How to be creative and productive

I am a dreamer.

I am happy with being a dreamer.

I came to grips with being a dreamer after reading about the different Meyer-Briggs personality types.

I am an INFP type. 

Knowing more about what makes me tick has helped me create a plan of action for my year that I am comfortable following. It also felt good creating it.

How I use my journal

The beginning of my ideas starts in my head with massive amounts of information, possibilities and intentions.

I don't need to write in my journal to come up with a to do list or help me get my thoughts on paper.

I need a journal to get me writing. The act of writing with a pen slows my mind and helps me to decide where to start for the day.

I use my own digital journals and planners in Goodnotes. I created this journal with a page for the morning and a page for the evening because I find that I need to write more than just once in the day. I fill the morning page with how I feel and what I might like to do or how I slept and why. Sometimes I have a light bulb moment that needs to be recorded for future review.

I find it very useful to my personal growth to look back on my musings each week, each month and each year.

I have made the image big enough for you to read if you like.

How I use my vision boards

I discovered recently that there was a different way to use the vision boards that suited me better. 

I don't really need a vision board to create a picture of my dreams and goals. I seem to do that in my head all the time. I do like the process of sitting down and collecting up images or quotes or words that describe my dreams and goals but I don't need the visual reminder to look at later.

I guess the best way to describe my vision boards is like a snapshot of my brain. I start with the big picture and come up with lots of tasks that will eventually lead to the big vision. 

I tend to interchange the terms vision and goal because of the way I think. The vision is my goal. Then I go straight to coming up with the tasks required to get there.

I have always tried to follow the accepted theory that you have a vision then you set up SMART goals then you break each goal into smaller tasks. I also felt like I was just doing it wrong because SMART goals seemed pointless to me. I now know that I am not thinking wrong, I am thinking differently.

The beauty of using a digital planner is that I can enlarge it to write then shrink it down to see the overall image. I like the big picture vision that I can see as a concrete image when I shrink the page to full view.

I am not a purist when it comes to setting goals

The accepted terms for making progress in my life tend to get all mixed together. If I stop and think about how I label things I come up with these definitions.

Vision/Goal: Taking an area of my life and dreaming about how I could change and improve. (Accepted term would be VISION) 

Project: I divide the life areas into 3 related topics. (Accepted term would be GOAL)

Task: Any action or series of actions that will move me towards completing a project. (Many of my tasks would be considered PROJECTS)

Planning: Creating tasks that will lead me towards my vision.

Productivity: Doing the tasks that will enable me to complete a project.

Review and adjust: Make sure the tasks I am doing are part of the plan. Add to the vision board as ideas pop up. Tick off what I have been doing.

How I organise my to do list

I used to think I had to have a traditional to do list in order to be productive.

I used to think I had to have my top 3 written down for each day.

I am naturally a creative person. I am always thinking of things to do and they get analysed constantly.

(As an aside - this is why I need to be still in order to replenish my energy. I have to basically turn my brain off in order to relax properly. Lunch with friends just doesn't do it.)

To be productive on any given day I need a focus. Top 3 doesn't matter to me. My focus is usually to move forward on a variety of tasks/projects.

You might say that I should just put the tasks I intend doing that day on my "to do" list as 1, 2, 3.

This is probably where my way of thinking doesn't fit perfectly with a job that requires reporting to a team about my linear completion of set tasks. Because I like to skip about and work in zig zags it is difficult to convince a boss that I am actually going anywhere. Most bosses want to see progress from milestone to milestone in a lock step fashion.

I like to work on several related projects and tasks in an order that is logical to me. This doesn't mean I can't report my progress in a way that satisfies the boss. I means that I have to expend a lot of energy arranging my progress into a form that the boss will accept. Frustrating at the least.

(As an aside - after many years working for said bosses I am happy to say that I am retired from my job and now I do work that is related to my life purpose in a way that suits me.)

This is what my to do list looks like. It takes shape over several days and when the page is full or finished I start a new page. You might think that it just looks like less of tasks in boxes but the magic is in the detail.

When you look past the boxes you can see that I have a thing that is more like one of those puzzles where you slide the square pieces around so you end up with a picture.

Imagine showing this to your boss to show what you got done. There are no little squares with ticks in them or lists of tasks with a line through them. There aren't even any coloured outlines. I just put those on the image to make my process clearer.

Looking at the red set of 4 boxes in the middle I have arrows from the top corner to the other boxes. 

The top box has a cross through it which means I have done that task. 

