Being a creative person 24/7 is an impossible task, even if you are naturally very creative, and for those among us who aren’t naturally gifted in this area, it’s a loathsome task to have to attempt to be creative when it just doesn’t come easily to us. For me specifically, I do happen to consider myself a creative, my work is largely creative, and because of this, I have had to develop a system or protocol in order to inspire creativity within myself even when I felt like I was running low on the creative kool-aid!. So, here is my process for inspiring creativity on demand!
Brainstorm:I do a lot of brainstorming and as a creative entrepreneur I dedicate a nice chunk of my time each week to the task, however, if you are being tasked with having to find a creative solution to a problem or just needing to inject a little creativity into a project without much notice, brainstorming can be an excellent way to open your mind up to the creative process. Focus on the problem you’re having and ask yourself the who, what, where, when and why of it all and see if you can’t answer those questions creatively!
Think like someone else: When I get stuck in a creative rut, I find that thinking about a problem from another persons point of view can often help me inspire creativity. When I say this, I mean, try to think about the problem and possible solutions from the wants and needs of another individual. This is a must for any business owner who needs to understand their customer in order to create great products and services, but this activity can really help anyone. If your stuck for examples of people to think like, imagine you were your parents, sibling, relative, neighbors or friends. Often times we know how people close to us would react to a certain thing, so do a little role-playing in your mind and get new ideas flowing into your mind.
Give yourself time: It’s not uncommon for me, as a creative myself, to know I need a solution to a problem, but not have a clear idea of how to make it happen. So, if the problem is not urgent, I sit on it and give myself time to think of a creative solution. Don’t be afraid to give yourself time if you have time to spare.
Block judgement: The killer of creativity is judgement, so it’s very important that when creative ideas start to flow that you don’t label them as good ideas or bad ideas and just take stock of all the ideas you are receiving. Write everything down, but refrain from rating or judging the ideas until you have captured everything you think you will need.
Ask for feedback: If you are having a hard time coming up with a creative idea or solution on your own, don’t be afraid to ask others for feedback. Either on ideas you have already had or simply for their opinion on the situation. A fresh set of eyes can often do much for our own clarity.
Find commonality and relationships: When you are looking for creative ideas, try finding the commonalities or relationships between two things. Forcing your brain to relate x to y can often lead to creative solutions and interpretations. Make sure the two things you are trying to relate don’t already have an obvious commonality, the more obscure the connection, the more creativity you will inspire.
Those are my tips and general process for inspiring creative thinking when I am not in a creative mood. You would be surprised the number of blog posts and video ideas I have come up with when I thought my idea well had run dry, just by using one or more of these tips! Give them a try to let me know how they worked out for you, and of course, leave me your best tips for inspiring creativity down the in the comments!
xoxo,
P.S. Are you looking for creative blog post ideas? Here is a list of 25 great ideas any blogger can use that should help you through a creative rut!
I truly feel like March has been a big game changer for me in a lot of ways, and I am beginning to feel infinitely spoiled by the universe. I know that all the good news and positivity can’t last forever, but I have decided that I am going to make the most of all these gifts while I can. As you may already know, March is my birth month as well, so I feel like the last few weeks have been one big celebration, marked with a lot of hard work, dedication and focus. So this month, my playlist is a collection of some of my favorite songs, some old inspirational tunes I can’t live without, as well as a few new hits that I have been playing on repeat. I wish I could say their was a clear theme for the playlist this month, and I think for me there is, but I’m not sure how someone outside of my head would categorize these. For me, these songs are all poetically inspirational, sending me subliminal messages to keep focused on the mission ahead of me. I hope you find something within this collection that speaks to you in the same way.
FourFiveSeconds by Rhianna, Kayne West and Paul McCartney
Habits (Stay High) by Tove Lo
Black Coffee by Peggy Lee
Have you ever seen the rain? by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Kashmir by Led Zeppelin
Killer Queen by Queen
The Downeaster “Alexa” by Billy Joel
Pink Moon by Nick Drake
Tennis Court by Lorde
Born to Die by Lana Del Rey
Make sure to head on over to Spotify to listen to the full playlist for free! Then you can let me know what you thought of this months collection and of course, tell me what you have been listening to and loving this month! Click here to check out previous installments of My Productivity Playlist as well, and I would love to see pictures of you enjoying this playlist at home or at work, so snap a pic, post it to IG and make sure to tag me @MissTrenchcoat and #ProductivityPlaylist so I can see them, like and comment!
