today we're talking about time management and how to
effectively organize your life in order to be productive
i'm alice thorpe and i'm a graphic designer and youtuber and i like to share my creativity
with you guys so i've been asked a lot how do you manage your time i'm self-employed i work
from home and it can be tricky trying to figure out how to get motivated especially when your
bedroom's down the hallway you could stay in your pajamas and i totally understand that but i have
some little tips and tricks that i follow to ensure that i stay my most productive and also
allow myself the time to relax and take time off because that's also just as important first up you
need to set yourself a schedule and actually stick to it now if you're anything like me i
actively avoided a nine to five job i hate it when people tell me what to do i like to be in control
and i originally thought because they get to choose my own hours i can work whenever whatever
i can be productive however i've found recently if i schedule myself set times on set days to
do certain things i'm actually more productive whereas if i usually think oh i can just do that
design work today i'll spend three four five hours doing it whereas if i set myself a little two hour
gap in my calendar then in theory i'll get it done in those two hours so some things that i do to
schedule my time i live for my google calendar so in there i have a bunch of different things i have
my partner's wrote it so i can see what shifts he's on and i sort of plan my time around that
i also have any set things that i have to do every week emails admin recording
videos i have my upload schedule on there and then every monday i go into my calendar and i
time block out what i want to do for example this week i need to film videos so that takes at least
two days to film so i'm gonna instantly block out wednesday and thursday i choose these days because
i know i'm the most productive in the middle of the week when i've had chance to sort of
get over the monday blues on a monday i tend to do things that involve me not putting makeup on
and that is admin design tasks planning videos anything like that i will block that into monday
the same applies for every day of the week and try and optimize this time blocking to suit your
level of productivity so if you're more awake and raring to go in the afternoon set the most
intensive tasks around that time and then you can fully pay attention to those personally i
set admin and the boring things first to get them out of the way and then when i've actually got my
energy levels up that's when i'll get down to the nitty-gritty and do the task at hand alongside the
calendar i also have notifications so when there is something that needs to be done i can't forget
about it so if there's something urgent that needs to be done for example uploading a video i have a
notification on my phone that will beep at that time so i remember to share that on instagram
and tell everyone about it you know another thing that's actually really helpful within the whole
calendar system is to color code it so youtube tasks are usually put in red admin tasks are
usually in green soul and fire like my small shop tasks are usually in blue find yourself a system
and color code and apply that code throughout next up you need to make sure you have a creative
workspace that motivates you so i know how easy it is to sit and work in bed trust me i do enjoy that
i'll do it every so often however i used to do that all the time at university and i found myself
getting really distracted at that time i didn't have much space to work with but i definitely
encourage you to try and set up a space that is purposely made to work so for example at uni i
had a desk i made sure that was clear and ready to go i made sure i had my laptop there any notebooks
and everything that i needed at hand ready to get working the same applies if you have a living
room table maybe you use that as your workspace just try and create yourself designated zones
and then you know when you step into that zone it's time to work you could also work in like a
coffee shop or pair up with a fellow self-employed friend work at their house and something that is a
huge help to me during all this even on my lazy admin mondays is to actually get dressed
now this probably sounds simple if you've got an office job obviously you need to get yourself out
your pajamas you can't just roll up to work in those however as a self-employed person there's
no one telling me what i need to wear i can wear what i want but recently i've tried and actually
succeeded in sticking to actually getting dressed so even if i'm just changing out of my pajamas
into a really comfy loungewear set i count that as getting dressed i brush my hair sort of wash
my face and then i feel like i've got ready for work and i'm more in the headspace to actually
do the work so you're dressed you're ready you've got a workspace you've got a schedule
now i want to share with you some apps that i find useful in doing all of these things and staying
staying on it my number one is an app called click up now click up is sort of similar to apps like
trello i believe i've never personally used trello but i heard a lot of good
things about it so maybe shop around but i personally use click up so on there you can
organize basically your entire life so you can create separate boards you can view them as lists
as calendars you can add notes you can upload documents honestly the possibilities are endless
and i find it really really affordable too i think that was the main reason i picked it to be honest
