Today’s episode of Creating The Path is about getting organized for a successful (and joyful) 2022. Last week we talked about planning for the new year, so this week is about getting organized so we can make those goals happen without burning out. I’ll talk about decluttering, auditing systems and processes, and setting up systems that work for you.
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Topics discussed in this episode:
[02:05] Decluttering in January
[03:42] Auditing your routine, systems, and processes
[07:23] Using digital planners, like Asana and Clickup
[11:08] Setting up recurring tasks
[13:30] The 3 things you can do to get more organized
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Noteworthy Quotes:
“I just want to make sure my life is running as easily as possible.”
“Why make things more difficult than they need to be?”
“I love decluttering in January to set myself up for a good new year.”
“Think of what in your life causes you difficulty, and then figure out how to make that easier or smoother.”
“Do what works for YOU.”
Summary of the Podcast:
Creating the Path is a podcast that challenges multi-passionate entrepreneurs to achieve their goals by working less and eliminating overwhelm, so they can create their own unique pathway to a life they love. My mission is to transform hustle culture and assist others to shift away from living life on auto-pilot to living intentionally and following your own path to a life you love instead.
Host Bio:
Heather Grace Hanson is a certified positive psychology-based coach and creator of the Intentional Energy Framework, a system that empowers you to create a life and business you love without burning out. Heather is obsessed with all things personal development, running and walking in the park, interior design, salsa dancing and most importantly, spending time with her pup, Barclay.
Episode Transcript:
Today I want to talk about getting organized for a successful and joyful 2022. Last week I talked about planning for the year, but after I plan I always want to spend some time getting myself organized for the new year so that I can really just make sure my life is running as easily as possible, because why make things more difficult than they need to be.
I always think it's good to every once in a while just kind of check in and make sure I'm as organized as I can be, and make sure things are running as smoothly as possible. Because I think at least for me, I don't know if this happens to you, but for me, I need to sort of redo this process of getting myself organized every once in a while because after a while it always gets a little messier after a while. So then I need to kind of check back in with my systems and all the things that I have put in place and clean them up again or see where maybe something can be tweaked to be a little bit more efficient and things like that.
So every year that's what I always do after I've set my goals and planned for the year in January. I always like to get myself organized. So let's talk about that today.
So, the first thing I like to do is, I think January is a really great time to declutter. I love decluttering in January just to set myself up for a really good new year. So I will do this both like a physical decluttering and a digital decluttering, and I'm actually recording this in December, but I've actually already started my digital decluttering and I've been deleting old emails and unsubscribing from email lists that I'm signed up to that I realize now that I'm just not reading them, so I'm just unsubscribing and cleaning up my inbox.
So I've already started that process, and I will be continuing to do that and I realized recently I need to do another physical decluttering and things like that so that is the first thing that I like to do, because I think I've mentioned this before that when I have physical or even digital clutter, it clutters my brain. I feel like it makes it hard for me to focus when I have clutter around me whether it's physical or digital. So that's the first thing I always like to do when I'm getting myself organized and trying to make sure my life is running as smoothly as possible.
So I recommend doing that if you feel that you also need either a physical or digital decluttering, or maybe both like me. The second thing that I do is basically like an audit of your routines, systems and processes. So basically what that means is, just think of what in your life causes you difficulty, and then figure out how to make that easier or smoother.
So this can be like big things or even small things. For me what happens a lot is it'll be things like, maybe there's some website that I need to sign into regularly and for some reason I can just never find the link to sign into it because I haven't bookmarked it yet or anything like that. So I try to think of what are the things currently that are kind of causing a little trip or like a little snag in my day-to-day living, or like as I'm working you know, so like I said, every once in a while I'll notice that there's a website that I'm signing into regularly, and every time I need to sign into it I can't find the link because I haven't bookmarked it yet or it's not in my, I'll talk about Asana in a minute, that's my project management system, maybe it's not in my Asana yet, so I'm always going back into my email and trying to find the old email to login or whatever. It just causes a little snag in my day where I'm just like a little frustrated where I'm like, oh I can't find this link so this is a perfect time to think of what are those things and then think, okay I clearly need to put this link in a place that is easy to access. So that could mean bookmarking it, or for me, putting it in Asana, things like that.
But any of those little things or even bigger things that are just kind of causing you frustrations during your day and little snags like I said, like maybe it takes too long to do certain things because it's not as automated as it could be, or it's just not something that's easily accessible, so it takes you a bunch of extra clicks that maybe it doesn't need to. So that's what I mean when I'm talking about doing an audit of like your routines in your day, the systems that you have in place, any processes, think of where they're not running as smoothly as possible because then you can figure out a way to make it smoother and easier.
