10 Ways To Organize Your Thoughts and Ideas

Hello everyone. Hello, welcome to a live. This is, um, my Monday Motivation class, which we haven't done in a little bit of time. I did take about a month off, and now we're getting back into everything. So, hello, hello, welcome.

Um, today we are talking about how to organize your thoughts. And I wanted to dive into 10 ways that you can organize your thoughts. Five of those ways will be what to do before you start the process of trying to get organized, and the other five ways are actual ways that you can start to write down, process, and organize your thoughts. So that is what we are diving into today. Hello, hello, hello Dana. Hello. Thank you all so much for joining me. Really excited, um, to be diving into this topic because I remember, like, years ago, um, waking up to start my day, and I immediately thought as I was waking up, like, "Oh, did I load the dishwasher last night?" Right? And so that was the first thought that came into my mind. And then I got up and got dressed, and as I was in the shower, I was thinking about all the things that I needed to do at work that day, all of the things that I need to process. And then as I was in the shower, I was thinking about our budget and, um, how much money we had in our account. And then that led me to thinking about what we were going to eat that day to make sure that we didn't go over budget. But as you can see, thought process after thought process, one thing after another, all of my thoughts were coming to me, and it was all on repeat. So I would go from thinking about what I was gonna eat to what I was gonna wear to, "Oh my goodness, did I load the dishwasher? I didn't do this. Did I do the laundry? Did I do that?" Um, "I need to make sure that I have this fantabulous idea of what I want to do for my business," and I'm just trying to keep track of it all, right? And so if you are like me, where you have a bunch of thoughts in your head, a bunch of ideas, and you are trying to figure out how to process, how to organize, so that you can start to take action on these thoughts, then this is the class for you. That is what we're talking about today, the ways and the different things that you can do to help yourself get organized. So thank you all so much for joining me. And if you see me looking at the side here, that's because I'm reading your comments, and I really, really appreciate each and every person. All of your kind words, I am so, so grateful to be able to assist you on your organization journey.

So I'm gonna bring up the, uh, slide for today. We are going to be looking at slides because I am, um, a visual learner, and I believe a lot of you are visual learners as well. So these slides are able to help you to process what we are talking about. If you are a part of the Organize You, I will add the slides after class, um, to the membership site. So if you wanted to print these out, be able to add them to your notebook, whatever you wanted to do with them, or be able to review this information along with the video later on, you can definitely do that. But thank you all so much for joining me. Yes, these classes are back. We're back on Monday Live. So super excited about that as well. So let's go ahead and get into it.

Um, I just told you a little bit about my story, um, and how I have struggled in the past with processing and organizing my thoughts. You know, you can have a spot in your home where you can organize your things, you can organize your relationships, you can organize your planner, but it's something to, it is challenging to organize your mind. It is challenging because we have so many thoughts that can come into our head on a daily basis. How do you organize that, right? How do you kind of get that together? And so that's what we're talking about today and how I process the different things that I do.

So why do you need to organize your thoughts? Let's talk about it a little bit. Um, this can be challenging because you may feel as though, um, you on a daily basis, you are jumping from topic to topic. And even if that's the, the case, a lot of times, I know that I have a decreased amount of energy whenever my thoughts aren't organized. I am less efficient. So if you want to increase your efficiency, that comes along with organizing your thoughts and organizing your process. And it reduces your stress. So if you consider yourself super stressed out, then you could possibly need to organize your thoughts as well. But all of these things helped. I was able to get more done. But on top of productivity, it actually increased my energy because I had more focus. I was way more focused. I had way more peace, way more control. I wasn't as confused. So if you know, if you have a bunch of different things going on in your mind, then a lot of times you can feel chaotic or you can feel confused, like, "I don't even know where to start. I have so much going on. I don't even know what to do or where to start." And so if that's you, make sure that you put it in the chat box, let me know because I know that that was me in the past. And also, just wanted to say before we get into it, if you have a question, make sure that you use hashtag Q and then type up your question. So then that way, I can make sure that I can see it easily when I am scanning through the comments. So, but let's go ahead and get started.