The other three boxes have circles round them from my review the day before yesterday. They are not done. 

They also have the blue asterisk in them from yesterday meaning they still have to be done with a little more urgency. They are holding up the next step in a bigger project.

I only have 4 big vision goals so it is easy for me to know that the project being held up is the automated email sequence in Mailchimp for my newsletter subscribers. Automating business processes is my big vision.

Task completed

I enjoyed analysing how I think about my work. I have a strong purpose in life and I love what I am doing.

Thank you for reading. I hope you find some useful insights into your own productivity successes or failures.

I am about to put a cross through the Blog on setting goals task on my desk planner.

Here's to a successful life,

Val

P.S. 

I forgot to add in the picture I took of my desk area. I have found it very energising to sit at a desk that just has the essentials on it. There is a pencil jar of coloured pens out of shot on the left that I use for my planner page.

How I use my digital journal and planner

My digital planner journey has been like a roller coaster ride.

I am learning to draw in Procreate. I am learning to create PDFs and templates in Canva. I am watching classes Skillshare.

While doing all this I am using my digital journal to make notes and record ideas and write about my progress and plans.

This is a page from my journal: It is so easy to add photos

I use my digital planner to mark in important dates. I also use my weekly page to write my focus for the week and write in what I am grateful for. I also keep track of my achievements. I log my receipts for personal and business items and I add in notes to self like an image of a shop page with something I want to save for.

This is a page from my planner: I had just finished making my Spring sticker set!

I use the monthly page and the weekly pages. I don't have a use for the daily pages. 

I love that it doesn't matter how messy or crowded the page is. It is so easy to move and resize and delete items. If I need to write something on one of the days I can just delete or move the stickers.

I just finished designing an open book style planner. Being retired I find I don't need to squeeze in lots of meetings or deadlines so I find the open book design nice to use because it looks like a book. 

The smaller pages just look nice. You can insert the calendar pages into this notes book or you can add them to the Planner.

The planner in my shop has blank monthly pages starting with Monday or Sunday and notes pages with dots or lines in various combinations.

I plan to use the same background for a little collection of books so the covers can be changed around and the pages can be mixed however you choose.

I have started with this planner and will offer the blue My Notes one soon.

You can find it in my shop.

Happy Planning and Journaling,

Val

Organising my receipts with my digital planner

Until I got my digital planner I would have trouble deciding where to put things to keep them safe.

Only when I got my digital planner did I finally decide that I only needed digital copies of my receipts.

Until this year I felt that I had to have both paper and digital records but since most of my receipts are in email form I felt it was time to make all my receipts digital.

I now take photos of paper receipts and screen shots of receipts that were emailed to me.

It is such a relief to have finally made this decision. I am of an age where keeping receipts in a box or folder was the only way to keep them. Times have changed and I have finally moved on.

Using my digital planner to keep my receipts in order is so easy and convenient.

I use the Monthly Spending pages to keep receipts for my business supplies and personal purchases.

Each month I select those pages in Goodnotes and export them as a PDF to save in the cloud and on my desktop. I feel safe that I will be able to access them when I need them. However, I have weighed up the chances that Apple cloud will disappear compared to my house burning down and destroying paper items. The likelyhood of either happening is slim.

So how do I do it?

1. I take screen shots of my emails so they end up in Photos.
2. I then go to my planner Spendings page and add the screen shot to the relevant page.
3. I then fill out the index page with the item and cost and date.

Crafting the perfect digital planner

Looking for the perfect planner

There is probably no such thing as the perfect planner - digital or otherwise.

However, I have spent a couple of months working out how best to include space for all the things I want to record.

Some of these things are:

• appointments
• receipts for things I buy for myself or the household
• recipes I find in the Coles magazine
• receipts for major bills
• records for the payments of subscriptions
• photos I take on my morning walk

• something I learnt about goal setting in the email I read this morning
• an idea I have for a new doll dress pattern
• things I am grateful for
• a list of achievements for the week or month
• cute doodles I drew in Procreate
• a folder tree for the items I am creating for my digital planner shop

My calendar section is a self contained 12 months. All dated for ease of use.

Wherever you are inside the calendar section you can click on the little house icon and get back to the first page with the whole year calendar.

After spending every day for a while now using my digital planner I have come to the conclusion that tabs like a paper planner are not all that useful.

I find it easier to go back to my documents sections and click on a new notebook for the thing that I want. I don't have to swap from pen to stylus which I find annoying. Just touch back to documents and touch the section notebook that you want.

