As someone who has been a public personality in the planner community for several years, I am often asked about the many different ways you can fill and use your planner, so in true planner fashion, I’ve been keeping lists with different ideas. I’d like to start sharing these lists here on the blog, focusing each installment on a different category of activity.
In the first installment of this series, I shared 13 Items to Schedule In Your Planner. Today, however, I want to talk about Task Lists. Planners and lists go together like peanut butter and jelly, so there are plenty of different types of lists you can make and keep in your planner. These 7, however, are ones I consider essential for your productivity!
7 Task Lists to Keep In Your Planner
General Inbox: This is going to be your catch all of tasks and to-dos, anything that doesn’t go onto another list, will go here!
Chores: I love to keep a list of my daily, weekly, monthly and less frequent chores in my planner to keep me on track with cleaning my home to ensure I don’t miss anything.
Work Inbox: Like the general inbox, except for work related tasks only.
Goals: People who keep their goals listed out on paper are 42% more likely to achieve them, so it’s a nice list to keep in your planner.
Projects: A list of all the projects you’re working on, and taking it one step further, listing out each project as an individual task list is a great way to keep your objectives organized and make it easier to execute.
Systems: I consider systems reoccurring projects. A list of action steps necessary to complete a specific objective. If you have systems you use in any area of your life, codify it and keep the list in your planner.
Self-Care: As a woman, I feel like there is a lot of maintenance, hygiene and general self-care that needs to be completed regularly. Keep a list of your handy in your planner. Here is a free download I created specifically for it.
For more productivity tools and resources for planning, download your copy of my FREE Productivity Toolbox by clicking the image above!
I hope this list has given you some ideas for task lists to add to your planner. I hope you’re enjoying this new series so far and make sure to check back often to see more planning ideas. I’d love to hear what other task lists you keep in your planner, so be sure to share in the comments.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you might remember that I had been struggling for a while to establish a daily journaling practice. There is something about journaling that just seems to go hand in hand with the planning community, and knowing how beneficial journaling can be for your mental health and motivation, I was determined to establish the habit for myself.
Let’s talk about the the benefits of establishing a journaling practice first. There is actually a lot of great research that shows how journaling and the act of writing things down by hand affects your mood, stress and even your success. Gratitude journaling specifically has been shown to create a 10% increase in happiness for those who establish a daily practice. Writing down your thoughts in a brain dump or stream of consciousness style is shown to make you feel more productive and in control, relieving anxiety in a significant portion of people. Research has even shown that people who regularly write down their goals and intentions have a 42% increased chance of achieving what they set out to do. More studies into success and visualization show that those who mentally practice their actions ahead of time, even by scripting out actions or situations in written form, have better results than those who go into a situation cold. In many different ways, unpacking your thoughts onto paper and getting into alignment with them is a key to personal happiness and success, and in many ways is a precursor to creating and executing on a successful plan. So, for those reasons and more, I was personally very interested in establishing a daily journaling practice for myself!
My first real success with a daily journaling practice came from my weekly gratitude inserts that I designed to be a quick and easy way to get myself into the habit of daily reflection. The idea behind those inserts was that I would list something I was grateful for each day and set an intention for myself for the week. This was a practice that took mere minutes a day to establish thanks to my convenient design, and it certainly helped me to establish an easy daily gratitude routine. They say people who perform a daily gratitude practice are 10% happier, an oddly specific number, but each day I completed my line of gratitude I could feel a shift in my mindset. Check the box, it was working and I could feel it.
But, eventually, I yearned for more. I didn’t want to loose my daily gratitude practice, of course, but I wanted to add to it and enhance it. After reading The Artist’s Way and learning about the concept of morning pages, a daily journaling practice where you write stream of consciousness style everything you are holding onto in your mind when you wake up, I began to feel like spending a bit more time on my journaling could really help get my mind right for the day. In The Artist’s Way, the author, Julia Cameron suggests that your morning pages practice should be three pages long, but for me, three pages was extremely daunting. I found that my pages became incredibly repetitive and lacked any real direction or substance, as I would force myself to write within a reasonable span on time so I could check the box, feel the benefit and move on with my day.
That’s when I decided to again design my own practice where I could blend the known benefits of journaling with the convenience of a more strategic practice. After all, I was journaling to help me become a better me, to get clear on my intentions for what I wanted to achieve and to set my vibration for the day to one of gratitude. I didn’t need three blank pages to do this, I just needed a bit of structure. So, I set out in designing the High Vibe Bible, the 90 Day Manifestation Journal to Raise Your Vibration and Manifest Your Desires.
The High Vibe Bible is unlike any other guided journaling experience I have ever come across. Most guided journals ask you too many questions each day, or are designed like fill in the blank word puzzles that don’t give you the true experience of journaling. The High Vibe Bible gives you the space to outline and reflect on your intentions for the week, and then the space to get grateful and aligned with those intentions each day. At the end of the week, you have a short review you can complete to keep track of your results. It provides the structure for you to set intentions and gratitude, but also provides space for you to get into alignment with your daily objectives quickly. You can write stream of consciousness style or bullet style- whichever works for the way your brain processes information.
