Working Mami: Tools That Keep Me Organized
I work. A lot. I am supreme in the juggling skills. Often, I get asked how I get it done. I often joke that I don't sleep. This is partially true. I am also hyper-focused and creative in a way that can seem scary.
I'm a raving lunatic on most days. If I have ever divulged the inner workings of my brain on any given span of minutes first: I apologize. Why you ask? Because when I do this I have the ability to make people hyperventilate. I am careful as to who I share this with. After all, the Baker act is a real thing in Florida.
But ultimately, I have a list of things needed to keep me going. And tools that keep me (somewhat) sane. Here they are in no particular order.
Organizada!
Why of course, I have my very own blog planner on top of my list. I created it because I needed a system to keep me together. And so, this is front and center on my desk.
The crazy notes, the ramblings during a creative purge, the thoughtful words that come during a conference call? Those go right up into OneNote. I have notebooks! MomsRising, Mamihood Media, The Mamihood, etc. These are all notebooks. Within those notebooks you will find appropriate tabs where thoughts, ideas and future world-ruling guidelines can be found. If anyone ever happens to me, I have left my OneNote notebooks to specific people. Because they are treasures, dammit.
I recently purchased this life planner after seeing Amiyrah unbox hers on Periscope and share how she plans and organizes. Though I consider myself an organizational strategist, I'm not afraid to tell you that I sometimes have a hard time doing this for myself. And so, I seek amazeballs friends like Amiyrah for knowledge. I love this planner because it allows me to do all things not related to work. Budget, meal planning, calendaring, etc. All. Of. It. It's fantabulous and you can't have it! Well, you can. But you can't have mine.
One of the big realizations over the last quarter of the year of Epic is that if I am to build an empire, I need help. And so, titi Q has been enlisted as my CTO and temporary Virtual Assistant (until a real one is found: currently contracting work out. For realz). But I realized that I'd become the disconnected CEO of me. Because I expected mind reading to come with whoever was helping me and that is not to be.
Enter Trello. There, I create my lists and can SHARE IT. I can assign work and I can track outcomes. Pretty cool, eh?
The biggest/newest/shiniest thing? This Office 365 Enterprise edition. I am officially official. One account for me and one account for my assistant. One enterprise OneDrive which means that all of my work files are accessible to all employees of The Mamihood. My email is finally handled (thanks to my CTO). I no longer have multiple addresses. All emails go to one place. It allowed me to clear out 18k emails over the holiday! I have to stay on top of things and I don't have much time so streamlining is paramount. This, along with Trello will ensure that I can clearly communicate what needs to happen, how and by whom.
These are the tools currently in my toolbox. I might add more. I might shift a little (Trello is the newest of tools and I am still getting acclimated).
Whether you use these tools or others, it is super important that you get yourself a system to keep you on track. You can't take over the world if you don't know where your weapons are.