Some of the people who know me best have told me that I have incredible focus. Now, I think this is probably the most wonderful compliment an entrepreneur can get because it means that I know how to get things done and execute! As you might imagine, I have a number of balls in the air when it comes to the many facets of my business and I have managed to find a sense of balance in order to get the most important tasks accomplished and chip away at larger projects that might take a period of time in order to complete.
I believe that at the heart of focus and execution is prioritization. Now I will admit that prioritization is a skill that needs to be developed and honed in order to be affective. It’s not always easy, even for me, to know what to prioritize and when, but in my 5+ years working for a fortune 50 company, I have pretty much learned how to prioritize, even when things get messy.
So I’m sure, if you’re like me prioritization isn’t hard when you don’t have much going on, but its when two or more things begin to collide and complete for priority that you get stuck deciding what to do. This feeling of being stuck can often lead us to not make a decision and not take action. So, to combat that, lets talk about two variables that can help you draw the line between competing priorities.
These two variables are values and expectations! Now, your values and expectations are variables because they will vary from person to person. What I value may not be what you value, and expectations you set for yourself may not be the same as the expectations I set for myself. For the purposes of this video I am going to give you some insight into my values and expectations, to understand how I prioritize and ultimately execute in my day to day, but please make sure yo base your own values and expectations off what works for you!
Okay, so when it comes to my values, my first priority is myself, my personal and spiritual health and well being. After that comes my family and business, and finally the greater community outside my front door. Now, I know saying that putting myself first is a very controversial statement, but its one that we really need to demystify! When I say that I put myself first, it is not in a selfish or self centered manner. In fact, I have a great analogy that I like to use to explain why I choose to put myself first. You may have heard me say this before if you follow me on my blog, but to me, it all comes down to something we are taught when we fly in airplanes. If you have ever taken a commercial airline flight you may recall the portion of the preflight where the attendants go over safety features of the flight. Their is a great part of the safety presentation where they explain that in the event of an emergency, oxygen masks will deploy from the ceiling and you must secure your own oxygen mask first before assisting others around you. This is so important people, secure your own mask first! Why? Because if you don’t take care of you, and then things get out of control, you may not be in the position to help anyone else. Not you family, not your friends or the passengers near you who may need you. Lets extrapolate that to life shall we. If you are not getting enough sleep, eating well, and developing good self care habits, you will not be able to perform well in your daily life when it comes to your own or other peoples expectations! You just won’t. So, let’s together try to break this cycle and the stigma of putting ourselves first because in the end, we can’t help anyone if we can’t help ourselves.
Now in terms of my own personal expectations to support that value, I have some pretty straight forward expectations of how I will execute this value. First of all, I need sleep. So I prioritize getting the right amount of sleep per night. I also expect that I will take my vitamins and allergy pills everyday, because when I don’t I feel like poo because I have bad year round allergies! I also have recently developed a new habit of waking up early and drinking a fruit and veggie smoothy Monday- Friday for breakfast. But it has helped me to really start the day off right, make sure I am getting key nutrients and its just been making me feel better. On a side note, my choice of drinking a green juice is just that, my own, and its not open for discussion, so no comments down below debating the legitimacy of drinking green juice or smoothies, I’m good with that decision and I’m not looking for input. I’m just sharing these as examples for you guys to take and then extrapolate to your own lives.
So, prioritizing myself first has really enabled me to make sure I am in the right condition to actively participate in my life and my business. There is no doubt in my mind that I am able to stay focused because I have set clear values and expectations and the greatest of those values, my self care regimen, actually supports my focus in a very direct way.
Now, if you would like to know more about my views on Focus and hear a little more behind the scenes details about my values and expectations associated with them, make sure to check out my latest installment in my Plan Like an Entrepreneur Series. In this video I outline the same basic information here, but I also provide examples from a different value and expectations, as well as outline my top 5 tips for keeping balanced when priorities compete! If this topic interests you, definitely check out the video because you will learn a lot more through that!
I hope this post and this video are both helpful tools for you as you work to improve your own focus. This isn’t a process that can be taken care of in a single day, but the longer you work at it, the more experience you get under your belt making decisions and prioritizing, the easier it will be for you to focus on what matters to execute against your personal and professional tasks! As always, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic down in the comments, so don’t be shy, let me know what you thought and if this was helpful for you!