Your brain and the way you feel after your daily journaling practice is the priority with the High Vibe Bible. For me, having the simple, structured daily practice from the High Vibe Bible has made me feel more disciplined, more relaxed in the morning and much more intentional about how I spend my time. Every day has it’s ups and downs, but getting started by reminding myself what’s important and what I feel I need to do to get myself where I want to be is invaluable to me. Having journaling inserts that I can keep right inside my planner so I can quickly flip from intention setting and manifestation to action and execution has been a game changer for me and my personal organization as well!
Printing is a breeze and the inserts work in a variety of different planners or binders sized for A4, US Letter, A5 or Half Letter! Don’t worry- you’ll get a set of printing instructions with your purchase to make the process as simple as possible!
Enjoy and can’t wait to hear how your new daily manifestation journaling practice benefits you!
Since launching the High Vibe Bible last year, I’ve received lots of inquiries into when I would be turning the manifestation journal into a set of printable inserts on my shop.
The HIGH VIBE BIBLE was intentionally designed to help you raise your vibration and manifest your desires over the course of 90 days or roughly three months. One part journal, one part manifestation tool, the High Vibe Bible is a loosely guided journaling experience intended to help you get super clear on what you want to achieve or receive, and then help you align your thoughts and actions to make it a reality.
Within in this journal you will find inspiration and guided prompts to help you clearly state your desires, create a plan for managing your energy and space to align your thoughts.
Each week starts with a worksheet where you will: • Write out an inspirational mantra or affirmation for yourself to use that week.Clearly identify what you wish to manifest • Identify how your manifestation makes you feel • Provide strategies for how you intend to raise your energetic vibration towards a positive mindset • Document signs and synchronicities that indicate your manifestation is coming to fruition • Track actions you will take over the course of the week to keep yourself in alignment
Each day you have a designated area to: • List out daily gratitude • Briefly journal your thought for alignment that day
Each week ends with: • A summary of what manifested for you • Space to identify the high point of your week • An area to briefly journal what you’ve learned
At the end of the journal you will also find a collection of seven lists that you can populate during the time you use the journal. Update and refer back to these lists often to help keep you in alignment with a positive mindset!
→ Imagine feeling the clarity of knowing exactly what you want in life and what you are working towards. There is no confusion, you know your time is valuable and meaningful because your life is filled with wonderful things that you’ve manifested and there is so much more on the horizon! → Imagine waking up with a purpose, excited to start the day because your journaling practice helps shift your mood to one of positivity and optimism. You feel more like the woman you’ve always wanted to be and you are unapologetic about treating her the way she deserves to be treated! → Imagine experiencing your day as that pleasant, low stress woman that family, friends and co-workers flock to because you are like a ray of sunshine for their day. You’re magnetic, you easily get what you need from others, and they feel truly blessed to know you! → Imagine the delight of getting each desire you ask for in such an easy and unexpected way that you feel like the luckiest woman on Earth. You choose to allow your life to be difficult or easy, why struggle when you can let it be easy!
These are the side affects that the High Vibe Bible can have on you when you commit to using this simple but powerful tool to establish a daily manifestation practice. Even if you are not usually drawn to journaling, the High Vibe Bible is such a different experience, but one that has the power to transform your energy and attitude through the act of putting pen to paper.
What You Get With Your Purchase: When you purchase the High Vibe Bible Printable Inserts, you will receive a PDF file of the High Vibe Bible that is enabled for printing in A4, US Letter, A5 or Half Letter size. You will also receive a PDF with detailed print instructions to help walk you through the process!
So, what are you waiting for? Get started with the High Vibe Bible Manifestation Journal today and follow along with the same quick but fulfilling daily practice I use to set my vibration and manifest my goals!
Today I am bringing back a series that used to be part of my monthly editorial calendar: Entrepreneurial. Entrepreneurial is my monthly entrepreneurship journal entry that I make public to give insight to my community, and lead by example for fellow entrepreneurs to see the highs and lows of running an online business. Each month, I generally have a topic that I want to share on that relates to the state of my business or my current priorities. This month we are going to talk about how I plan to revive my stagnant business.
Over the last few years my business has felt like it hit a ceiling. Now I fully understand that this ceiling has been the manifestation of my own limiting beliefs around my business and truly has nothing to do with my business itself and it’s scalability. Although I make a great income from my business, and a mostly passive one at that, I’ve been wanting to take my business to the next level financially for some time, but I’ve made a bunch of mistakes along the way to find what my next level version of business success looks like. Hence, feeling like I’ve hit a ceiling.
