with the productivity system that I have
right now, like I'm in a loving, stable relationship but I'm also a planning
nerd and whenever I hear about something new like this I just really want to try
it out, so let me know if I should. Moving on to the analog tools, the first one is
notebooks, and even though I use digital planning, I still love notebooks. That
love for notebooks never truly goes away. So I use notebooks for journaling
everyday, for studying, and then I have like a catch-all notebook which just
holds random things, so like plans for redecorating my room and a to-do list
for what I need to do before I embark on my travels.
Just whatever requires a little bit more creativity or something that I want to
have a tangible record of, if that makes sense.
The next analog tool is the Lavender Artist of Life workbook. The workbook is
not a daily planner, it's more of like an overarching tool to use throughout the
entire yea. I think the bulk of the work that you do in the workbook happens at the
beginning of the year, so like looking back at 2018 and setting goals for
2019, just thinking in general about how you want to feel in 2019. I really liked how
it helped me to start the year on a more introspective note but then also every
quarter and every month it guides you through setting goals and then reviewing
that period of time. The last one, I don't even know if it counts as a digital tool
or an analog but it is my Boogie Board. I use this a lot whenever I need to write
something down just temporarily and I don't want to waste paper for that. I
also like to have it nearby when I'm working so just in case a to-do pops in
my head and I don't have the attention to give to it right now but I also want
to make sure I don't forget it, I just like to write it down and look at it later.
Then some little miscellaneous things, I love my Zebra Mildliners, they're
basically highlighters but just nicer colors, not those boring neon yellow,
oranges, and pinks. And then this whiteout I think is a lifesaver because
I love writing in pen but I don't love making mistakes. So yeah those are all my
productivity tools, and now what you've been waiting for is the giveaway. So to
celebrate a thousand friends receiving my newsletter every single week in their
email inbox I wanted to give something back to you guys.
So this giveaway is basically like a bundle of some of my favorite
productivity tools. Obviously a lot of these are like free apps so I can't
really gift them to you, but what I have included is a bunch of my favorite books
on self-improvement and productivity. I've included a bunch of my favorite
pens that I use for writing literally everything.
A pack of Zebra Mildliners, and because the Lavendaire Artist of Life Workbook for
2020 actually hasn't come out yet, I'm giving you something similar. So she
actually came out with this line of pastel colored notebooks which are so so
pretty, so you're gonna get a set of four of those. The total cost of all of these
beautiful productivity items is going to flash on the screen right now because I
actually have not bought everything yet so I don't even know how much it's gonna
cost. Hopefully I won't spend all of my money on this. To enter this giveaway
just go down to the description and there's gonna be a link that's gonna
take you to a page where basically you just have to complete a couple of simple
tasks like subscribing to my newsletter or following my Instagram. I wish
everyone could win but unfortunately I do not have that much money. But even if
you don't win, just know then I appreciate all of you so so very
very much. All right, thank you for watching, and I will see you next week.
Bye! <3