I see some comments already coming in saying, "That's me, that's me, that's me." If you need to get yourself together and organize your thoughts, let's say you feel like this is not you. How do you know if this is something that you need to do? If you find yourself constantly focusing on negative things, then this could possibly be something that you need to do. Um, you might need to organize your thoughts if you are constantly always thinking about the negative side. If you're always worrying about things that you can't control, this might mean your mind might feel a little chaotic, and you may need to organize your thoughts. If you have trouble focusing on things, let's say you're supposed to be focusing on this one project, but you find yourself on your phone half of the time, or you're looking out the window, you're daydreaming, you're doing all of the things besides for the task that you're supposed to be doing, then a lot of times that means that it's because your thoughts are all over the place, and it's hard for you to get them back together. It's hard for you to get organized. And if you have to be reminded of a task over and over and over again, then someone just told you about that, and you're like, "Oh yeah, I forgot," and now I need to add it back. And I was supposed to do that, but I forgot this, I forgot that. That is an indication that you may need to organize your mind. You may need to organize your thoughts, your ideas. And if you always have running lists in your head, that was me, 100% me. But I used to have a million different lists in my head at any point in time. And if that is you, then you need to organize your thoughts because that means you don't have a process or a system or something that you can put into place to help you to get organized. So these are all of the reasons, these are different things, and this is how you know if you need to organize your thoughts.

Um, what if you put off to do nothing? And if the, here's the thing, it doesn't matter what you are putting off or putting on. There is a reason why we don't process things immediately. There are a couple of reasons why we could actually do an entire class on why we don't take action or why we aren't motivated. I just did a reel talking about motivation and talking about how the number one reason why we aren't motivated is because motivation usually requires some type of, uh, of benefit of seeing progress. Progress is the reason why we keep going. But the only way we're going to see progress is if we take action. So it's a chicken and egg concept. And we can do an entire class on motivation. But many times, this process, or organizing our mind, or organizing the way that we see and process information, can actually help us with our overall motivation. That can help us with our motivation.

And to answer this, if you can't settle on one way or one place to organize your thoughts, then I'm gonna give you five different things that you can do that I will interchange. And so today's class, we are going to talk about the five ways that you can process. We're gonna talk about five things that you should do beforehand, um, before you start to process your thoughts, and then the five things, the five different ways that you can process your thoughts. And we're gonna talk about how you can use these ways at different times because I use all five, um, all five of these ways. I will use them interchangeably, but many times it depends how or why I decide to use a specific method. And so we're going to talk about that as well. So don't worry if, if that is something that you struggle with, is figuring out the one method. It may not be one method. You might need multiple methods, and we will talk about why you might need multiple methods.

All right, if you don't know, this is your very first class, very first time seeing my face. Hi, I am Elena. I'm an accountant, I'm a coach, I'm a content creator, but I help people learn how to adult and how to organize their life. I started off just talking about money back in 2018. But what I realized on my journey is that in order to organize your money, you have to know how to organize your life. You have to know how to be an adult. So we talk about budgeting, productivity, planning, and organizing all on my YouTube channel. And I also have a group membership program called The Organize You. Within The Organize You, we do a bunch of different things over there. I do have a private podcast, we have a Facebook group, I also have planner downloads, we do weekly classes every single Thursday over there, and I have a bunch of videos that help you to learn how to organize your life, how to adult. So if you want to find out more about that, make sure that you check out the description box. I have left the link to The Organize You. You can find out more about it. It is $25 a month, or you can sign up for the year, and I believe you get a discount if you sign up for the year. All right, so let's go ahead and jump into today's class. I am super excited to be back on live with you all. I have missed you all so, so, so much. All right, let's go ahead.

The very first thing that you need to do, which I have talked about this a bunch of times before, but we're diving into it a little bit deeper in this particular class, and that is a brain dump. We all know in order to clear our heads, we need some type of brain dump. You need a way of getting the information that's all jumbled up out of your head and into an app, into onto paper. It's got, you have to have a way that you are processing this information. So what is a brain dump? A brain dump involves dumping all of your thoughts, all of your worries, all of your ideas, all of your questions, all of your to-do's out of your head or onto paper, or onto an app, onto an Excel spreadsheet, some type of way of getting it out of your head with the goal of decluttering your mind. And this is going to help you to reduce your stress and reduce your anxiety. So this is the process of what we're doing. However, all brain dumps are not created equally. All brain dumps are not equal. We learn in different ways, we process information in different ways. And just to say, we should all write down one list and have one big long list may not always be the most accurate way for you to process information at that specific time because it depends. It really, really does depend. And so what I wanted to dive into today is the five things that you should do before you do a brain dump, and the five ways to actually do this brain dump in a way that you can actually process and be able to take action on the different things that you have brain dumped or put down or trying to process in order to take action on.

