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Jane Sheeba

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The tools I use to keep my life and business in shape

March 26, 2020 by Jane Sheeba 7 Comments

The tools I use to keep my life and business in shape

We all strive to achieve high levels of productivity. We all have different ways of getting things done.

Some are morning bees, while some are nightly owls. And throughout the day our energy varies.

That affects our productivity a lot.

Which is why I am a strong believer of having a system in place to get things done.

I don’t get up every day and face the tasks as and when they come. That will make me give away my control to the others and to the situation.

Rather I would like to grab control of every day!

Well, don’t mistake me. Life happens. And doing business with kids means you CANNOT take control of all days.

Watch this video to know what I mean and how to tackle that situation:

But for the most part, I can go by my plan and get things done and hence will be able to achieve my long term and short term goals by having a system in place.

A system is so powerful that it doesn’t require you to reinvent the wheel every time.

Let me get started.

First let me share the tools I use and then explain you the purpose of each tool according to me.

The list of tools I use

  • Asana
  • Google Drive (Docs, Sheets)
  • DaVinci Resolve
  • iMovie
  • Pocket
  • LastPass
  • A Real Diary (Paper diary)

Asana is my go to tool for my editorial calendar, my personal productivity calendar and for assigning, tracking and discussing various small tasks related to my business with my team.

I’ve set it to auto-open when the browser is opened and it stays open until I shut down my work for the day.

My business activities will totally come to a halt if I am unable to open Asana for any reason.

Asana plays such a crucial in my day to day business activities.

Here’s how I plan my year

I set up yearly goals by reviewing my past year and planning for the upcoming year, usually by the start of December.

A related video:

I gather the big goals for my business and write them down in a diary (not a fancy planner or anything – just a regular diary).

I get down my big goals as a list.

I then break up my big goals into small, actionable chunks.

I make action points that will help me move forward towards my big goal.

For instance, if my goal is to hit a particular number of subscribers for my YouTube channel, I write down that big goal in my diary.

I then make an action plan to achieve the same.

I plan how many videos I need to do. Then I decide on how (and when) I come up with video ideas, how (and when) I do keyword research, when I write the script, when I shoot, when I edit and so on.

I hope you get the idea.

This way I split up all my major goals into actionable chunks.

Each of those actionable tasks are then taken on to my personal productivity calendar (Asana).

At this point, I plan my publishing frequencies for my sites (I maintain multiple website and hence publish regularly on all of those).

For collection of blog post or video ideas, I use a spreadsheet named Master content idea sheet in which I create separate sheets for separate sites.

I then brainstorm for content ideas and fill out the columns, in addition with any reference links that would be helpful to create that particular piece of content.

I don’t brainstorm content ideas for a year straight. I just come up with ideas for one particular month, write them, and then brainstorm again for the next month.

This way I don’t feel much of an overwhelm or pressure to come up with numerous blog post ideas in one shot – given that I run multiple websites.

A related video:

Here’s how I use my tools

When tools come into picture, I don’t use many. I used to read about a lot of tools and try them out.

I used to get so enthusiastic about productivity and time management tools, and tried a lot of them, and hence wasted a lot of time.

When I tried out one tool after the other, I realized that I spend way too much time on trying out tools and actually end up not getting things done.

I also realized that less is more. The lesser the number of tools I use, the more stuff I get done, and the more sanity I have.

Let me now share what tools I use for what tasks in my business (and life).

Asana

As I said already, Asana is my go to tool for my business and life tasks.

I keep it open all day and I also have the app on my phone.

My editorial calendar for all the websites I run is on Asana and I share it with my VAs.

I also have my personal productivity calendar, that’s private to me. Whenever I do my weekly planning (usually on Sunday evenings), I write down the major goals for the week in my paper diary.

I then assign myself appropriate tasks that I need to do in order to achieve my weekly goals in Asana.

In short, I break down my weekly goals into actionable chunks and get them scheduled throughout the week appropriately in Asana.

Apart from the editorial calendar and my personal productivity calendar, I have a bunch of other projects in Asana – usually dedicated to each of my websites.

And I also have a dedicated project for my hosting, maintenance and website design clients.

Inside that project, there will be a task carrying the name of each of the client.

These website related projects and clients’ project are shared with my technical assistant.

This way I work with my team and I also have my own personal stuff to keep up and track via Asana.

Google Drive

Google Drive

This is another tool that I cannot live without.

I have docs, and sheets that I share with my team as well as for my personal use.

Just as I open Asana by default and keep it open always, I have the Master content idea sheet open by default too.

This sheet carries sub-sheets for all my sites. And in each of the sheet, I have tentative titles for my upcoming blog posts, reference links, the date that post needs to be published and its status.

I also track the progress of my YouTube channels’ subscribers, Facebook Page Likes and so on.

I write all the content in Google Docs because once I get the titles and references right in my Master content idea sheet, I create a doc in that title inside the appropriate folder for that particular blog post.

It is much easier for me to handle things this way – all in one place.

Also since I can access my drive files from anywhere, it helps me have my content creation things handy.

