It is not any news that we are all striving to find some balance between all the hats we are wearing in 2020. Whether it is working to grow our businesses, being an educator to our children, folding laundry, making dinner, writing and publishing consistent blog posts ... we are all juggling a lot.
When I learned that my children would be following a Hybrid schedule (2-3 days at home and 2-3 days at school) this school year I knew we would need to establish a new routine for the 1,000th time this year. The one thing I have learned is if you are organized, the easier it is to be flexible when schedules change frequently. Do not get me wrong, nothing about 2020 has been easy, but I am hoping that the tips I share with you today will encourage you to keep going at a pace that works for you.
Trello
Huge Trello fan here! My life literally lives within Trello whether it is my business or personal life, this not so little resource provides so much structure in my life. You can create different boards for different businesses, projects, events, and more. Within each board, you can create checklists, attach documents, share items with others, and so much more. I use Trello to create my weekly to-do lists for personal and business, a place to brain dump ideas, organize potential advertisers, and so on. The sky is the limit and if you are new to Trello it can be overwhelming. I highly recommend taking this course to learn all the in's and outs.
Systems
Systems ties into Trello, but whether you are using Trello or another program having systems in place is important. If you write blog posts regularly, create a checklist that is used every single time you create one. Do you meal plan weekly? Make sure you have a reminder set somewhere to remind you to do this each week. If you are like me and have several businesses/projects you are juggling, create a weekly checklist of things that HAVE to be done each week. The nice thing with Trello is you can create these systems to automate each day, week, and/or month. It may take some time to set it up, but trust me you will not regret it!
Repurpose your content
Do you feel like you always need to be creating something new? Creating something from scratch is a lot of work and if you are in the midst of learning the new way to do the math to teach your kids and prepping dinner, you do not have time to create something brand new. Do not be afraid to repurpose your content. You already spent an incredible amount of time writing, creating, and/or publishing something. Go back to it, give it a little love and repurpose it. I have learned that a lot of times my followers never saw it the first time or completely forgot about it. It gets a little more traction the second or even third time around.
Smarterqueue
Smarterqueue is my lifesaver when it comes to scheduling social media and keeping it organized. Depending on what your business is you may have content you want to share more than once, or seasonally. Des Moines Parent thrives on sharing seasonal content and reviews more than once. The content is always relevant so I want to make sure it is getting seen. Smarterqueue allows you to create tons of different captions so readers are not seeing the same thing over and over again. It also allows you to organize things seasonally. There is a lot you can do with this program! Drop your link in once, create some attention-grabbing captions, and you are done.
Delegate
Delegate, delegate in all things business and personal life. If it is something you absolutely do not have to do and you can teach someone else, take it off your plate! Many new business owners struggle with hiring someone to help with things they may be able to do on their own. I get it. I struggled with the same thing. I will tell you, once I was able to take it off my list it opened up so much more time. It also allowed me to focus on other areas that needed my attention to flourish, including my kids.
There you have it! My top five ways to get organized so you are a bit more flexible when you have to change your schedule 100 more times before the end of the year.