Happy FRI-YAY!!! I have so many people reach out to me all the time asking about how I organize my businesses and how I keep on top of ALL THE THINGS I need to do during the day/week. Aside from the fact that it’s my literal job – I just really LOVE digital organizing. There was a time where I wasn’t as organized as I am now, and things really started slipping through the cracks. I had a wake up moment when I completely missed an entire scheduled meeting because I hadn’t written it down anywhere. After that, I revamped my entire system and it’s how I’ve been operating for the better part of two years now! Let’s about why I use two separate planners in my business!
My Trello Calendar
This is my main calendar. If you’re new here, you may not know my complete and utter LOVE AFFAIR with Trello. and that’s cool. If you stick around, you’ll figure it out. LOL. I even offer a workflow organization session for entrepreneurs as a part of my coaching packages where I teach you step by step how to make Trello a critical part of your project management system in a way that is intuitive and manageable for you and your team.
Unless I have a special project that NEEDS it’s own Trello board, I use these boards:
- Daily To-Do Board
- Podcast Board
- Content Calendar Board
- Virtual Assistant Board
- Income Sheet Board
Each board obviously serves a purpose in my business to make sure I don’t lose track of any important to do’s. My daily to-do board houses my upcoming appointments, priority to-dos, non-priority to-dos, and my month-at-a-glance payment list. Everything I need to quickly view and check off during the day is right here!
My podcast board has all of my upcoming podcast interviews, podcast episode schedule, guests that need scheduling, podcast workflow/email templates, scheduled podcast emails and my past guests list. This is super important for both me and my virtual assistant to have access to so that we keep my guests organized and don’t miss sending them any key information regarding their episode.
The content calendar board is pretty self-explanatory! I keep this board organized in the calendar month view so I can see what blog posts / social posts are going live and when! I have the labels set to show me the category and whether or not the post is sponsored. Any details that I need like collaboration partners/dates/affiliate links used are also included in the card description!
My virtual assistant board is one of the lifelines of my business because my VA Jen and I need to be on the same page all of the time to keep my business running smoothly. Jen manages my inbox and all of my podcast communication between the guests and I, as well as graphic creation and any other misc. task I need her for during the month. Our board has her tasks lined up, all relevant brand information easily accessible and her hours logged so I know how much she’s worked during the month!
The income sheet board is NOT my full tax spreadsheet, however it is where I keep all of my incoming income lined up during the month before I transfer the information over into my spreadsheet. This is important for me because I can see at a glance what money I have coming in, who has paid, who still needs to pay and if someone is overdue on a payment so that I can follow up.
My Desk Calendar
This is a very simple calendar but is was actually the key I didn’t know I was needing until I had it in my life. It sounds dramatic, but even as well organized as I was with my Trello boards – I was missing SOMETHING. I came across this desk calendar on Amazon and it clicked: THIS was it.
I use this desk calendar as a way to write down all of my meetings for the day in a weekly format. Anything that requires me to meet with another person gets put on this sheet. Work AND personal. This is key to my organization success because this is how I ensure I do not overbook myself and it’s the easiest way for me to get my week lined up and time blocked at a glance.
The reason I include both work AND personal on this calendar is because I need to see everything that needs my time during the week. That means if Jack has a hair appointment at 11:30am on Thursday, I can’t book a meeting for that time. I can’t be in two places at once. If I had that on a separate calendar, I’d miss stuff like that and end up double booking myself.
I also love the physical act of checking things off, and this suits that need very much!
PIN THIS FOR LATER:
I hope this gives you some inspiration when it comes to getting yourself all lined up and organized – and understand the thought process behind why I use two separate planners and why I feel like they’re both necessary to keep my personal life and work life balanced!
I have talked about how I use Trello more HERE as well!!