Pocket

Pocket

Pocket is my go to place for inspiration for content ideas and reference material.

Whenever I come across a piece of content via social media feeds, or from Feedly (which is another tool I use where I’ve subscribed to feeds of a handful of websites I’m interested in), I save them to Pocket.

I use Pocket both for business as well as personal use – personally I save recipes and interesting information that I come across in Pocket.

Since I run multiple websites in different niches I tag the contents I discover with appropriate tags.

And later on I transfer these inspirational content as reference material to my Master Content Idea sheet and work on it.

LastPass

LastPass

I, just like you, use loads of websites on a regular basis that require me to login.

And it is humanly impossible for me to remember all the passwords.

At the same time, it is no joke to forget a password each time and meddle with websites when you have crucial things to take care of.

So I use LastPass premium so I can be carefree about the passwords – works both on my computers and my phone.

DaVinci Resolve & iMovie

DaVinci Resolve

I use a combination of these two software for doing video editing.

I run three YouTube channels (Jane Sheeba Media, Banking Minutes, and Funfortainment).

In addition I help with editing my dad’s YouTube channel (Zion Revival Ministries). Hence, there’s quite some editing involved.

For now, I am using these two software – as per the requirements of a channel.

For some videos I completely use DaVinci for editing until finish.

For some, I do the primary editing in iMovie and the finishing touch in DaVinci.

iMovie

My personal diary (a real, paper diary)

Last, but not the least. In fact, my paper diary forms a very crucial part of my working system.

Even though everything else is digital in my system, this diary helps keep me grounded.

When I plan my week, usually on Sunday evenings, I sit down in peace, with so much clarity to write down the goals for the week.

It gives me immense satisfaction and a sense of achievement after having put things down things from my head to the paper, as well striking them through after I complete the tasks.

Conclusion

When it comes to managing and running a multi-passionate business, having a system in place is very crucial.

I can’t afford to tackle each day with the tasks that come to my face – without any plan.

At the same time, I cannot be reinventing the wheel each time!

Hence I have a set of tools and a strategy that makes my system. And this system works for me.

I am not saying that you should also adopt my system and the tools I use so you can get things done.

You should figure out what works for you! I have just shared what works for me.

And I hope it helps.

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship, Self Development Tagged With: Asana, Business, DaVinci Resolve, Diary planning, Editorial calendar, Google Docs, Google Drive, iMovie, Lastpass, Personal life, Plan a week, Plan a year, Pocket, Productivity tools, time management, Time management tools

How to create an editorial calendar that you would use?

March 23, 2017 by Jane Sheeba 14 Comments

How to create an editorial calendar that you would use?

Editorial calendar. You would hear a lot about it especially around New Year time – when the enthusiasm is at its peak.

I remember myself hunting for editorial calendar templates around Christmas so I can plan the coming New Year ahead – and blog like a pro!

I’m sure you should also have faced such situations.

You’d download, and print the editorial calendar templates you find online and religiously start filling in the details.

And keep up with the calendar for a week or two and then get back to your usual publishing schedule.

It could be regular, irregular or fly by the seat of your pants.

Here’s the thing – not all editorial calendars are same. And not all bloggers and their blogging schedule are the same.

Everyone is different. So is their business, and its purpose. So is their blogging style and blogging frequency.

I am not certainly against downloading editorial templates. I love them. Especially the one by Co-Schedule, where they have yearly, monthly calendars and idea sheets.

But you should first know what you want and how to make any editorial calendar work for you!

Without that knowledge it is totally useless to download or hunt down for editorial calendar templates, because you could simply end up not using them!

Here are 5 key things for your editorial calendar to work for you.

Clarity

I cannot emphasise enough the importance of attaining clarity before you start doing anything with your blog.

Most bloggers miss out on this very crucial step and end up wasting time and resources; and end up quitting blogging because they don’t get any results.

This isn’t surprising!

Without clarity, anything you do could be easily wasted. Leaving you with no results.

Coming to editorial calendar, you should first get clarity on the following things:

  1. Your content strategy
  2. Your publishing frequency (how much you can handle should be taken into account – this is very important)
  3. Your business goal

Your content should be aligned with your business goals.

Allow for flexibility

I’ve talked about having a strict blogging schedule in this post. While it is super important to have a strict blogging schedule, you should also allow life to happen.

Life happens all the time and at unexpected times. You could get sick, your kids could get sick, it could be a bad day – whatever.

Things never go as we planned 100%. And its totally OK.

You should allow your editorial calendar to be flexible. Remember, it is just a guide to help you avoid procrastination, and beat (the so-called) writers block – and of course, plan your content ahead!

Have a content strategy in place

Without this, you will be writing and publishing random pieces of content that are loosely connected.

And over the time, your editorial calendar will become useless and you will start publishing random content.

Having a content strategy in place helps keep everything in clarity. More importantly, it is only when you have a content strategy, your content marketing will work.

If you want to know how to create great content for your website check out my course without fail!