Sunday was a very exciting day for me. If you follow my YouTube Channel or my Instagram Account, you may already know that I have officially launched a new coaching program for members of my community who are looking for guidance building their own business online. The program is called Empire Building, and it was designed by me using all the knowledge I have acquired over the past few years building my own online business from a simple blog and rarely updated YouTube channel to an online community of over 30,000 followers and another 50,000 individual users who visit my site on a monthly basis!
I have to admit, my path to entrepreneurship has been an interesting one, especially when I take into account the fact that I have no specialized business training, nor have I participated in any of the popular online marketing courses you hear about. I’m definitely not against a business degree or taking a dedicated course on the subject of online marketing, but it just wasn’t something I ever did, and terms like hooks, listing building and lead pages still baffle me to this day. No, my success didn’t come from any fancy business or marketing strategies, but rather from doing what I thought was the most logical way to attract an audience and build a community. I created content that was of value to people, stayed consistent with my brand and focus, and treated my followers like I wanted to be treated. Apparently, I had inadvertently stumbled upon the golden rule of online business success.
Although this lesson was a long time coming for me, if you are looking for your own online success, I want to ensure you save as much precious time as possible, which is where Empire Building comes in! The Empire Building Program is a 5 Pillar Method for building a business online using tried and true methods that I have learned over the past 6 years of trial and error online! The Core of the Empire Building Program are 5 Blueprints (or workbooks) each covering one of the 5 Key Pillars to online business success. The first Blueprint, Branding, is currently available on my shop if you are interested in getting started on your own journey to online entrepreneurship, however, Empire Building doesn’t end there!
Over the past 6 years, I have learned much about myself and my own strengths. One of those strengths is my sincere ability to help others and provide focused, practical advice and assistance to those who need it. This is the true reason I created Empire Building, because I wanted to design a program where I could coach members from within my community either on a group or one-to-one basis. So, in addition to the Blueprint workbooks, I am also offering two Coaching Paths to you so that I can use everything I have learned to help you build a successful business online. Now, I am not going to go into the details of these programs here in this post, however, if you are interested in learning more about those programs or the Blueprint workbooks, please head on over to my dedicated information page for the Empire Building Program! This page outlines the program in more detail and is the best place to start if you are interested in working with me, but want to find the option that best suits your needs!
Of course, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly via email. I would be happy to answer any and all questions you have regarding the Empire Building program to ensure you make a choice that works for you! I am so excited for this amazing opportunity to work directly with the wonderful members of my community and help turn dreams and aspirations into reality! Thank you so much to all those who have already joined the program, I am beyond grateful for the chance to work with you!
Today is a very big day, it is the day I unveil to you all my big collaboration video with Lisamarie of Paper & Glam! Lisamarie and I met via YouTube back in December. I guess you could say, I found her through her Erin Condren Life Planner videos and I was so struck by the quality and content of her videos and how we seemed to be very similar that I had to message her. After that we started chatting, discovered we are basically twins separated at birth and have since become blogging BFFs! To celebrate this, Lisamarie and I decided to do a collab video, the first for each of us! We decided it would be fun to do a swap of our favorite office goodies and then share in a video our Office Essentials; for me it is the Charmed Office and for Lisamarie it is the Glam Office. I’ll go ahead and link below to both videos for your viewing pleasure!
My Video
Lisamarie’s Video
Now, if you are not already following Lisamarie all over the internet, I highly suggest you do! This lady is definitely going places and you are going to want to be along for the ride! If you like my planner printables, you will definitely love Lisamarie’s as well, and she even sells lifestyle goodies and apparel as well! She also runs a very fun Paper & Glam Book Club and admins her own dedicated planner group on Facebook! This girl is on fire!
Now, I don’t want to spoil the videos for you and tell you all my office essentials before you’ve had a chance to watch the video, but there was something very special I wanted to tell you about that is featured in the video! I am launching a new product to my Strange & Charmed Shop, Inspirational Wall Art! Yes, I have been at work designing a series of printable posters for your office or home decor! Of course they are themed with all of my favorites and I hope you love them as much as I do! Right now I am launching with two unique designs in the 8″ x 10″ size, but by March I should have three finished and up on the shop! So hop on over to my shop via this quick link and take a look at my new additions for yourself!!
Thank you all so much for your visit to my blog today and for your ongoing support! I really do appreciate each and every one of you who reads my blog, watches my youtube channel and follows me on social media! Let me know what you thought of the video in the comments below and also let me know how you like the wall art designs! I truly hope you love my printable creations because I love designing inspiring items that help you keep motivated and organized throughout your day!
