time management Archives

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

March 26, 2020 by Jane Sheeba 7 Comments

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

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 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

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

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.

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.

How Productive Are You? Check With These Keys To Productivity

March 12, 2020 by Jane Sheeba 5 Comments

Productivity is essential for every person. Whether you run a business on your own, or work for your boss, or work at home at your free will you need this thing called productivity.

If you have your own business, you see that you are productive yourself and you also want your staff team to be productive.

If you work for your boss, you are accountable to him/her and he/she wants you to be productive.

And, you are also accountable to yourself because you get paid for what you do and your future career or life depends on your current performance.

If you work at home you cannot be unproductive just because no one is watching you.

Your very purpose of working from home will be at risk if you don’t take enough efforts to boost your productivity.

So let’s run a fact check to see how productive you are.

Do you have a goal?

If you don’t have a goal you are not sure about what you are working on. In that case, how could you expect yourself to be productive?

I mean, there are two basic connections between having a goal and productivity as a measure:

If you don’t have a goal,

(i) you don’t have something to work on,

(ii) or, you don’t clearly know what to work on (but there is something for you to work on).

In both the cases, you simply either don’t work at all or you don’t work effectively.

Case (ii) is where you put all your efforts, hard work and energy but you don’t know where to focus them.

Hence all your hard work will go wasted since things are not streamlined.

You could appear to be busy all day, yet you won’t accomplish anything meaningful at the end of the day.

Passion

When you have passion with what you are working on…

You don’t have to wait for the right time, a comfortable zone or a favourable situation to work towards your goal. That is why it is very important that you start working on things you are passionate about.

While it is important that you choose a business idea that is profitable, you must also see whether you are passionate about that particular idea.

I’m not saying you should cling on your passion and forget about the profitability.

You should have both of these in the right proportion so you can run a profitable business without making it feel like work or having to jump off the wagon!

Commitment

When I had a full time job (as a Research Scientist in the field of Medical Physics, not just 9-5 kinda stuff but even more; you know it’s research), a family to take care of and my personal self to take care, I put a regular amount of time everyday into blogging.

Even today as a full time blogger, I write content every day, I hone my blog articles, I write guest posts, I take care of the design, administration and other management tasks associated with my blogs and those of my clients and so on.

But I don’t feel that I am getting squeezed, while in fact I am. The commitment comes by default when I have passion towards doing what I love.

The very fact that I am committed to what I do makes me productive. I don’t just work hard but work smart because of my passion and commitment.

Discipline

In general, a disciplined person can get a lot out of the available time and resources and hence can easily prove to be productive.

A disciplined person is organized. There are very little chances of looking into lost things again and again and hence wasting precious working time.

A disciplined person has goals and action plans. They know where they want to focus their energy and hard work.

They also know how to achieve something, that is the actual route to achieving something.

A disciplined person is well aware of time wasters like TV, mindless browsing, pointless texting and chatting, endless reading online or offline (without making use of the content or taking action) and so on.

A disciplined person has many good habits that boost their productivity. And, they have very less bad habits to waste their time and energy upon.

Being organized

This follows simply from a disciplined lifestyle. As I said earlier, you cannot stop a disciplined person from being organized.

They can get a file or a paper from their desk or their shelf when they need it.

When you spend enormous amount of time in figuring things out, that is a big hit on your productivity.

If you are organized, you have already figured out most things, you remember them (or make it easier to remember) and hence you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time.

Your productivity does not depend on the time you are trying to work, but it rather depends on the time you are actually working on.

Do you have these keys? If not, then work on those that you are lacking.

10 Steps to Achieve Your Goals and Dreams

March 30, 2017 by Guest Author 8 Comments

It is a natural tendency for us as humans to make goals and have dreams that we would like to achieve. Goals vary among people with different individuals aspiring to achieve different ambitions.

The majority of individuals don’t realize their dreams because of different reasons like ignorance or being unaware of how to go about it successfully.

However, a few individuals manage to achieve their dreams since this process follows a similar pattern.

If you have problems achieving yours, this article perfectly fits you and when you follow the ten steps outlined below; you’ll progress significantly towards your achievement.

Prioritize

Most people have a long list of things they want to achieve. Pursuing all of them simultaneously limits us in effectively handling the most important goal.

Before writing goals and making dreams, it is important that you assess both your current situation and what matters most in your life.