I have all the notebooks I am using for my planner marked as favourites to make them easy to find.

Being organised makes me happy

Well... you get the idea. There are lots of little things that can make my life better if I have a place for them and I know where they are.

Something I tend to do a lot is start an idea that I want to come back to later. Trouble is, bits of paper get lost, journal pages get forgotten, space for more thoughts is used up for something else.

With a digital notebook I can put an idea on a page, list that idea in a contents page then add in as many pages as I need for that idea or future ideas. If I have a 31 page notebook with an index I can fill that notebook with 31 ideas and start a new notebook if I have more than 31 ideas and everything is sneatly aved in one place.

Here is one of my 31 page notebooks. This one has photo frame layout pages and is perfect for journaling every day of the month. You can export it each month as a PDF to keep in your iBooks. The quality of the photos and text is really good and it even prints out quite respectably.

Use the index page to see what is inside with just a glance. No need to write something for every page but some pages will have items you want to come back to.

What I like about this is that it doesn't matter if I don't look at those ideas again for 6 months, 12 months or 3 years. I can store them in a Goodnotes folder called ideas and come back to them whenever I like.

If I have more than one note about the same idea I can easily bring them together too.

Choose the sections that you want

• I created my new planner with separate notebooks for each section.
• I can easily insert extra pages.
• At the end of the year I can store the notebooks into folders by section or by year.
• To set up for the next year I just need a new dated planner notebook and copies of all the other sections that I already have saved in my clean copies folder.

The sections that I use all the time are:

• The calendar planner with dates and weekly pages and monthly expenses, goals, review.
• The Bills and Budget notebook
• The Recipe notebook 
• The Goals for 2021 notebook
• The Daily Journal notebook
• The Places to Visit notebook (for the day when I can feel safe on a plane again for domestic travel)

I also have a notebook for my 5 year plans.

With big titles for each book it is easy to open the one that I want. 

Happy Planning,

Val

Digital sticker of Christmas baubles

 I am venturing into the world of digital planners and digital stickers.

My planner is almost done.

I plan to launch it December 16th 2020.

Look out for it in my Etsy shop.

This is my first go at digital stickers. It is such fun.

Happy Planning,

Val

Action Steps to Achieving Your Goals

I love setting goals 

It makes me really happy to gaze into the future and think about all the things I can achieve.

Do you set goals and then find that you lose motivation and get discouraged.

I am a real skinflint when it comes to paying for a mentor or success program. But I also don't need to make a living from my business and grow it to huge proportions. (I think anyone wanting to work a full time business needs to look at paid courses or mentorship.)

I get two free subscriptions to my inbox that provide me with daily motivations and encouragement. I write down the gems they provide in my daily thoughts journal.

Daily Mind Aware Mantra
Sign up form

Darren Daily by Darren Hardy
This is his sign up site for the daily short video.

Today my daily Mind Aware Mantra was:

"I feel happy and alert"

My Daren Daily speale was about Personal Brand. I came away with

"What powerful, clear and positive idea do I want people to think when they think of me or my business name." 

The word 'Happy' came to me first. I want people to feel happy when they think of me.
I like the idea of my patterns not causing any problems. They come together easily and neatly and result in the customer being happy. My patterns provide potential for custom designs and are good value. My customer service is fast and efficient leaving my customers feeling happy and well served.

I sense that my customers feel this way but it is also something that I set out to achieve from the very beginning. I intuitively knew that "I" was my brand. I set out to be everything that I would want from someone when I am the customer.

Pretty heavy stuff but it really helps to be reminded of these things.

Getting back to actions steps....

I took action and subscribed to these emails because I needed little reminders that I was on the right track each day.

It's no good complaining that you have lost interest or can't get motivated. You need to do something about it if you want to achieve your goals.

I love anything to do with having a positive mindset.
With that in mind I was very receptive when I got an email from Robert Notter (another subscription but this one only comes sometimes).

It was about "Shining Goals" and he explained the obvious. In order to achieve a goal you need to set up small steps that you follow each day and before you know it you have achieved your goal and maybe gone even further than you expected.

He reinforced the message from a past Darren Daily. "It is easier to reach your goal if you focus on the little steps that are easy to do. Don't focus on the big scary end goal. Just write it down, work out the steps then focus on the steps."

The exercise Robert Notter asked me to do.