I think its normal for people to hit a ceiling like this in their business and perhaps to, like me, feel trapped or boxed in to certain achievements and expectations. If you’re not careful though, hitting this imaginary ceiling can cause you to actually start declining if you aren’t careful, and I feel like my business has been declining in some sense but I know it doesn’t have to. I know that the decline I am feeling has come from a rut I allowed myself to get into.
I spent so much time thinking and researching on how to get myself past the ceiling I felt like I hit to make it to my next level that a few negative side affects started popping up. First, I was doing way too much researching and thinking and not enough executing on what I had learned. Ugh! I know some of you can relate to this. Not taking action because you feel like you don’t know enough to make the best choice yet, or starting down a new path based on information you learned but then finding conflicting information that leads you to continually change course. Double ugh! I definitely spent the last few years in this cycle. Knowing I needed to make a plan for the next level, doing the research, coming up with that plan, and then either chickening out or changing the plan so many times that I started things but left them incomplete. This was disastrous for me and it definitely lead me to make some poor decisions with my business that ended up hurting my revenue, not growing it like intended.
The second negative side affect I experienced was massive burnout. What is interesting about this side affect for me was that I had been working and creating content at a feverish pace for a long time before the burnout hit. And when I think about it, it wasn’t the pace or amount of work that ended up causing the burnout, but truly I think it was a symptom of the overall problem that I wasn’t growing. Anyone who creates any sort of content online can probably relate that when you are creating a lot but getting a lot of great feedback or activity on your content, it fuels you to want to create more. But when you are creating and not seeing the feedback you expect, it can be disheartening and draining. That’s where my burnout came from. For a while there I was creating content but not seeing the response I wanted over and over and over again. Because of that I burned out and became disillusioned by certain platforms.
Despite all this however, I have to remind myself how freaking grateful I am to even be in this position and that I still have a functioning business that earns me a full time income from home. The fact that despite these issues my business is still working and new customers and community members are still finding me is such a testament to the power that great passive income foundations can have in a business. My top performing content and existing funnels have been shouldering the marketing load for my sales and keeping my income consistent as I research, plan and experiment with ideas, even bad ones!
So, it’s with that gratitude and perspective in mind that I consciously decide to keep moving forward and turn to a fresh page with my business. Here are some things I’ve been doing recently to revive my stagnant business:
Back to Branding Basics: I’ve been asking myself a series of foundational brand questions to get super clear on my direction moving forward.
What do I want to be known for?
How can I be of service to others?
Who are my people?
Why do they come to me?
What do I do?
What do I NOT do?
That last one is very important because it’s easy for someone like me to feel like I need to be and do everything for my audience, but that will spread me thin and it already did!
Auditing my Business: I’ve been reviewing different aspects of my business processes over the past few years to understand my strengths and weaknesses, and where investing my effort has or hasn’t paid off. As you may know, I’m a solopreneur and although I’ve worked with a virtual assistant in the past, I’m now considering how or where I might actually need more support in different areas.
What worked for me in the past, what didn’t?
What was I doing very well?
What was I avoiding that I may need help with?
What was I doing poorly out of expectation that I may just need to let go of?
Reviewing my Funnels: Finally, I’ve been reviewing my funnels to see what content, calls to actions and products have been most successful.
What content was I producing at the height of my growth?
What content had the best reception, which did not?
Which products have been most successful?
Where are my sales coming from?
So, those are some steps I’ve been taking to revive my stagnant business and create some solid plans to help me push through that imaginary ceiling blocking me from my next level of success. Realistically, I know I also need to do some mindset work to bring down the blocks alongside doing the work of identifying and executing on my next set of business plans. For now, I would just like to cultivate the vision for where my business is going in 2020 as a first step and get those essential plans laid out. I’m also committing to thinking and researching less, and sticking to the plans I make moving forward. Hopefully, I have some positive updates for you in next months installment of this series!
I hope you’ve enjoyed this first new installment of Entrepreneurial and that it gave you some food for thought if you too are a business woman like me! I’d love to hear more about the things you have been working on or struggling with in your business so that I can create some content geared towards providing you solutions based on my experience.
We’ve come now to the end of February 2020 and I have to say, looking back at this month, I am so proud that I was able to get myself back into the swing of creating regular content for you all in the form of blog posts, youtube videos and even some great free resources and inserts for you! So, I thought it might be a good idea to put together a link roundup of all the different content I created this month so you have a quick reference guide to ensure you didn’t miss anything you might be interested in.
I’m going to call this monthly installment series ICYMI- which stands for In Case You Missed It! For those of you who have been with me for a while, you might remember that years ago I used to include a section in my email newsletters called ICYMI which was a roundup of all my content created since the previous newsletter has been sent, and it was a great way to ensure my regular community members didn’t miss anything I created. I put a lot of work into the content I produce for you, and so often my content answers questions I regularly receive my community- so I absolutely want to make sure you see everything and learn as much as you can from what I’m sharing! So, without further ado, let’s jump into the content you may have missed this month!
