Getting Organized: Schedule Edition

It's that time of week - time to update my BuJo and get it ready for the upcoming week!

​I have a daily practice of reviewing my day, and listing my accomplishments, gratitude, and lessons.  I wish to have a similar practice with my blog posts.

Accomplishment: How about that social media magick last week!  I know, I keep raving about it, but this is huge in my ESG world, and it looks amazing!

Gratitude: First, to my good friend, that helped me with the photoshoot, you are a rockstar!  Without her I wouldn’t have all these great pictures to use.  Also, shout out to everyone that has already Liked, Followed, Subscribed, Shared, and/or Viewed any of my various platforms.  Thank You!

Lesson: Last, but certainly not least, my biggest lesson has been organizing my schedule and properly gauging how long various tasks take to complete.

Which brings me to today’s blog post - Getting Organized: Schedule Edition.
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When I planned out the next two months of my life, I had scheduled three days for sorting out my social media.  The rest of the month was to be spent creating content for all of my ESG platforms.  I planned a couple days to make all the YouTube videos for the month; because, how long can it take to make a 15 minute video?  The next few days I would spend writing blogs, and the rest of the month I would focus on Medium stories.  *Thoughtful Pause* That is not how this is going to work out.
Getting my schedule organized feels so daunting.  Moreso, knowing that my past attempts at blogs flopped, in part, because I couldn’t get organized.  I would plan and strategize, then plan some more, until nothing actually happened.  I think I’m beginning to grasp the concept of over-thinking something.  Especially, when I don’t know how to plan for certain tasks; since, I’ve never actually done them.

​Two quotes have been nagging at my consciousness while I’ve been trying to work out how to tackle this obstacle.

“If you build it, they will come.”
Field of Dreams (1989)

“If you stay in shape, you never have to get in shape.”
Drill Sergeants Everywhere (for all time)

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​​I know, weird, random quotes that have nothing to do with scheduling or organization.  Welcome to my brain.  Allow me to share what I gleaned from these.

I've learned to pencil in all my lines first then go over it with pen and ruler.

Just Do It

I already have my BuJo with a spread I both like and use.  I have several good and useful habits already developed.  Everything is already in place, it just needs to be rallied together into one coherent mission!  

Work the new stuff in by actually doing it.  Not scheduling it, doing it.  For example, “Gee, I have nothing to do right now.  Oh, look at that, a list of things I could be doing, let’s do this one.”  It sounds like I would get nothing done but I do.  This loose way of scheduling keeps me from getting overwhelmed, and I get a lot more done in a day.  Also, I do keep in mind the deadlines I have, which are very motivating for me.  Once I’ve figured out the steps and timeframe of something, I can plan it out, without feeling like I’m flying by the seat of my pants.

​Crawl, Walk, Run
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Though it feels a little more sink or swim at this point, I am actually crawling.  I am going through each day, one at a time.  My goal is to be one month ahead in my content creation, but I won’t start working towards that, until I hit the walk phase of this program.  Everyday I’m figuring out how long things take, how each process works, and ways to work more efficiently.  I’m making adjustments in my life, my BuJo, and my expectations, as I get more experience under my belt.

For example, I now know that completely revamping my social media platforms can take up to five days to complete.  A 5 minute thrown-together video takes 2 hours to film and edit.  A blog post needs at least 2 days to write, proof, and edit.  It’s going to take me awhile to get ahead, but that’s okay.  I’m not averse to hard work, I enjoy learning, and I love writing.  I just need to keep swimming…

“Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming…”
Dory from Finding Nemo​ (2003)

This is a great old leaf table I got from Mom, so when I'm done, I put everything away and fold the table back in!

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​​Keep in mind, I am in the crawling phase of this process.  You, basically, just read a new born baby’s advice on how to complete a complex process.  It’s okay, I didn’t come to this realization until now as well.

On another note, check out my giant pink production calendar!  I’m currently using it for long-term planning and to track all my deadlines.  It may actually be permanent since I am loving the dry erase feature right now!

Thank you for reading!