1. Pick a short term goal that I needed to achieve then write down like a brain storm all the steps or tasks that I needed to do to get the job done. 
2. Put them in order by writing numbers next to them.
3. Work out the time frame for the goal then put dates next to each item.
4. Transfer all the tasks to my calendar

My list is done. I may not follow it exactly once I get going
but at least I have a plan that I can follow without the need to think too much.

I said before that he explained the obvious. Every one knows how to set goals and what needs to be done to achieve them. How many people take action? How many people persevere to the end no matter how long it takes?   

A pretty small percentage, otherwise everyone would be happy and successful. 

So...

2 actions I have taken recently to keep myself motivated!

1. Subscribe to the daily motivating emails
2. Write up and schedule the steps to get my newsletter out on time

A third action that is just as important is

      3. Keep a journal or notebook documenting all the tips and motivating ideas.

I love my little note book from Kikki K. I write my daily mantra
and Darren Daily notes on the blank page and fill in the prompts page
every week day

What can you take away from this  blog post?

• Think about the goals you want to achieve. 
• What actions steps have you taken lately to achieve your goals. 
• What more can you do?

If you don't have any goals written down yet you can download my free printable to help you get started. If you already have some big goals you can use this sheet to list some of those steps you need to take today or this week in order to get closer to those goals. I use this process for my big vision goals as well as my smaller 1 year or 1 month goals. I have used the beautiful elements from Pixel Scrapper to make it.

Download Free Printable

Be Happy and Successful,

Val

4 Steps to Sharpen Your Focus

Do you want to make the most of your time? You can improve your ability to focus in just a few days by using a simple check list.

Better focus can be learned

• Have a plan
• Notice but don't react to distractions
• Practice regularly

You need to prepare for completing a task. I like to envisage what "finished" looks like. That way I can do some quick reviews during the allotted time and adjust my speed or effort. Putting in more effort for a short period of time is not any harder than working slowly for longer.

I love the feeling of achievement I get when I finish a task in the time I set. If it is part of a bigger project I feel very positive about the project if I  know I am putting in lots of effort for each smaller task. I can see the finish line coming closer each day and I find that very rewarding.

When I have a big physical job to do I break it down and assign smaller tasks in 30 min blocks.  Cleaning and organising goals can be achieved this way. This is how I managed to transform my sewing room into a nice place to work and create.

See what Kathy Vines has to say about "The Keys to Completing Organising Projects"
Here is a bit more science on training your brain to focus

Constantly trying to focus can leave you fatigued

• Forcing yourself to focus requires energy
• The brain needs time to rest and recover

I am always amazed by the amount of energy that gets used up when you think. Somehow I think that thinking is just a passive task.

In this article on "The Two Brain Systems That Control Our Attention" it is clear that trying to block out the distractions around you requires lots of effort. I know I feel my mind wandering all the time and I have to bring myself back on task quite often.

I now know that this is normal and is the way our brain works. With practice you can reduce the time you are distracted and also increase the time that you can focus.

Three ways to let your brain "rest" after periods of focus are:

1. Meditate
2. Take a stroll in natural surroundings
3. Spend time on an enjoyable task so you loose track of time. This means your brain is not struggling to focus and is recovering from forced focus.

Set a time interval to stay focused

• Use the Pomodoro method
• No shorter than 30 mins
• Take a few minutes break
• Have a clear start and finish time
• Have a clear picture of what "finished' looks like.

When training yourself to focus it is best to set a fairly short time interval to practise your focus. 30 mins is easy to accomplish. At the end of that interval take a short break to relax then do another focus interval.

Having a start and end time for a task and having a clear picture of what finished looks like makes completing the task more likely.

Have a plan to stay on task for that time

Multitasking is the enemy of productivity. It is much better to focus on one task.

Don't believe me? Have a read of this article on "The Truth About Multitasking".

To help you do this I have drawn up a simple sheet that you can print two to a page and double sided so you have lots to get you started.

Each time you start a task just go through the checklist. When I first started doing this I found that I didn't even realise when I was being distracted. I was halfway through commenting on a facebook group before I pulled myself up and wrote on the check list what distracted me. 

The more you work on this the less time it takes for you to realise you have gone off task. If it is something that needs attending to just make a note of it and come back to it later.

Download my free printable called "Sharpen Your Focus". After using it 4 or 5 times I now find that I automatically remove distractions and just thinking about the check list helps me notice when I am going off task and I can reduce wandering time significantly.

Download Free Printable Now

Stay Organised and Happy,

Val