So I mentioned Asana. I personally now, I will say in the past, I loved a beautiful planner, paper planner. I used to buy all the planners. I was constantly in search of the perfect paper planner and I loved having a pretty planner to like to write my daily tasks in, and things like that, but I was never able to keep up with them. So as much as I loved them, I finally had to give them up and go digital. And I think I've been using Asana as a project management system for at least a year now, probably a little over a year now, and when I switched to Asana, oh my god it changed my life. I'm a huge fan of Asana, but whatever you use, find something that works for you. But I do highly recommend trying a digital option, even if you are sort of like a diehard planner person. Unless you have no issues with your paper planner system. If you're using it and it's flawless and it's working for you, if you're not having a problem with it, keep doing what's working for you, but I was having major issues trying to use paper planners. So I tried different digital systems over the years. I tried certain task managers, I was using something called Todoist for a while for tasks. And it took me a while to find something that works for me, and like I said, when I switched to Asana, and I actually took a course in how to set up my Asana and use it in a way that really works. So I think that helped. If I had tried to just go into it myself, I don't think I would have figured this out as quickly as I could have, so that was super helpful to take a course to learning how to use it optimally. But now I feel like I have a really good system that is working for me, and I'm so glad that it's digital because it's so easy to move things around and set up recurring tasks and things like that. So yeah. Do what works for you, but if you have issues trying to use paper planners and things like that, I highly recommend trying a digital system now.
So I mentioned I use Asana. I actually use a combination of Asana plus Google Drive basically to manage my whole life pretty much at this point. Everything is in Asana and that's why I love it, because what I mentioned earlier about making sure you have easy access to things… When I sit down to my computer, the first thing that I open up is Asana and that's pretty much all I have to open up. I'll also open up my email account, but I have links to all my Google Drive documents and folders and things that I need in Asana. So I'm able to just click those links in Asana and it takes me exactly to where I want to go in my Google Drive.
I have a really good system in terms of the different projects and the way I have things laid out in Asana so that they're easy to find and yeah, so I just wanted to mention that because when you're getting organized, the important thing is to make sure you have easy access to things. Make sure you have sort of seamless processes. So easy access for me, having things only in Asana and Google Drive, and then especially being able to link to everything to Google Drive from Asana makes it super easy. So the way I have that all set up, everything is super easy access.
And then in addition to that, within Asana, in all of my projects, I can have tasks and subtasks, and I can put due dates on them, and I set up a lot of recurring tasks. So the things that I do every day, I have set up as a recurring task, which means that I can click that it's done and then it immediately creates a new task for the following day or following week. So in Asana the way you can set up recurring tasks is they can be a daily task or it can be every week or every month or or whatever, so I have I have daily tasks set up, I have weekly tasks set up, and then so whenever I click that that recurring task is done, it automatically creates the next one for either the next day or the next week or next month or whatever it is, so that makes it super easy. I don't have to keep duplicating it on my own or if I was using a paper planner,I don't have to keep writing those things over and over every day or every month, all that kind of thing.
So that's what I love about the digital system, as much as I love me a good paper planner, I'm so happy to have this digital system set up where everything is so seamless and easy to access and I won't go into too much of the details of everything of how I've set up my system I can definitely, if anyone's interested, you know, send me a DM on Instagram, let me know. I have considered maybe making a Youtube video of how I do my Asana because it might be something that would be easier to show you how I have things set up. It could be a little hard to describe just with audio here on the podcast. But yeah, if you are a little bit more curious about how I have those things set up, let me know and I can definitely talk more about that either here on the podcast or maybe do a youtube video, but really the important thing that I just wanted to talk about today is just talking about things you can do to get yourself organized and again, it'll look a little bit different for each of us because you want to do what works for you, but the 3 things I do recommend doing or that I think are helpful, is to do some kind of decluttering if you feel that you need that, physical or digital, definitely do that audit of your routines, your systems, your processes, think of those areas of your life or your day where you get a little tripped up and where things could run smoother or easier, and then the third part of that is just to then figure out what systems you need to put in place to make those processes easier and smoother.
And depending on what systems you use, that will look differently, but the point is just to kind of be on the lookout for those things and then to look for ways to make your life easier because who doesn't want things to be easier right. So that's where I will leave that for today, and if you use Asana or if you have another project management system that you love, let me know. I'm curious what other people use. There's definitely a lot out there and I've heard about a lot of other systems and who knows maybe at some point I'll try them. But for now Asana is my absolute favorite so, and of course Google Drive is just so helpful for doing all the, you know, documents and charts and all the things, so that's why I use them together. So anyway, yeah, let me know what you think, tell me what you use, hit me up and on Instagram. I'm @heathergracehanson. Links are of course in the show notes, and I will talk to you next time.