I hope this roundup helps you locate any content of mine you may have missed this month. I’d love to hear which content was your favorite from the month and what you’d like to see more of from me in the future. Please leave me a comment below and share your thoughts!
I can’t believe March is just a few days away! For those of you who don’t already know, March 13th is my birthday so it’s a month of celebration for me for sure! As you may remember, this year I am focused on creating a whole new set of freebie inserts for my community, so when I was thinking about what I wanted to create for March, I thought it would be appropriate to create a celebration tracker.
This beautiful tracker is a slightly different design than you might be used to because I have not broken out the months, instead, the insert is an open list form. I don’t know about you, but I don’t love using celebration trackers where you are given a set amount of space for each month because some months have more birthdays and anniversaries than others and some months have none at all for me personally. So, I would prefer to keep a list with date references and not waste the space.
Something else you will notice about this insert is that is has some columns you don’t see in the usual celebration tracker inserts. You have a column for “candles” which represent the celebration number; age the individual is turning this year or number anniversary. You have a column for “card” indicating whether you have purchased or sent a card. Finally, you have a column for “gift” indicating whether you have purchased or sent a gift.
Now, perhaps you won’t need to send a card or a gift for a certain celebration, which is absolutely fine, but you have the option to track either task if you do. Sometimes I have the problem of purchasing a gift or card ahead of time and I might forget I did this by the time the date rolls around, so for me, these columns will help me remember these details. I’ll likely use a colored highlighter to fill in a box if I know ahead of time a specific celebration needs a card or gift, and then check the box off once it’s purchased. That should help me personally to keep more organized, and I hope that helps you to do the same as well!
Now, as an extra little celebration for my birthday this month, I also want to share with you a special discount code that you can use this month only in my shop.
Use code MARCH25 at checkout to receive 25% OFF one regular priced item in my shop!
If you haven’t purchased your copy of the 2020 Master Planner, it is still early enough in the year to get yourself planning and organized if you are feeling like you had a rough start to the year or could use some extra inspiration to get a jump on your projects and goals for the year.
If you are still struggling on your annual goals or feel like it’s too late to set them, YOU GOT THIS is the tool you need! My YOU GOT THIS Goal Setting & Planning Workbook is an action oriented guide to get clear on your goals, lay them all out in your planner, and remove obstacles that stand in your way!
Either of those items are the perfect gift to give yourself this month to take small but decisive steps towards the life you want to live and the changes you know you need to make!
I have been on the internet for a very long time. I was building my own websites and doing an early form of micro blogging back in the early 2000s while I was in high school. Yea, it’s been a while and with each new iteration of tech, software and internet enabled gadgets, I feel like I have accumulated so much digital clutter. And I don’t think you even had to be active in the digital space for as long as I have been to feel similarly. Most of us have a backlog of emails in our inbox, a camera roll cluttered with photos, videos and screen shots, and just too much digital stuff to look at, scroll through, listen to and watch!
It’s time for us to do a digital declutter- at least, it’s time for me to do a digital declutter.
If you are not familiar with the concept of a digital declutter, it’s very similar to the concept of a home, room, closet or drawer declutter. We are going to go through our digital devices and start clearing things out.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Why is this necessary? Our digital devices are equipped with enough hard drive and cloud backup space to keep every single email, picture, screen shot, app, and note- so why would we actively declutter this if we can just keep it forever?
You’re right, we do have nearly unlimited storage space for all our digital information, however, when was the last time you truly went back and reviewed older files? I know for me, I occasionally scroll through files looking for something I know I saved and because of all the other digital clutter, it’s hard for me to find that one single thing I’m looking for. Even when I use the search function in an app like my email to find something I know I saved, I find it hard to locate that specific email. I’ve frequently lost digital files on my devices, and so, perhaps we give that seemingly unlimited storage capacity and search functionality too much credit. Like physical clutter, digital clutter can absolutely be an eyesore or weight on our shoulders, complicating things that should be an organized convenience. So, if you are ready to lighten your digital load and have an easier time with your devices, here are some ways you can start your own digital declutter.
7 Ways to Declutter Your Digital Life
#1.Get to Email Inbox Zero: I’ve created an entire video on the exact process I use to get to Email Inbox Zero, so click here to check it out. No, Inbox Zero doesn’t mean we are going to delete all of our emails. Instead we are going to use a system of organizing to process through unread emails and properly store or delete emails as necessary to ensure our inboxes are as organized as possible and that no email is left behind.
#2.Unsubscribe from Email Lists You No Longer Enjoy: While you are completing your Email Inbox Zero project, I know you’ll find emails from subscription lists you no longer enjoy. So to cut down on future email clutter, let’s just take a minute, before deleting those old emails, to locate and use the unsubscribe function to prevent future necessary email clutter.
#3.Delete Unused Apps On Your Devices: As I am completely integrated into the Apple ecosystem, whenever I get a new device, like a new iPhone for instance, it automatically downloads all the apps from every other device I own. Ugh! This is such a pain because I use certain apps on my iPad and not on my iPhone, and I end up with pages of apps I need to organize or remove. Let’s save ourselves the hassle and just purge all the old apps we no longer use. So check your phone, tablet and even your computer for old apps or software you can remove to save space and processing power for other things.