All right, so let's go ahead and jump into the five things that you should do prior to doing this brain dump. Remember, I told you it's 10 things that we should do all together, but these are the five that you should do before you're actually doing the process of the brain dump. The first thing you, I would like you to do is to meditate. Because if you take five to 10 minutes of some type of quiet time, and this could be just as soon as you wake up in the morning, you could just make it quiet before you touch your phone, before you start to talk to anyone, before you start to do anything, I want you to find some time to quiet your mind. Because before you do that brain dump, before you start dumping all of this information on paper, you need to give yourself some time to digest and have some peace, right? So try and get as quiet as possible. Try your best to get a really good night of sleep. If you haven't gotten a night, a good night of sleep, and you feel like your energy is low, you do want to try and take a nap or relax in some form of way. It might be just while you're doing some coffee, like you have your coffee, you're taking your time, you are giving your time, yourself time to process. Why? Because when you do a brain dump, if you do it in a frustrated or an agitated place, the entire, you're already setting yourself up to not do the things that are on this list because you're already agitated, you're already tired, you're already, you know, frustrated and annoyed and worried in all of the things that we are naturally are. So many times, you have to actively put yourself in a place of peace. And the way to do that is through meditation, getting a good night of sleep, and of course, working out. If you take a 10-minute walk, a 30-minute walk, you don't have to do a really, really thorough heavy workout. Many times I do light workouts, um, because it's better for my joints, but those light walks will help me so much be prepared and ready and focused and just feel better about my day and feel better about doing this brain dump, which I know I have to do, right? So you are just taking your time instead of trying to hurry up and write down and just process all of this information. Because remember, like I said, if you're frustrated, if you're agitated, you're already starting off from an agitated process mindset, which means now I am agitated. I'm writing this really long list of all of these things that I don't want to do anyway, and I'm frustrated, right? So I really want you to work on your meditation. Do your sleep. Make sure you're sleeping eight hours if you can. If not, try and get a really good nap in before you do this process. Make sure you do some type of workout. Try and talk this out. Many times I will talk to my husband, I will talk out loud, I will talk to myself, I will talk in the shower, just to give myself some time to process this information that I am trying to process, right? Like, so if you have a lot on your mind and you're very agitated and you're very frustrated and you are annoyed, then one thing that you can do is talking out loud to yourself will actually help you to process whatever is going on a little bit better. So you want to do these things so that you can be in a better place, so that you could be in a better spot. And right before you are doing this, you definitely want to minimize distractions as much as possible. So when I am ready to do a brain dump, usually my house is quiet, or as quiet as it possibly can be. I do have kids, so sometimes complete silence is just not an option. But what I will do is I'll try and go in my closet, or I will try and go into my office, like in here, and I'll close the door, or, you know, and I'll get a cup of coffee. But you want to make this, um, more of a process, almost self-care for you. And this will put you in a space or in a state or put you in a mindset to know that this is me taking care of my brain. I am taking care of my mind. I am taking care of me as I process what I need to process and get ready to organize my thoughts. But it's not just something fleeting that we're just hurry up and writing all this stuff down just to get it on our head so that we could just hurry up and get started. No, we want to really take our time with this so that we don't come from a frustrated space and that we feel ready and capable to take on all of the different things that we are taking on. All right, so those are the five things that you should do before you start this process, before you start the brain dump.