it was cheap and it did the job so as a self-employed person i really love click up
and i've actually also synced that to my google calendar so when i add anything in either all
it sort of cross-reference it and syncs it rather than me having to like copy things over because
the more i can automate things the better because it means more time to do the actual important
stuff another app that i highly recommend or more so a technique is the pomodoro method i use this
sort of on and off and it's a method of working in a chunk and then taking a little bit of a break
throughout the day so this sort of repeats some people do 25 minute chunks of work and then five
minutes break and just keep repeating personally i like to work in bigger chunks so i'll set
myself like 45 minutes worth of work and take a 10 minute break and then the app sort of prompts you
into doing that you could do this by hand by setting an alarm it just means that you can stay
on it without burning yourself out i also highly recommend a physical method of writing things down
i always have my daily planner next to me i have my notebook and i have sticky notes i write on
anything that i can find especially the tasks at hand i want them in front of me all of the time
it's very easy for my laptop screen to turn off or me to close that screen down on click up whereas
if i always have a piece of paper in front of me i can't just simply chuck that away it's
there ready to go so having something physical is like a third layer of forcing myself to actually
get things done rather than procrastinate so every morning i'll write myself a list in a
pad like this what needs to get done main priorities any like life admin things and a
pad like this there's a little treat on the end so i usually write myself in a reward like let's have
ice cream for pudding you know that's my treat so definitely recommend writing stuff down even
though i'm very much a digital creature i still go back to writing it down on a day-to-day basis now
we're talking all about getting productive staying motivated using your time efficiently but you also
need to make sure that you set yourself boundaries now this is especially hard if you work from home
because it's so easy to just kind of carry on working or take your laptop into the bedroom
work downstairs everything is accessible all the time especially with social media especially of
a job like mine if i unlock my phone at any point i can see my emails i'm very accessible and that
can sometimes work against me so make sure that you actually give yourself time to breathe set
yourself some time in the middle of the day to actually have a proper lunch break don't
sit and work at your desk move even if it's two meters across the room move somewhere else have a
proper lunch break whether it's half an hour or an hour go for a walk do something else so you
can properly recharge the same applies for the end of the day actually take some time and don't feel
guilty about it in the long run you're gonna work more effectively if you've had time to recharge
especially in a creative job such as graphic design you need to go and experience things you
need to have some down time in order to generate ideas and have sort of creativity flourishing so
i make sure i don't answer my emails i turn on my out of office on the weekends and make sure
people know that i'll reply as soon as possible i limit my social media use when i'm not working and
on weekends i fully take the weekend off because we all deserve a weekend no matter what industry
you're in even if it's not a saturday sunday take some days off even if your weekends are tuesdays
and fridays that's absolutely fine take some time for you to regroup because then when you get
back to work you'll be motivated and ready to go actually talking about motivation that's something
i have learned a lot about recently so i was actually reading a book by stephen bartlett and he
does the amazing podcast diary of a ceo i highly recommend if you want to feel motivated and just
you like hearing about other people's way of thinking way of working things like that
amazing now in stephen's book he mentioned a lot about motivation isn't something that just appears
it's not you wake up and you feel motivated every day that's not the case and it applied right back
at school there was many days when you didn't want to go to school when you got there is actually
all right and you actually got quite a lot done what is always there and you have control over
is discipline so by setting yourself these routines and knowing that personally on a monday
morning you do admin you do all the boring stuff it means that i will get it done you could even
reward yourself like i mentioned with the daily planner i give myself a treat treat yourself like
you treat kids when they do something good you praise them they get a reward token they get a
sticker do that for yourself i did this a lot at uni i mean my rewards actually involved me eating
far too much chocolate but i mean i got the work done so reward yourself give yourself time to
breathe and don't go too hard on yourself you will get it done as long as you have that structure
you have that routine and you're taking care of yourself now i feel like i've rambled along in
this video i always feel like in these talking videos i just sort of go off on a tangent but
i hope you found this useful if you did let me know how you're going to apply these to your work
if you have anything to add to this conversation again let me know in the comments i'd love to
hear and yeah thank you very much for watching and i'll see you next time for another one bye
so
you