#4.Review and Clean Up the Pictures, Videos and Screenshots on Your Phone: The photo albums on my phone are a particularly cluttered part of my life. I take so many photos, videos and screenshots and very rarely delete any of them. So, if you are like me, I recommend you first take a moment to back up your photos from your phone to either your computer or to a cloud storage system. I have a Dropbox Pro membership so I can set my photos to back up to the cloud there just to ensure I don’t loose anything important. Then once everything is safe, I will go through my photos/camera roll and just clear out anything that doesn’t need to be on my phone.
Looking for more great tech resources for your Online Business? Click the image above to get the Female Entrepreneur Online Business Toolkit today!
#5.Create a Digital Filing System on Your Computer: Now, this happens to be one the few areas of my digital life that I do have pretty well organized already, but I know so many people have a computer desktop covered with files and no clear system for storing information to future reference. For me, my system begins with folders in my “Documents” folder of my Mac. In there I have sub folders for different areas of my life and of course a dedicated folder for my business. It’s not just on folder, of course, but I keep folders nested inside each other for different aspects of my business in a file system that makes logical sense to me, so I always know where I need to store specific files and where to find them when I need to reference them again. My in progress files go in a dedicated folder called “In Progress” and I try to declutter this folder on a somewhat monthly basis. Although I always try to ensure I am saving photos, documents and other files to their appropriate place in my filing system, sometimes when I have a number of items I need to reference for a project, it’s easier to just leave them in one folder and put everything “away” once the work is complete. Whatever system makes sense to you, put something in place where you can properly organize the files on your computer, because again, search doesn’t always work out, especially if you name a file something random, forget to change the name on a file that might have had a generic title or if you misspell your file name as I sometimes do and then loose things in plain sight. At least when files are in their proper place in my system, I can narrow down where I need to look for them!
#6. Scrub through Your Podcast Subscriptions and Replace some Old Shows with some New Ones: I don’t know about you, but when it comes to free platforms like podcasts, I tend to go overboard subscribing to all different types of shows I might be interested in. In truth, however, there are few I follow through with listening to. So, it’s a great idea to review my podcast subscriptions and make sure I take off any shows I thought I’d want to listen to but didn’t like or never got around to while my interest was high. The thing about podcasts, especially if you use a podcast app like the one that comes standard on your iPhone, is that the episodes technically download to your device so they do take up storage space. If you don’t listen to a show for a while, the episodes stop downloading automatically, but if you are subscribed to a lot of shows that can be a big chunk of your hard drive taken up. So, review the podcasts you’re subscribed to, remove subscriptions to shows you don’t like, and perhaps even unearth a new show or two that piques your interest.
#7. Unfollow Instagram Accounts that No Longer Inspire You and Find a few New Ones that Light You Up: One of the aspects of the digital declutter I didn’t even touch on yet is how having soo much content at your fingertips can sometimes overwhelm you in a negative way. Specifically, when it comes to social media platforms like Instagram (but feel free to replace IG with any platform like Twitter, Facebook, YouTub, TikTok, etc) we might start following people or accounts for certain inspirational content, but then after a while it becomes a game of comparison to us. If you aren’t looking to your social content feeds feeling uplifted and inspired, and instead feel judgey, overwhelmed or brought down by what you see, it’s time to purge your feed. Remove, unfollow or unsubscribe from feeds that bring you down, and replace some of them with new content to lift you up.
So, those were 7 Ways to Declutter Your Digital Life. I’d love to hear what you thought of these ideas and how things go for you as you start your digital declutter process. To make this process even more methodical, if that’s something you’d enjoy, perhaps consider turning this into a 7 day challenge for yourself and performing one of the activities per day for a week. Let me know how it goes!
I like to share about habits often in my content because so much of our lives and results boil down to the habitual actions we take. Artistotle said “You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” And John C Maxwell writes “You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.” Clearly, the wise understand that habits are essential indicators and predictors of success.
But, which habits, specifically?
This is a question I’ve asked myself for nearly a decade, and have spent significant time researching. I’ve poured over the routines of the world’s elite, the most productive and successful members of society. I’ve dug into the neurology of our brains to understand how habits affect us and which activities impact our brains the most. Some of what I found was surprising, but much of it made perfect sense. Here is some of what I’ve learned adapted into 5 Habits that Predict Success!
Habit #1: Feed Your Brain, Literally.
The first habit that is an excellent predictor of success is how you eat. Specifically, if you eat the right foods that quite literally feed your brain; healthy fats!