This month has really been like the greatest February of all time! Well, maybe not of all time, but it’s shaping up to be a really cool month! Not only is it the perfect calendar month with four straight weeks from Sunday to Saturday, but Valentine’s Day is also on a Saturday this year, which is very convenient! Speaking of Valentine’s Day, I decided to theme this months Productivity Playlist with some great love songs! If you’re a fan of romantic tunes or just need a playlist on hand for your Valentine’s evening, definitely check this out! As always, you can listen to my full playlist for free via Spotify!
Unforgettable by Nat King Cole (duet with Natalie Cole)
At Last by Etta James
Dream a Little Dream of Me by Ella Fitzgerald
Someone to Watch Over me by Ella Fitzgerald
These Foolish Things by Nat King Cole
Come Away with Me by Norah Jones
These are probably some of my all time favorite love songs! I know I could have chosen dozens upon dozens of great classics, but these have been on my mind lately! I hope you like the selection and that you use it this Valentine’s Day, either as some nice music to relax to or something to add a little ambience to your evening! Let me know in the comments your favorite love songs and if you also share a particular love for the ones on my list!
I know February can be something of a controversial month. Most people in relationships claim this month as a chance to celebrate their love, while those currently in between relationships complain that February is nothing special and that Valentine’s Day is just a product of the greeting card, chocolate, floral and jewelry industries! Whatever your stance, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to share my wisdom with my readers when it comes to what I have learned about love thus far in my short existence! I don’t claim to be a professional or highly schooled on the subject, but I have a few common sense lessons to share that will hopefully help any of you out there who are looking for a deep, meaningful relationship. Whether you are currently single, or in a relationship lacking that special something you are longing for, I submit this post to you like an old love song dedicated to the lonely hearts club!
First Key to Finding Love: Stop Looking
You know the old adage that “you find love when you aren’t looking,” well it is completely true! I have said it before and I will say it again, but love is invisible (obviously) so you can’t go around searching for it. It’s not a shoe that you lost in the back of your closet, it’s not the perfect little black dress hanging out on some rack in a department store waiting for you to spot it, and it certainly isn’t something you can concoct with a spare guy and a quick recipe! Love, in fact, is an energy! Which means it must be attracted! Because of this basic principle, it is possible for you to repel love through the act of searching, the way a magnet repels another if it uses a similar charge. So, if you have been searching high and low for Mr./Mrs. Right and have come up short, this is why! So, halt all efforts immediately and jump straight into the next lesson!
Second Key to Finding Love: Self Love Means Everything
If love is an energy that can only be discovered by being attracted, the best possible way to find it is to love yourself. Why? Because if you are truly, madly, deeply in love with yourself, who the heck wouldn’t want to also fall in love with you? Self love is everything when it comes to finding true romantic love. First of all, to love yourself means to truly know and understand yourself and your own mind and heart. Once you are in tune with that your heart and mind want, it actually becomes much easier to identify Mr./Mrs. Right once they are inevitably attracted to you! Secondly, when it comes to love, you will attract that which you believe you deserve deep down inside. So if you loath yourself inside and have a laundry list of flaws that you like to dwell on, and generally don’t have much esteem or confidence in yourself, guess what? You will find someone who is attracted to that weakness in you and they will latch on and exploit it! We’ve all see it before, maybe it hasn’t happened to you personally or to someone you know intimately, but I bet you know someone in that situation. Where they didn’t have any self esteem or self love and they got into a relationship because they were desperate for one and they ended up being used and abused. So, if you want to find a relationship, one with someone who thinks you are wonderful and amazing and will love you to the moon and back, you need to feel that way about yourself. You will attract a partner who will treat you the way you treat you, so make sure you are loving yourself to the moon and back first!
