Staying Organized
As a business owner, and Mother of four my life can get pretty hectic, keeping a good schedule and staying organizes helps me stay on task. There are a few ways I accomplish this in 4 ways:
1) Bullet Journaling:
Bullet Journaling is a great way to keep track of everything in one place. Mine consists of my brain dump, daily tracker, Monthly goals, and notes/ideas that come from client meetings. Having this in one consolidated place allows me to keep track of things and review them quickly. For a more detailed description of Bullet Journaling click here.
2) Brain Dump:
Your Brain Dump should be anything that comes to your mind "a Stream of Consciousness" I start mine with the daily things I know I need to get done for the day. . . Laundry, house chores, dinner plans etc. and then move on to any business or work related tasks. You can sit at your computer and do this or you can work from a blank sheet of paper. Don't worry about your grammar, or your spelling, don't worry about getting it right, this is YOUR brain and you write it down how it comes out, if that means that in the middle of writing your work tasks, taking the cat to the vet pops in WRITE IT DOWN! let your mind flow onto the paper with everything your thinking. This is especially helpful for me right before bed. How many times have we laid in bed thinking of the 1001 things we need to do tomorrow. A few tips for your brain dump:
NEVER stop your brain dump to do a task no matter how small it may seem. You will loose your train of thought (stream of consciousness) and forget to come back to it.
If your scanning your emails and NEVER reply to them while your doing your brain dump. Again, you will loose your place and forget to come back.
Don't worry about being in order. . . you can prioritize your thoughts after they are all written down. Don't try and force your brain to stay on topic, let it go where it wants to go next.
3) Prioritizing and Scheduling:
Once you've completed your Brain Dump you can now look back at it and reflect. you can pick out those things that are priorities and those that can fall to later in the week. For me this means a FRESH paper and a Task List. This is the second half of my brain dump. Next is the Scheduling. My google calendar is populated with everything from what time to pick up my kids from school to client meetings. Everything has an alert set up to remind me before I have to accomplish a certain task. With 4 kids, and "3" businesses it is absolutely essential that I Schedule my regular tasks on my calendar so I am reminded when to do something.
4) Tracking:
The Last Step in staying organized is Tracking, I do this at the end of every evening and at the end of every month. On a daily basis I review those tasks I set out to complete that day and check of the ones that I did and make not (in my evening brain dump) of those I didn't. For the month I review my goals, did I accomplish everything I wanted to? If not why? and what can I do next month to make sure I reach it.
Each part is very important for staying organized, however it is always important to remember to allow your self some wiggle room as life's plan is always the same as the one you had! give your self time off, unplug from your technology and relax.
How do you stay organized in your daily life? Do you need help being more organized? Here at Claire Roybal & Associates we would LOVE to help you develop a plan to help you stay more organized in your life! Contact us with any questions you may have!
