Behind The Scenes: How I Stay Organized
“With organization comes empowerment.”
This is how you usually see me. Best face forward, rehearsed, fully confident in my message, and ready to inspire.
Working with my clients, taking care of my mental and physical health, creative pursuits, and staying close to friends and family–my world can easily devolve into chaos. I’m sure you can relate.
So today I thought I’d take you behind the scenes, and share the tools I use to stay organized, check off my to-do’s, and avoid overwhelm. FYI, none of the links below are affiliate links; I have no financial interest in whether you click on them. These tools simply work for me.
Calendar
My calendar is my lifeline. If it’s not in here it doesn’t get done. Right now I use Google (but I’ve been looking at Notion), and have separate calendars for work and personal. Here you can see them both together. May seem like a lot, but it really helps to keep me on track personally and professionally.
Social Media Planning & Scheduling
Later’s great interface–and reasonable cost–makes it easy to create and schedule your posts on up to NINE social media platforms. I’ve tried several different services for this, but Later has always worked, and there are not surprise expenses.
Finances
I couldn’t live without Quickbooks. And if you’re not using software to manage your org’s finances, you’re wasting time, energy, and possibly money. Yes, this is an investment but I track all my expenses, generate invoices, receive payments, and report to my accountant (yes, you need one of those, too). Come tax time, my stress levels are almost non-existent.
Graphic Design
I started using Canva over ten years ago. It is so easy to create graphics–and now documents and spreadsheets–with their easy-to-use interface. They have only gotten better over time. Within Canva, I create project folders for the various clients/projects I’m working on, makes it much easier to stay organized and find files.
Newsletters & Landing Pages
About 18 months ago I upgraded from MailChimp to Kit. Like Quickbooks, this is an investment, but I have more than made up for it in time I can now spend doing other things. I use Kit to create landing pages, forms, email automations, and my weekly communication to my list.
Planner
My favorite planner is my bullet journal. Yes, I use paper and pens every day. First, because I love them. Second, it allows me a smidgen of creative time every morning. Third, I prefer crossing an item off a list with a pen vs. clicking a checkbox. Bonus: I know I will interact with at least one beautiful thing every day.
There you have it, the major tools I use to keep myself organized and all my projects moving forward. Hit me up if you want more details about any of these, and drop your own suggestions/tips into the comments!