Third Key to Finding Love: Put Yourself Out There
One of the major barriers to finding love these days really stems from a lack of accessibility. If you don’t put yourself out there, you will never attract a loving partner. Common excuses for this range from work, to family obligations, to having too many friends, but when you boil it down, the truth is you are not prioritizing yourself and putting yourself in the situation to have love find you. This may be because you are truly a busy person, or it may be because you are afraid to put yourself out there, but either way, you are making no progress and should therefore not be surprised when no one comes knocking on Friday night! Another common defense I hear is that you do put yourself out there but there are no good available guys/gals. Untrue! The truth to this situation is that you are going out, usually with friends, and you are not actually putting yourself into the right setting. Putting yourself out there doesn’t mean going out to bars and clubs and to the movies with friends, it means prioritizing yourself, and your hobbies, and getting yourself involved in external situations without the crutch of a friend or another security blanket. The best way to meet people to start a relationship is to join a regular activity or group that interests you. Join it for the fun and for the heck of it, but make sure its something you like, whether that be spending time outdoors, or joining a book club, following your passions will always guide you in the right direction! Get involved with something, put yourself out there, be open to new friends and new experiences, that is the key to finding love!
I hope you found this post informative and helpful! Like I said in the introduction, I am no love expert, but these lessons aren’t ones you need a degree in to understand. For some people finding love is easy, its the part that comes later on that is really the difficult stuff! If you start to understand and practice these three simple tips, I think you will surprise yourself with the amount of attention you will begin to receive and theamount of eligible individuals you will start to notice!
Last spring the book #GIRLBOSS debuted on bookshelves in a marketing whirlwind. All of a sudden this book I hadn’t heard of was everywhere from blogs to the news and if you could judge a book by its cover, it looked seriously awesome! It was also written by a seriously awesome woman, Sophia Amoruso, the twenty something CEO of the wildly successful Nasty Gal online (and now brick & mortar) clothing retailer! Being a twenty something entrepreneur myself, I jumped on the bandwagon with the book and ordered it, read a bit of the book and then, like many books that had come before it, I shelved it and forgot to finish reading it!
Fast forward to the beginning of January when I spontaneously joined a book club organized and ran by my friend Lisamarie, of the blog and YouTube channel Paper & Glam! Her January book was #GIRLBOSS and I thought this would be the perfect time to pick the book back up and finish it, so I did! Now, you can read many a review of this book all over the internet, so I am not going to add one more opinion about the book out there, however, I did find that while I was reading the book, there were passages that really resonated with me that I wanted to share. Love it or hate it, this book did have more than a few insightful moments and so I wanted to share those with you in a post! So, here are the 7 Lessons Learned from #GIRLBOSS!
1. It isn’t what you do, but how you do it.
In the book, Sophia briefly explains the “business model” she used that brought her success with Nasty Gal when she was first starting off with her eBay vintage shop. Although there were many shops that sold the types of items she sold, hers was more successful for one reason, she put a lot of hard work, effort and thought into each and every item she listed for sale. From finding and styling models to wear the clothes, a good photographer to take the thumbnail shots, to using her knowledge of fashion and style to write awesome listings filled with styling tips, Sophia put effort into each and every aspect of her sale. This is a great lesson to learn because it really doesn’t matter what your job is, or what your business is, if you think about and put real effort into what you do, it will pay off! There is no substitution for hard work, even on the internet!
2. You don’t get what you don’t ask for.
This is a powerful one, especially for women to learn and really understand. I think ladies have a tendency to shy away from asking for things because we don’t want to come off one way or another, but when you boil it down for your business you won’t make any money or get any customers if you don’t ask for the sale or ask for the business. Sophia seemed to get everything she asked for, and while that may not be a fool proof strategy for your business, sometimes asking is the first step to getting what you want.
3. Never live above your means.
As someone who lives in a capitalist society, I witness commercialism and marketing all day every day! Things from food to luxury goods are thrown in your face and to be honest, I often find myself wanting everything I see, but that is no way to live. Sophia really does a nice job explaining that while she was building her business, she was very frugal and almost refused to spend money. Although she doesn’t really analyse this decision much, I believe it had something to do with her previous freegan lifestyle, mixed with a sense of apprehension that at any moment the rug could be pulled from under her and her business could fall apart. At any rate, this is a great lesson for young women (all women, and men too) to learn! You can’t spend money you don’t have, and you shouldn’t spend all the money you earn either. It’s common sense, but I think coming from a nation in massive debt, it’s apparently an important tip we are consistently missing!
4. Find ways to keep your goals in your face so that you’re manifesting magic!
This lesson is one I employ and believe in, whole-heartedly! I do believe in magic, and I believe that magic is something you make for yourself. How? Well, by keeping your goals front in center in your face, as well as hidden strategically within your daily life, you begin to ingrain them into your psyche and over time that results in you actually taking steps and actions to make those goals real. For example, in the book, Sophia talks about making specific goals into short phrases that she would use as her passwords for her computer. Unconsciously, everyday, she would be reaffirming those goals whenever she typed her password. Eventually, those goals in password form became one with her mind and her mind started acting accordingly so that she could achieve the goals. Now, none of this is science of course, that’s what makes it “magic” because it’s unknown. But boy does it work! Give it a try in your own life and see what benefits you reap by making your own dreams come true!