Include (only) as much details as you require

Simply having a blog post title associated with a date won’t help you much. Well it can say that you have an idea ready for writing. But that’s it.

As you know, creating content has various stages.

Idea conception, outlining the blog post, writing the actual blog post, finding appropriate images, doing on-page SEO, formatting, writing a killer headline, and much more – before you can hit that Publish button.

So a simple blog post title won’t help you, right? That will make your editorial calendar useless.

In order to make your editorial calendar useful this way, you have to include all the essential details in your calendar.

For instance, after fixing on a working title, you should have an option to mark every step as Y or N depending upon whether that step has been complete or not.

Using a spreadsheet for this purpose would be highly helpful since you can have columns for every step.

Example column headlines: Post outlined?, Post completed?, Image(s), Formatting, Headline, Published?

Each of these columns can be either filled with Y or N, or with a deadline, especially if you are going to assign certain tasks like finding images and formatting to a VA!

Don’t overdo in terms of tools

Well, we all are fans of tools, right? We want to work smart with the use of technology.

But using too many tools will actually contribute to waste of time, and chaos – which is just the opposite of what we expect from tools.

At the same time, you must embrace technology and use tools in order to get things done in a smart way.

The same applies to your editorial calendar.

While just a calendar with post titles won’t help, you should also not seek 10 other tools to keep all your ideas, strategies and deadlines – this will lead to chaos and will soon make your editorial calendar unusable.

May be you can use an idea sheet for collecting ideas. Evernote for organising references and writing the actual blog post. And the calendar to give you the dates of publishing.

That’s how I do it.

What are the editorial calendar tools available that you could use?

Yes, there are quite some tools that you can use. Here’s a short list.

Google Calendar

It is a calendar! So it can very well be your editorial calendar. It is not an official editorial calendar tool, but since this is a calendar, you could very well use it as your editorial calendar.

And it is a Google product. All you need is a Gmail account, and I am sure you have one already.

If you already use Google Calendar, all you need is to create a new Calendar and you’re set. It is also much easier to share the calendar with your team mates, if you want that.

WordPress Editorial Calendar Plugin

If you are using WordPress, and if you want to be able to visualise your editorial calendar just within WordPress dashboard, you’ve got this plugin: Editorial Calendar.

Editorial calendar WordPress plugin

Once installed, you can create Draft posts on specific dates. You can drag drop posts to different dates.

And of course your editors can have access to the Calendar too.

Trello

Trello is not exactly a calendar. But if you want to get your team into the picture it is a great tool!

Trello boards

In Trello you can create boards. It is totally up to your creativity on how you can use your tool.

You could have separate boards for your content management, idea list, social media management and so on.

And of course, you can invite your team to the boards. You can also discuss via the comments feature.

DivvyHQ

If you are willing to spend some money, DivvyHQ is something you should definitely consider.

DivvyHQ

It has quite some awesome features for you and your team. And you can manage your campaigns, ideas, calendar etc. right within a single dashboard.

There’s a free trial if you want to see this will fit.

GatherContent

Gather Content

GatherContent is also a premium solution, but quite effective. If you want you and your team to have and visualise everything in one place, this is a great option.

Again, you have a free trial so you can try out and see if you like it before purchasing!

CoSchedule

I cannot wind up this post without mentioning CoSchedule – another premium solution.

Coschedule

You can manage all your content creation process and promotion process in one place – you and your team that is.

You have the option to go for a solo plan or a plan with a team. You have a 14 day free trial to try it out!

How to make your editorial calendar work?

That’s the most important part here, right? There can be various fancy tools, and you could have hundreds of content ideas.

But executing everything right and in an organised manner is the challenging part.

Using too few tools can make you clueless, and using too many tools can make you confused.

From my personal experience, I’ve found that both these extremes have actually prevented me from using my editorial calendar, no matter how beautifully planned!

I personally use Evernote for collecting/brainstorming new content ideas. And I also use Evernote to write my blog posts.

I create a Notebook for every blog post I write, and put all the relevant images, screenshots etc. in the same notebook and share it with my VA.

I use Google Calendar as my editorial calendar which is also shared with my VA – so he knows when a blog post is due and when he has all the info (the Evernote notebook), he processes the post and schedules it for that day.

So basically, I use 2 tools. And it works.

Apparently I cannot give you 2 or 4 tools to make it work for you. You have to try it out yourself and figure out what works!

It depends on how you actually do it – how you find it comfortable, how you want to bring your team members into picture and so on.

All that said, having a functioning editorial calendar is highly crucial for the success of your content marketing efforts. So you should figure it out ultimately (without forgetting those 5 keys discussed in the post).

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, Content Creation Tagged With: content marketing, content strategy, CoSchedule, create blog content, DivvyHQ, Editorial calendar, evernote, GatherContent, Google Calendar, Trello, WordPress Editorial Calendar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2itDnin2-2s

About Jane

Jane Sheeba is the founder of Jane Sheeba Media. She shares everything about business and blogging that she learned the hard way! Don't forget to claim your FREE access to her Blogging Success Foundation Course.

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