I like to think of myself as an organized mess. There is a method to the madness, but to some, it might just look like madness.
I don’t know about you, but I find it fascinating to hear different people’s methods when it comes to being organized. SO, here’s mine:
💗 The big and little things I do to stay organized:
I use a paper and pen planner for “life” things. This is where I note things like concerts I have tickets to, weddings, travel, doctor’s appointments, and after-work plans.
Pretty much anything that happens outside of my 9-5 job goes in my planner.
On Sunday I write out my schedule for the week and sign up for workout classes. I started doing this when my schedule was a bit more hectic in the fitness industry. It’s not as necessary now as my job is more predictable, but I still like the ritual of writing it out on Sunday night. It lets me mentally prepare for the week ahead.
For all meetings related to my 9-5 job, I use GCal. I work for a fully remote company so all meetings are virtual and have calendar invites. I have it set so that I get an alert 10 minutes before all meetings.
I keep a running to-do list doc for my 9-5 job. Every day I write out the things I need to do that day and check things off as I go. I try to write out my to-do list for the next day at the end of the previous day.
I do certain things on certain days. At my full-time job I know on Monday I pull all our social media metrics from the previous week, Tuesday I make content related to new releases, etc.
I also do this with certain chores, I usually go grocery shopping on Monday morning (ahh, the perks of working from home), Sunday I change the sheets, wash my water bottles, and do laundry.
I have a Sunday checklist in my notes app that I update every week. Sunday is usually my “catch-up” day for any loose ends and chores around my apartment. I have a list of my usual tasks saved on my phone.
I email myself a lot of things. This is probably not the best habit, but if there’s something I want to remember or a content idea I have when I’m falling asleep, I email it to myself so I can refer back to it when I’m sitting at my desk going through my email.
I use Notion for all content planning. I’ve been using Notion at work since I started my current job. Notion is an interactive workspace and project management tool that you can highly customize and organize. It’s free and pretty easy to use.
For my full-time job I use Notion for pretty much everything — it’s where I have my content calendar, my weekly social media reports that I write up, content ideas, recaps on big promotions, etc.
I recently also started using Notion for my own content creation stuff. Here’s a very meta look at my newsletter planning doc:
I also created different “Pages” for me to brain-dump content ideas:
I’m still figuring out the best ways for me to use Notion for my own business, but it’s been really helpful so far as a place to keep everything.
I use the Notes app. A LOT: I’m such a Notes app girlie and keep a lot of on-going lists there, but I’m going to do a future newsletter on that as it is a whole other can of worms to open 😂
How about you? What are the big and little things you do to stay organized?
I mail myself as well, things I need to do or can’t forget! I find that if if I mail myself, I can forget about it and deal with it when I’m at my desk. Otherwise I keep thinking, I need to do this or that tomorrow and for sure I’ll forget 😬
Great tips 👌
You have given me some great goals to work towards