Tackle one goal at a time based on their order of importance. Begin with the one that will highly boost your happiness.

Set your target high but not too high such that it’s not attainable and realistic. The best goals complement your lifestyle and talents. Follow your intuition.

Be Specific About Your Goals

After knowing what truly matters to you, you need to narrow down your goals and make them specific.

Also, ensure that your goal fulfills the S.M.A.R.T requirement meaning that it’s specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely conscious.

This will give you a precise mental picture of what you need to pursue and will also ease your goal achievement.

Divide Your Goal Into Parts

This applies to cases where overwhelming and time-consuming goals are to be tackled and achieved. Breaking it down into smaller parts “mini-goals” enhances your chances of achieving it.

This is because you will easily come up with a specific plan of action which will efficiently tackle small parts of the goal.

If done successfully, this will boost your motivation and enthusiasm to pursuing the overall goal.

When you have achieved a ‘mini-goal,’ appreciate and move on to the next step. Eventually, this stepwise course of action will get you to your destination.

Generate an Action Plan

A plan of action significantly contributes to goal achievement. An action plan refers to a detailed list of activities and steps you will need to take to achieve the goal.

It will act as your map on this journey showing you your current position and your destination.

Be practical when drawing the action plan. The action plan should have detailed information about the time, dates and particular steps of action.

When complete, start taking action as soon as now and avoid procrastination as much as possible. Identify anything that may hinder you from acting on the plan and make sure that you have fixed it.

Incorporate the Action Plan Into Your Schedule

To act on your project, you need to sacrifice some time off your schedule. No matter how busy you are, identify specific times upon which you will be carrying out the activities outlined in your course of action.

Most of the time, we waste a lot of time pursuing unimportant things in our lives. It’s your responsibility to evaluate how you spend your time.

Get rid of all the unnecessary and unproductive activities wasting your time. The more time you invest in your goal, the closer you will get to realize your dream.

Never Give Up

The road that leads to your achieving your goals and dreams is not straight and contains many hills and valleys.

In this journey, you will come across tough challenges, problems, and difficulties that may throw you off balance. They will make you want to despair and stop pursuing your ambition.

As the challenges become stronger, it increases your chances to want to give in.

However, amid all these obstacles the only thing for you would be never to give up. Handle every challenge efficiently, and they won’t block you from achieving your dreams.

Believe In Your Goals and Self

Even though we usually set goals beyond our current abilities, they are achievable as long as they are believable.

If your goal can be achieved with the assistance of others, occurrence of some things and inputting your hard work then you need to believe in its achievement.

With self-confidence and strong believe in your abilities, you’ll manage to progress far. You also need to be optimistic and have persisting motivation.

Even though you’ll encounter numerous challenges and setbacks, this is no reason enough to take away your confidence and optimism.

Let Your Dream be known

Holding back your dreams and ambitions to yourself may be the failure of its achievement. It’s advisable that you share it with a lot of people close to you.

The more times you passionately narrate it to people, the more you will believe it as it is repeatedly accepted subconsciously in your mind.

People will criticize and comment about it which can give you more confidence and motivation.

When they see your commitment, more people will become ready to support and help you where necessary.

They will also keep you updated in case they come across people or opportunities that will make you achieve your goals faster.

Expect Obstacles

It would be stupid for you to expect that you will smoothly achieve your goals. In fact, the action plan you come up with may not go as you planned.

So mentally prepare yourself to face some difficulties and obstacles along the journey.

You need to be flexible so that you can tackle any obstacle that arises and threatens your project.

This requires you to create alternative backup plans in case things don’t go as expected.

This will greatly help you recover from any setbacks you come across and ultimately remain focused on your goal.

Celebrate and Appreciate Yourself

Finally, you need to enjoy your journey to achieving your goals and dreams by making it lively by rewarding yourself with a celebration.

You should celebrate whenever you achieve a ‘mini-goal’ and overcome a challenge for the nice job you have done. This will keep you motivated as you pursue the main goal.

When you finally make it successfully, have a grand celebration. After this, go back to step 1 and pursue another goal preferably bigger, demanding and more challenging.

I am the woman behind the KitCriarBlogs.com project a totally innovative platform that promises to revolutionize the learning of WordPress. I tweet at https://twitter.com/anapascoas.