Now, like I said, all brain dumps are not equal. So that's why we're going to talk about the five ways that you can process and do these different types of brain dumps. All right, so let's get into the five methods. The core of this class today, the five methods that you can do in order to help you to organize your thoughts. All right, very first method. The very first thing that you can do, this is one, I think I've done an entire video on it. It is as old as time. I feel like everyone has always known and done this one, and that is the really long brain dump list. This is the process. Let me make it a little bit bigger so that y'all can see the, um, slide. This is the process of writing down everything that is coming to your head and putting it on paper or in an app, right? You are trying to just get it all out. And this is one that I have done probably the most. This is my favorite way to organize my thoughts, and that is to get everything out of my head. I'm just trying to get it out of my head and get it on paper. And so I did an entire video on this process. But the very first part of it is to write down anything and everything that you are possibly thinking. The second thing that you need to do after you write down this really long list is to categorize that list. So all of your thoughts usually fall under a different section of your life, right? So sometimes I will think about something that is regarding my home. Sometimes I'm going to think of something that's regarding my work. Sometimes I'm going to think about something that's regarding my kids or my husband or my friends. But usually, there is a category that is associated with that particular thing that you have thought of. So if you're thinking about this project that you need to work on at work, you would write down the thing that you thought of, the idea, the thought, and then you're gonna write next to it the category, which is work, right? So you're categorizing the, the list that you have just written down. Write down one really, really long list. Keep everything. Like after you have that list, then you're gonna categorize based on the different categories that you have in your life. If you don't know about life categories or you've never heard me talk about life categories before, I do have an entire video where we did a live, um, and I talked about how I created life categories. So I will link, um, I will link it probably after I get off of live. I will link that particular class in the description box. So if you are watching the replay, it should be there. But this is the life categories class that we did, um, a couple of months ago, and I talked about how to create those life categories. But you definitely need them because they will help you to organize the different areas of your life. After you have those categories, the very next thing that you need to do is set a date and time to actually process that information. Like, when are you going to do this task that you just wrote down this really long list? When are you gonna do it? Now, it might take you some time to figure out the date and time. This is why it's super important that you know where you're going to put this list and that you're comfortable with that spot. You do not have to use this one way the entire time, but you do want to keep it in, um, the same type of manner every single time that you do it. So, like I said, everything that we're talking about today, I have, um, processed or done a brain dump the way that I am talking about. I have organized my thoughts in this way. However, anytime I am doing the list way, it is always within my brain dump notebook. This is my brain dump notebook. I have shared this one. I've done an entire video on it, and it is a very messy notebook where I will just jot down a bunch of different things. But this is how I am able to process my thoughts on paper. So this is the notebook that I will use to write down my really long to-do list, and then I will categorize each thing that I have on that list, and then I will decide what date and time I am going to do that particular action within my planner. But I process in this notebook. Like this is how I am processing and figuring out the information. All right, so let's, um, that's the very first way. And if you want to see the full video on how I did this, this video is called "How to Do a Brain Dump." I have linked it right here. I don't know if y'all can click that link. I'm not sure if you can, but I will definitely leave it in the description box after we get off of live. And if you are looking to do this particular way, your homework after this class is to watch this video because this video is going to show you exactly how I do it. And you can even see it from the thumbnail, like I have the thing that I was thinking about, and then I have the category next to it. But even in this video, it goes the step further to show you how I process those thoughts as soon as they are, um, as soon as I am after I have written them down, after I have done the brain dump, how do I process those thoughts? So, first way is the really long to-do list. After that, you're going to brain dump it. You're going to put it in the spot that you can remember. You're going to categorize it. You're going to watch this video, which shows you how to plan it out and make sure that you have everything that you need in order to start to take action. Because many times, we need to get the task that we have to the smallest denominator so that we're able to take action. If I have planned Disneyland trip, that's really big in my head. But if I write down, "Okay, I'ma plan the Disneyland trip," and then the first thing that I need to do is research, um, flights. I need to look up flights to decide when we're going to go. That's one thing that I could do today. I could do that right now. So just want you to think through this process. But the very first way, the first method, is writing everything down in one really long list as a brain dump.

