(soft music)
- Hey everyone, it's your girl Jenn
and today I'll be sharing with you how I organize my life.
I am a Virgo so I love structure and productivity
and so I wanted to share with you guys
how I'm able to balance my lifestyle,
because my life, if I am not on top of it,
I could easily get lost in the sauce.
So I wanted to share with you some tips
that I commit to and practice daily
and hopefully they can help you.
So let's get started.
My first tip is to write everything down.
I've said this in the past
but your mind is a terrible office.
There have been so many times
when I'm driving and I'm like, ooh I should do that
when I get home, and if I don't write it down
I'll get home and I'll be like what was I supposed to do?
And that is something that I absolutely want to avoid.
So set some time out and write
everything that you need to do.
I like to start off by listing short term tasks
like washing your car, taking a pet to the groomers,
eye appointments, groceries, laundry,
you know the drill, just things to make your home
a happy functioning place.
Then I'll go in with my work to do list
and I'll just rattle off the things I need to do for that.
You can use this section for school if you're studying
or anything you just need to do for work.
Then I have my social responsibilities
and these are activities that maintain my friendships.
And my new category is for the wedding.
I got a lot of stuff I need to do until the big day
and yeah I gotta keep myself accountable to finish these.
Then if you have some time,
start writing your long term goals.
These things are less urgent so that way
you can kind of like, put them on the radar
and you can start building yourself to plan for the future.
And I think it's so good to physically
write everything in front of you
because when you see it, it seems a lot more attainable.
So my next tip is to prioritize and schedule.
Once you've dumped out everything
you should start looking at the tasks
and see if they're urgent or if you can do them
in the next few days.
So I religiously use the iCal app,
it is honestly a godsend for me.
And I'm just gonna pull up an old month just for
privacy reasons.
But as you can see, I literally dump everything into here.
I am a little bit too lazy to categorize everything
because the second something comes in
I just like, put it on my phone.
For me something that is urgent would be
writing a video treatment.
A video treatment is basically like an outline
for every video and if I don't have my treatment
I can't film and I can't show my team
what we're making that week.
So it's very very important for me to get that done always.
So I'll go in and start prioritizing
and scheduling what task goes in what day,
if its Father's Day coming up I'll schedule in
to get a gift a few days in advance.
At the beginning of every month
I'll also go in and make a deadline
to turn in a monthly list to my team.
I always try my best to work in advance because
I do not work well under pressure.
I need to plan accordingly, like ahead,
so that way when the day comes I'm not flustered,
I'm not like unpleasant, it's just ready.
And I like the feeling of being prepared.
And this is like an extra step that I do
that's not necessary but every night before
I got to bed I'll use my happiness planner.
Even though everything's in my iCal
it just feels good to me to write everything I need to do
the next day.
I find that it just mentally prepares me
and it releases a lot of my anxieties about
what I need to do the next day.
I feel like I'm like releasing it when I write it down.
And when I wake up the next morning
everything is written out for me
and I just feel like I can plug away.
So when I start my day I like to knock out the thing
that I dread the most, and for me that's working out.
Like I'm never excited to go work out,
but I know I just have to push myself
and freaking do it, so that way I can just cross it
off the list and then the second thing that I'll knock out
is the most mentally exhausting thing.
And for me that's usually filming or writing a treatment.
Once I finish that, the rest of the tasks
seem like a breeze, it's like oh laundry,
okay I can mentally check out for that.
And so everything is just downhill
once you knock out the hardest things first.
My third tip is to commit and honor your deadlines.
If you say you're gonna do something that day
you need to do everything in your power to push through
and make that deadline.
I've got a lot of people relying on me
so if I selfishly not do something when I said
I was gonna do it, it kind of pushes back
the entire schedule and the flow of the entire project.
Every time you follow through with a task or something
that you need to get done, that in itself
becomes a habit, and that's a good thing to have
because you just become a more reliable person.
It's all about forming these productive habits
that are just gonna help you out in the long run.
So one thing I like to do to make sure
that I finish everything on time
is to never overwhelm myself
with too many things in one day.
It's impossible to do like 18 things in one day.
I normally have like a five or six activity list
every single day
and if I end up crossing those out,
then I'll dip into the next day and like
take a couple tasks off from there.
Regardless you just want to be able to
make it a discipline to show up for yourself
every single day.
If you want to be a reliable person
you have to push yourself to make these commitments.
You are the most important person in your life.
So don't flake on yourself, be able to count on yourself
to make sure you get things done.
My fourth tip is a sense of urgency.
One of my favorite podcasts is called How I Built This.
And it's basically a podcast where successful entrepreneurs
come in and they explain how they were able to build
their empire.
And in one episode the owner of 5-Hour Energy came in
and he was asked what are the three things
you need for success?
And he said common sense, determination,
and a sense of urgency.
And urgency is huge because that means you do not fall
under the trap of procrastination.
Procrastination is such an indulgent emotion.
You're literally frittering away hours on like
social media, and TV, or whatever junk
when you could be using that time to better yourself.
When I set out to do something I will block everything out
and just focus at the task at hand.
Like social media, like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,
YouTube, scrolling through that wastes so much time.
And so I like to just shut everything off.
Like I don't give myself a choice.
But to just focus on what I committed to.
When I need some extra motivation to focus
I'll bring out my time timer
because I know that the hardest part of a task
is starting it, and I know once I pass that 20 minute mark
I'll be good.
So I'll get the time timer, I'll put it to 20 minutes,
and like the first five to 10 minutes are really hard
because you're like resisting.
But if you just push yourself by like the 15 minute mark
you'll be in the zone.
And a lot of times the 20 minute timer will go off
but I'll still be like typing away, getting everything done,
because I'm in the zone and that
is the place you want to strive to be.
So my last tip is to reflect and refine.
Every good system needs some maintenance now and again.
So go in and see your list, cross out the things
that you've done and kind of shift things around
if you need to move things around, you know?
Life is flexible and there's gonna be
a lot of days where you don't get everything
that you need to get done.
So just make sure that you flip things around
and set yourself up for success.
I love doing this at night.
Again, I've talked about my happiness planner
but I'll just cross the things that I did
and I love that there is like a little section
where you write down what you're grateful for
and or just like, you could write down some
highlights that you had today.
And I like having those little moments in my memories.
Because it's those little things that really count
at the end of the day.
So those were all my tips on
how I plan and organize my life.
If you guys would like to share any productivity tips
or if you want to explain what structure works
for your life, I would love to read about it
in the comments down below.
I am all about, you know, improving myself
and any extra tips would be gladly appreciated.
I want to thank you guys so much for watching
and I'll see you guys in the next one.
Bye!
(soft music)