I’m sure you’ve heard about the concept from evolutionary science of “the missing link.” The historical and scientific link that explains how humans evolved to become the dominant species on the planet. How we went from clueless, ape-like humanoids to upright standing intellectuals. Scientists have been searching for this missing link for decades, looking for a hypothetical intermediate form of the human that bridges the gap and explains the progression of man kind to its current state. While no transitional fossils of this being have ever surfaced, some scientists now believe they understand the key factor that caused the rapid progression of human advancement; the abundance of fat in the early human diet.
You see, our brains are made of a substance very closely related to fat, and eating fats does wonders for our brains. So much so that eating a lot of fat may very well have evolved us from humanoid animals to modern man. So, eating a diet with a good amount of healthy fats is crucial to keep our brains operating at their fullest capacity. I’m not a doctor or nutritionist so I am not qualified to tell you exactly how much fat is right for you and your dietary needs, but I will say, this information is a significant reason why I have adopted a Ketogenic diet. I have personally experienced the benefits of a diet rich in fats and I believe it has helped me increase my clarity and focus. And if you do not eat animal products- good news- you can still get great healthy fats from nuts, seeds, avocados and oils, so there are options for all of us to feed our brains what it enjoys most!
Habit #2: Give Your Vision a Practical Plan
One of the key determining factors of success is absolutely having a vision for what you are going after. Without a clear vision, little can be accomplished. But, the vision itself is not what makes it all work- it’s the planning that does it!
The habit of planning, taking your vision for what you want to create and breaking it into a step-by-step manageable plan, has got to be one of the more challenging habits to establish. Part of the difficulty lies in clearly defining what you want, and another part of the difficulty lies in understanding how to get there. For some visions or goals, there is a clear path for accomplishment, especially when the vision is for something tangible that we can see, or touch. However, when your vision is for something more abstract, the biggest challenge is assigning tangible outcomes to the intangible vision. If you can give your vision a tangible, practical result, you can create a step-by-step plan to achieve it. And if you take the time each day to understand and evaluate your plan before you take action, you will always move closer and closer to the outcome you desire.
For more productivity tools and resources for planning, download your copy of my FREE Productivity Toolbox by clicking the image above!
Habit #3: Be a Constant Learner
This is a habit that can actually end up taking one of many forms, as there are plenty of different ways to keep yourself learning. You could read, watch videos, travel, attend lectures, take a class, or practice a skillset. Essentially, anything that you can do to expose yourself to new ideas and information will literally help your brain to continue to grow and form new neural connections. The more neural connections you have in your brain, the more you will be able to solve problems, think creatively, and advance yourself.
I also believe that having the general mindset of being a constant learner is wonderful to embody because taking the view that you don’t know it all and that there is always more for you to learn really has the power to remove mental blocks and ego issues when executing on your ideas. This reminds me of a story from when I was in college that is a great example of this sort of situation.
If you don’t know, in college I double majored in Art History and Political Science. So, for that Art History major, I needed to take a few art classes. I’m no fine artist, nor was it my intention to be, so I took the class I thought would be the easiest and most affordable in terms of art supplies, which was drawing. Now, when I came into this drawing class, there were a few other students like me who were taking the class to fulfill a requirement, but mostly the class was filled with art students. Now, much to my surprise, I ended up being probably one the best artists in that class and here is why. Whenever we had an assignment, the normal process was that we worked on our drawings in class, usually with a model present, and then one class might be devoted to critiquing our works-in-progress. Because I knew I was no artist, I would always take the general advice of my classmates and teacher to improve my work during a critique, and because I did, my grade always ended up rather high, like a B+ or A. Many of the actual art students, however, would end up defending their work during a critique and likely didn’t change anything according to the class consensus and would end up with a lower grade than me, even when I thought their work was perhaps technically stronger. Why was this? Well, I realized that because I knew I was no artist, and was just there to learn and fulfill a grade, I took the mindset of a beginner, knowing that each class I would try my best, but would likely need to learn more to improve and get a good grade. But the students who were in their ego about being a good artist, and who thought they were already more advanced than the level of a Drawing 1 class, they rarely listened to feedback during a critique, and they didn’t seem to make much progress. They thought they were right, they thought they knew better, and they shockingly received lower grades than me, the actual beginner.
I tell you this to help illustrate the point that having a mindset of a beginner, or at least avoiding the mindset of “already knowing it all” can often help you make progress and get better results. When we stay in our ego, believing we already know better than others, we close our minds to possibility and future advancement. So, keep yourself in that mindset of wanting to learn more and don’t be afraid of new information and ideas. New information can only threaten a defensive ego, but for those willing to see and learn more it can open many doors to your creativity and success!
Habit #4: Invest in Yourself
Investing in yourself is yet another habit that can take on any number of forms. It could mean taking that class to develop that valuable skill you need, it could mean upgrading that very old and slow computer that makes your work frustrating and time consuming, or it could mean taking that vacation because you are exhausted and could use a change in scenery.