Let's talk about method two. This is for us visual people. These are for visual people who need to see things in a certain way. So one way is a really long list. You do that list, you check it off, that works for you. The second method is through a mind map. If you've ever heard of a mind map, put it in the chat box, let me know. Put in a comment, let me know if you have done a mind map, if you've heard of mind maps, if you like them, if you don't like them, let me know all about it. A mind map is when you take one main concept, one main idea, one main thing that has crossed your mind, and then you break it down, and you continue to break it down until you get to the smallest task that can be completed. So let's look at the idea of how you would do this. So I've done this also in my brainstorming notebook, but it's where you take one big idea. So the idea here is, I want to organize my life. I want to figure out how to organize my life, right? And so when I think about how I organize my life, that's a really big concept, that's a really big idea. So I want to break it down into four different things. I want to learn how to organize my space. I want to learn how to organize my work. I want to learn how to organize, one is supposed to say home, sorry guys, home. And I wanna, or I wanna learn how to organize my things. I want to learn how to organize different things. So if you wanna learn how to organize your space, your work, your relationships, I actually think that's supposed to say relationships, your relationships, and your things. Well, that's other concepts that you can use. All of them relating to how to organize your life, right? So the big concept, then we break it down into four smaller concepts. But then you can go a step further, right? So let's say I want to organize my life, I want to organize my space. Let me think of the spaces that I want to organize, and I want to organize my home, I want to organize my car, which are two spaces that what I would consider within organize my life. But as you can see, we are breaking it down even further than just having that one main idea. Mind maps are great, especially if you are trying to process a lot of information. I use mind maps a lot whenever I am trying to work on a project. Usually, this is the spot where I will figure out, okay, what's the big thing that I want to do here? Um, and let's say it's write a book. I want to write a book. All right, so what's the chapters of the book? And then I will write out the mind map. What are the chapters? And then I write down what are the main ideas from each of those chapters? And then I write down what's the outline of those main ideas from the chapters from the book, right? So you want to think through, and this is a way to process, especially if you have a bunch of different, um, pieces to one particular thought or a bunch of ideas that can be out of or come out of one main thought. So like this, for instance, organizing your life is a, it's a big concept, it's a big overall process. I could put, "I need to organize my mind, my space, my money, my things, my work." There's so many different ways that we can go here. So doing a mind map where we kind of map it all out helps us. And you can go further and further. And for even if I said, "Okay, I want to organize my space, I want to organize my home," I could go even further and say, "What would it take to organize my home?" I need to think of my cleaning routine. I need to think of the different home projects that we may need to have. I mean, it's like a bunch of different ways that we can go here, right? And I see a lot of you have done mind maps before, you thought about them. If you haven't done one, try and think about bringing that back in. And I don't believe I have a full video on this particular concept, but if this is something that y'all want to see exactly how I do this process, then definitely let me know in the chat box. I will, I will gladly, because I love mind maps, I will gladly do them. But once again, I have done this within my notebook where I will take an idea and then I will break it down. I will put a bunch of different, and I think I have, let's see, hopefully you can, I don't think y'all gonna be able to see this, but I have done it to where, oh, you kind of see it, but I've done it to where I just like layered it all out, and I would just kind of map it out at the bottom of my notebook. But I, once again, I do it within this notebook. Within this notebook, I am able to mind map and put it all in, and it makes everything make sense. It makes everything make sense. And so if you, um, I can definitely do a full video on my process of how I mind map. But like I say, I do, I have used all of these particular concepts. And in Wednesday's video, I am going to show you all a little bit more about my brainstorming notebook, how I use it, how I'm able to process my particular thoughts and ideas within this notebook. This class is like general, telling you all the different ways that you can do it. But in Wednesday's video, I'm going to show you how I do it, the specific ways of how I do it. So yes, okay, I see, "Please do a video." All right, we'll do a specific mind map video. But y'all definitely stay tuned for Wednesday's video because I will kind of share with you how I use the five, um, ways that we're talking about today. I'm going to show you how I do it in Wednesday's video. All right, but like I said, within the mind map, you are breaking it down to the smallest detail, and then you're adding that detail in your planner. I am going to show you exactly how I do that process on Wednesday. But this is a very great way, a great way to organize your thoughts because once you have this really big graph and everything is just kind of leaning in and you can see it, it helps you to really be able to focus on, "Okay, I know exactly what I need to do. I know my very next step," because everything is broken down all the way to the smallest denominator. Like, I know the very next step that I need to take because you just keep breaking down the mind map, you keep breaking it down until you get to the smallest task that you can do today. And that's, that's the best thing ever is when you have