5. Don’t waste your time obsessing over people and things you can’t control.
This is another one of those difficult life lessons to learn, especially for women, whether you run your own business or not! The world is a really big place and there are billions of us living on it. Of course, from time to time, we are going to come across people and things we don’t like, and unfortunately, sometimes these things are unavoidable, as much as we wish we could just run away from them. They may be people or problems right in front of us that we can’t escape, and it’s so easy to fall into the trap of obsessing over them, wasting our own precious time thinking and worrying and guessing about outcomes we aren’t a part of. If we stopped focusing on the things we can’t control and started minding our own business and focusing on our own lives and the things we can control, we could do so much more. I know this is hard, I struggle with it too, but keeping your nose down and focused on your own work and your own life will really yield you so many benefits!
6. Define failure and success on your own terms.
In the book Sophia explains that failure is a concept of our own design. To fail means something different to each person and that definition is something you have established for yourself. When you go into a situation open-minded with the intent to learn and grow and experience something new, there is no failing at that. Letting go of expectations and results that are weighing us down really help us to lighten the load and soar higher. Likewise, success is also something we define for ourselves. If I asked each and every one of you to give me the name of a successful person in the world, I bet I would get more than one name. Why? Because what success looks like and means to each of us is different, so define your own success and redefine failure to something that doesn’t exist!
7. You can’t take back your actions, so be smart about what you do!
My favorite quote from the book was when Sophia wrote “There is no AutoCorrect in life— think before texting the universe.” This was a very powerful message in my opinion because in our digital day and age I think many of us do and say things online and forget that our words and our actions have meaning in the real world. In life, there is no going back, the only option is forward, so it is so important to make sure you are thinking before taking action. Sophia documents some unsavory parts of her history within the book, things she’s done that she isn’t proud of, and these are things she has to live with. We all have things in our past that we wish we hadn’t done, and hopefully if we are lucky, these things didn’t have permanent or ongoing repercussions. Life isn’t easy, it just wasn’t designed to be, so it is very important that if you want to be happy in life and achieve all your goals that you stay focused, learn from your mistakes and try to make as few as possible of the bad kinds as you go along.
For those of you who have read #GIRLBOSS and even for those of you who have not, I hope you enjoyed this post and that it gave you some more perspective on the book overall! If this post has piqued your interest in giving the book a try, here is a link to where you can purchase it online! Let me know what you thought of the book in the comments below and if you didn’t read the book, let me know how you feel about the life lessons in this post. Did they give you any insight, or do you too struggle with any of them, like me! I’d love to hear your thoughts!
The start of the year is a great time to start implementing small organization changes that can yield big benefits for your productivity for the rest of the year. Today I wanted to talk to you about organizing your computer for maximum productivity, which if you are anything like me, is sort of a dreaded topic! I live on my computer, so it is filled to the brim with articles, images and information. I use my computer to create a vast majority of my content, and of course, it’s the key to running my online business, so it really is important that I keep my computer files organized, my hard drive free of superfluous information and my desktop clean and neat!
Step 1: Create a virtual filing system
Without some sort of virtual filing system set up on your computer, it can be a pain to locate files in a timely manner. Although most computers come with default files like “Documents” and “Photos” its usually up to the individual to implement a system for filing away items for later reference. What I like to do is create folders within these sort of catch-all files, dividing my items up by categories or projects. I typically use category files like “Picture of Me,” “Online Receipts” or “Youtube Music” to corral items that are similar in nature, but perhaps don’t belong to a larger set. Once I have a handful or more items that belong in a specific set, I usually create folders with event or project titles. For example within my Pictures folder, I may keep Pictures of Me, but I may also have a folder called “Christmas 2015”, or within my documents, along side Online Receipts you may find a Strange & Charmed Project File where I keep all my info related to my brand. Within category files, I usually don’t bother with too much additional organization, other than to give my information descriptive titles for easier location, but within a project or event folder, there is often a handful of other sub folders. For example my Strange & Charmed Project File contains a sub folder for my blog post articles, my business information and image templates among other things. The idea is, no matter what your situation, whether you are a business owner like me, a student or even a stay at home mom, you want to create a filing system that make sense to you. Don’t be afraid to lay some ground rules for your system and type them up in a document to refer back to, in fact, that’s an excellent way to help you manage your system in an ongoing fashion!