There are so many ways you can invest in yourself and in your future, and although sometimes making investments can seem risky, when you take the time to decide what would make the difference in your life and invest strategically, you can make life so much easier and your success much less resistant. Just make sure you have the money to invest- you never want to use money you don’t have, and if there is an upgrade or investment to your life that is important enough but out of budget, consider how you could either save up for the expense or if absolutely necessary, take out a loan in some cases. Although, I do believe it’s important to think creatively about how you can invest in yourself. Sometimes you might think you need the big, expensive upgrade that is outside of your budget but perhaps in the meantime you can make a smaller investment that will yield an incremental improvement until the time comes for you to invest more. For example, perhaps you could read a book or two to learn a skill instead of investing thousands of dollars into a course or degree program. Or you could test out a temporary Virtual Assistant to get some work done for your business before you take the major step and responsibility of hiring an employee. We always want to make sure we are making our investment in proportion to need and budget, because incremental upgrades and improvements can add up over time to yield great results as well.
Habit #5: Be Proactive, Not Reactive
Last but not least, is the habit of being proactive, not reactive. What do I mean by this, because, this isn’t a concrete habit that you can check a box on?
How often do you take action on a task at the last minute because something has triggered you to get it done, as opposed to you properly planning out a task and getting it done before the need arises? When we are working reactively, we are working from behind, from a place of overwhelm or anxiety. We have forgotten about something and now we must rush to complete it, or we are taking action on something in response to an outside person or trigger that is now taking our focus away from our task at hand. How much of your work falls into this category? I think for many of us, this might be our state a good portion of the day. Acting out of a reaction, instead of acting out of a calm, well planned and well intentioned space. Here are some examples:
PROACTIVE • Meal planning & prepping for the week ahead • Keeping a budget and saving for unexpected expenses • Planning out and working on a project with a nice buffer of time for completion • Reaching out to a colleague to check on something you requested • Mocking up a few ideas before a team meeting on a project • Purchasing and sending a card to a friend so that it arrives on or before their birthday
REACTIVE • Ordering takeout at dinner time • Charging an unexpected expense to a credit card • Waiting for an approaching due date to rush to complete a project • Waiting for your colleague to send you requested information on their timeline • Spitballing ideas during a team meeting you weren’t prepared for • Texting your friend Happy Birthday on the day
Now, something you might notice about these examples is that individually, there is really nothing wrong with the reactive action. For many of us, like I mentioned before, this is the state we live in everyday, and so the reactive state does get us by, but it never gets us ahead. It never helps us bring more ease in our lives. It never helps us to show up as the best version of ourselves. So often in life our success comes down to showing up prepared to take advantage of opportunities and even small opportunities can lead to great things. Let’s take the proactive example of mocking up some ideas before a team meeting. The proactive employee in this example might not have been asked to do this, but they did their homework on the meeting before showing up and because of this, when the time comes to share, they bring better ideas to the table. Because of this, their superior might be impressed enough to give them the lead on the project and then, down the road, may consider their proactive nature as an excellent reason to consider them for a promotion. Is this guaranteed? Of course not, but is it the case that the early bird gets the worm? You better believe it!
That’s what being proactive vs reactive is all about. Being the early bird who gets their first. Being the employee who has cleared their plate and can accept new opportunities that cross their desk. Being the friend or family member who demonstrates to others how much they care, even in little ways. The habit of being proactive is about acting before action is called for, and for those who can develop this habit successfully in different areas of their life, you can expect success to flow more swiftly towards you.
I hope you have enjoyed this post, if you have I would love to hear about it in the comments below. I would also love to know which of these habits you are most eager to execute on and perhaps some additional ways you plan to put them into practice. As I said, many of these habits are not single items you can check a box on, but are pattens of action that help bring you closer to the success you desire. So, I’d love to hear how you put them to work in your own life!
Today, I am starting a little series here on my blog where I will share different ideas with you for important information to keep in your planner. As someone who has been a public personality in the planner community for several years, I am often asked about the many different ways you can fill and use your planner, so in true planner fashion, I’ve been keeping lists with different ideas. I’d like to start sharing these lists here on the blog, focusing each installment on a different category of activity.
Now, in terms of how to schedule these items, I think these are items that could be listed in your monthly or weekly spreads- especially if you use an hourly layout type weekly spread. I personally like to use little icon stickers to represent specific activities but that isn’t always necessary. For the activities on the list that have a specific time slot for completion, I recommend listing them on your weekly spreads, but for the rest of the activities that are just outlining general date information, you may want to keep them on a monthly calendar or on an overview style calendar.
For more productivity tools and resources for planning, download your copy of my FREE Productivity Toolbox by clicking the image above!
I hope this list has given you some ideas for items to schedule in your planner. I realize this first installment is a bit basic in terms of the information, but I know my audience is varied and that not everyone is at the same level in their planning prowess, and these little reminders can be so helpful sometimes! Now, as I mentioned earlier, this is going to be a series here on my blog, so check back often to see more planning ideas. I’d love to hear what else you like to schedule in your planner, so be sure to share in the comments.
It’s officially tax season. While the average person might find filing taxes a bit stressful, those of us running businesses can easily become overwhelmed with the task that often requires a lot of organization and paperwork. If you are a super organized business owner (lucky you- this isn’t necessarily me) you may have been keeping excellent records all year that will make tax season a breeze. But if you are not, and you are like me and you end up doing a bulk of your tax paperwork prep right before you get to filing, then I have some practical tips for helping you stay cool, calm and collected during the process. These tips aren’t related to tax code knowledge itself. For that, you will want to consult a professional or the IRS or tax bureau in your locality. Instead, I am going to focus on practical organization tips that have helped me overcome the overwhelm that tax season can bring and help you make the process easier for yourself in the future as well. From my personal experience, most of the stress of the tax process isn’t necessarily related to the work itself, it’s related to what we believe is a complicated process that carries dire consequences if executed on incorrectly. This is not accurate, so let me share some personal insight and tips with you.
My 5 Best Tax Tips for entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners
Get Started ASAP: In the U.S. we have a window of several months in which to file our taxes for the previous year and it can be so temping to put off working on your taxes until the deadline approaches. However, unless you have a significant reason for deferring the task (or know you need an extension) aim to get the work done sooner, rather than later. This isn’t just a practical tip, but its a psychological hack to help you feel more confident. Delaying the inevitable only increases stress, and stress leads to pressure that could cause you to delay too long or make mistakes once the time comes to execute. By started earlier in the season, it will give you more time and confidence to relax and take your time to get the job done right.
Document the process: No, I don’t mean take photos of you doing tax prep to share for Instagram, although I guess you could do that. I mean as you go through the process of working on your taxes keep notes on what you are doing, why, the questions that arise, the documents you refer to and the solutions you find. This can help you in a few ways. First, you will have a written record and system for your tax prep next year which will make it much easier for you in the future. Second, in the off chance you end up being audited, at least you have a record of your process to understand what you did and why- so you can verify your work or find the errors and correct them.
Familiarize yourself with last years tax return: If you have filed taxes for your business in the past, I recommend reviewing your tax documents from the previous year (or even years) to help familiarize yourself with the process. I happen to use turbo tax software myself to file, and it actually keeps my previous years records in line as I am entering the data for my current year. This helps me when I get to a line I might not remember, to understand what I did before so I can remain consistent.
Use separate accounts for your business: This tip may not help you when you are filing your taxes this year, but if you aren’t yet using separate accounts for your business, you will want to start doing this asap. I know it seems like such a little thing, especially if you are a solopreneur like me, but having separate checking, savings and credit accounts for business use will actually make it much easier for you to prepare your taxes because you don’t need to search through personal accounts for business expenses. When everything for your business is kept on it’s own, even if you weren’t particularly organized throughout the year, you have everything in one place that is easier to organize when the time comes.
Don’t stress, seriously: I remember my first time filing taxes for my business. Stressing and pouring over numbers on spreadsheets to ensure I didn’t make even a single tiny mistake, for fear that I would go to jail for tax evasion if my filing wasn’t perfect. Then, after it was all done and I saw how how simple the process was, I began to relax. Over time, and through talking to different business owners and tax professionals, I’ve learned that the process of tax preparation doesn’t require a degree for a reason. Taxes might seem intimidating, but truthfully, the process isn’t difficult to understand (this could be different in other countries/situations). The government just wants you to pay them, so doing your taxes might seem scary, but it’s actually pretty easy. If you wanted people to give you money, wouldn’t you make the process as easy as you could? As long as you follow directions and don’t lie, nothing bad can happen to you. Honest mistakes happen, and I’ve definitely made them, but if you find a major error you can submit an adjusted tax return to correct it. And if you do something major that doesn’t make sense to the government, that’s what audits are for, to check your work. I can say this having been audited as well, that as long as you know what you did and had what you believed to be a solid reason why you did it, you’ll be fine. In fact, the one time I was audited, they ended up giving me back more money which I totally didn’t understand, but thanks for being honest on your end too, government!
Looking for more great online business resources? Click the image above to get your Online Business Toolkit today!
So those are my 5 best tax tips for entrepreneurs and small business owners. I do hope these tips help you to remain calm and relaxed during the somewhat uncomfortable process of tax preparation. Remember, although paying taxes isn’t the most exciting thing, if you are doing so on behalf of your own business or entrepreneurial endeavors, it means that you are living your dream and producing something of value to society. So, all negative connotations of paying taxes aside, I consider it a privilege and responsibility I have that is par for the course of living the life I choose to live.
In case this wasn’t clear from the start of the article, I just want to say that although I am an entrepreneur/small business owner, I am not a tax professional, and I am not affiliated with any tax bureau’s or services, so this is purely anecdotal information meant to ease your mind. If you have questions about tax preparation or tax laws, definitely seek the advice of a professional or the government. I hope you found this article enlightening and I would love to hear your feedback in the comments.