So once you have settled on a filing system for your items, of course, you are going to want to go ahead and redistribute your files into their appropriate folders in the system! This can be a large project in and of itself, so don’t be afraid to set up the folder system one day, and return another day to work on distributing your information to their proper home. As you do this, now is the perfect time to also rename files with descriptive titles so that you can easily locate them in the future through the search function on your computer.
Step 2: Remove unnecessary information
Another major process you will want to undergo to organize your computer is to remove all the junk from your computer. Whether it be duplicate files or pictures, old documents you no longer need, or even outdated applications that you no longer use, spend some time locating any files that can be deleted entirely from your computer!
Step 3: Archive old information to save
Of course, you will also come across information that may be old or necessary, but for one reason or another you need to keep it. If it’s not something you need to refer to regularly, I suggest moving these sorts of files to an external hard drive for archiving and backup! Make sure to set your external hard drive up with a filing system of its own that makes sense for the information you are storing there, so you can easily find any archived files if and when the time comes.
Step 4: Run key Diagnostics
Depending on your computer’s operating system, there are a number of diagnostic tools you can use to help you ensure that you computer is running in top shape. First and foremost, I like to use an inventory style program like Disk Inventory X to help me understand what sort of information is taking up my hard drive. Computers can often easily begin to fill with bloat and most systems have a maze of hidden files and folders that you may not be aware of. Now, I don’t think you should go and delete files that you aren’t aware of, however, using a program like Disk Inventory X can help you see how the majority of your hard drive is being spent. Perhaps you didn’t realize that the game you downloaded two years ago and barely run was using so much hard drive space. Insights like that can help you make better decisions about what to keep and what to remove from your computer. Another popular diagnostic tool is a disk defray. PC’s are famous for the defrag, which basically helps to organize the information stored on your hard drive by compartmentalized it. Imagine your computers hard drive is like a storage facility with tons of individual units. When you save information to your computer, its like filling up units randomly in no particular order, so you can have some units in the back filled and some in the front and a few in the middle. When you defray your computer, you actually force those storage units together so that there is no empty space between empty and filled units, which helps you utilize space in your hard drive most efficiently! Like I said, PCs are known for needing to be defrayed regularly, however, Mac’s don’t actually require this, so do a little research on the best diagnostics to run for your computer and operating system and figure out what is worth your time, effort, and sometimes money, in order to keep your computer running the best!
Step 5: Perform weekly maintenance to ensure upkeep of your system
If you are like me and use your computer regularly, chances are you are going to need to continually tweak your system and keep an eye on your computers organization. As much as I try to always file my items into their proper spot in my own system, sometimes I forget or if I am in a rush, I skip that step. So, it’s important to schedule some time on a weekly basis (or more or less frequently depending on how messy your desktop and files get) to tidy up and put things back in place. Of course, you will also want to revisit steps 2-4 on a regular basis as well, although, perhaps on a less frequent basis, although that is completely up to you.
I hope these tips help you to get your computer organized so that you can achieve more with your screen time! If you have any other computer organization tips, I’d love to hear them!
P.S. If you would like to check out some more articles on this topic, feel free to check out Organize Your Mac with These 5 Tips and Back to School Tech Tips (even if you aren’t going back to school, this one has some great suggestions for making an older computer feel like new again!)
We are well into January of 2015 and I don’t know about you, but I am very excited for what lies ahead this year. I think it is incredibly important to get a strong start to the year, in order to lay the ground work and plans that will begin to really blossom as the year progresses. It’s not always easy for me to get motivated to take on a lot, especially during the winter months when I tend to be tired because of short days and less sunlight, and of course, it’s so cold all you want to do is cuddle with dozens of blankets, but I have to keep myself motivated and often times, music is the best way to pump up my mind and my spirit! So, I put together a playlist of inspiration and aspirational music to kick of this series for the new year!
Of course, I hope you check out the playlist and let me know what you think! I’d love to see a pic of you enjoying this playlist at work or at home, so make sure to snap a pic and tag me on Instagram @MissTrenchcoat! Also, feel free to let me know in the comments which songs you have been listening to to keep you motivated and inspired for productivity this month!