that one little small task that doesn't seem as overwhelming as "organize my life." Right? "Organize my life" sounds, "Oh my god, that's just like so much." Kind of, that's all, that's a lot. But if you say, "Well, you know what? You're just cleaning off your desk today." That's all you're doing today. "All I'm doing is cleaning off my desk," and that's easy. That's easier to me. That's gonna take me five to 10 minutes, and I can do it today. And that's what we're doing with this process, is making it easier on ourselves. All right, let's talk about the third method. Let's talk about the third method, and that's using sticky notes. Using sticky notes. I love sticky notes. I have them in a bunch of different colors all over my desk. But I have, um, my orange ones. I love the colorful ones, and I love to use them especially when you are just trying to hurry up and jot down something. So the reason why I'm talking about all five of these ideas and how you can use them and how I use them is because many times we feel like if we use one particular method, then we have to stick with that method at all times, no matter what. But sometimes that's just not, um, a good option at all times, right? Sometimes I have my notebook right in front of me because I'm sitting at my desk. Sometimes I don't have my notebook in front of me. It might be on my dining room table, it might be in my studio, and I'm trying to hurry up and jot down some information, or it just might not be close enough to where I can grab it. It's on my desk, but it's further away, and I just need to hurry up and quickly jot down something. This is when I would do a post-it note. Now, I know a lot of people that use post-it notes. We are all fans of post-it notes. And I see you say, "I need to invest in stocks and post-its because of how much we use them." I probably should as well, as many of these things that I have around my house. But let me tell you what usually happens. We will take this post-it note, and it will get lost. And so we write on them, but we are not good at keeping them. We are not good at processing the information that is on them. So even though this is super easy, the process of writing on them, all of us use it, the main thing that I want you to do though, after you have written a note, is that note needs to go somewhere. It needs to have a home. If you do not dedicate a home to your post-it notes, you're not going to do the thing that's on that post-it note because you're going to forget about it, or you're going to say, "Oh yeah, I'm going to do that thing on that post-it note," and it just lives on the post-it note forever, and it never actually gets assigned a time for us to actually complete the thing that's on it. So after you write the note, one thing that I mean, one of the things that I'll do is I do transfer. I'll either transfer the information that's on the note into my notebook, or I will add the post-it note. I will add the post-it note into my notebook. And so adding it into my notebook makes it to where it's like this, it's the same as writing it in my notebook. So if I have written like a lot of information, I will add it to my notebook and then I will tape it within my notebook. So then that way, I know for sure that I'm not going to lose this post-it note. And so I, I highly recommend that you add it into something, edit somewhere where you know you're going to look, that you're not going to lose it. You have this one brain dump notebook that's dedicated to you, or you have this one app that you use where you can take pictures and you can screenshots and you can add that into your app. All of those things are super useful. You just have to have a way to process that information. You have to have a way to where you are breaking this stuff down, that it doesn't just live in la la land and that you never go back to it. You have to have a way to go back to it. So you need to move that information either from the sticky note into your calendar, put it into your, you know, your brain dumping notebook. You have a time frame where you are going to look at that note. But you have to see how you're going to be able to take action on this thing. Now, I have standing, um, time frames where I process the things that are on my brain dump list. So my brain dump, it can happen all throughout the week, but on Sunday at 3 p.m., after I have planned out my week, that is when I'm going to look at what's on my brain dump and see if I can plan and add it to my calendar for the very next week. So you want to think about all of those different things that you can do in order to process. All right, in order to process.

Let's do, let's talk about the next one. Let's talk about the next one, which is after you use sticky notes, you break it down, you've added it to your planner, you have a way to process that information. The fourth method that you can use is voice memos. Does anyone use voice memos? Am I the only one? I feel like I'm not the only one. So I love to use voice memos in order to organize my thoughts and my ideas, um, especially if I am in a place where I cannot write. Um, a lot of times this happens when I'm driving. Majority of the time, it's when I'm driving, and I, or I'll, you know, I might be somewhere, I might be in line, I might be trying to do something, and what I'll do is, this is the voice memo app that's on my iPhone, and I will go to my voice memos and I will talk to myself. I will tell myself, "Hey, this is an idea that you had, blah, blah, blah, blah," and I will just kind of get it out of my head and put it on paper or put it in the voice memo notes. Once again, this is another one where you have to have a reminder or an alarm to remember to check. Because my main way of organizing my life is not in my phone, it is on paper. And so I default to my planner, I default to my brainstorming notebook, which means I have to remind myself about any other method other than my planner and my brainstorming notebook, because I will usually forget that I have put something in that spot. So what I usually do when it comes down to voice memos is I will do a voice memo, and then I add a reminder, um, or an alarm in my phone right after I have done the memo. So I'll say, you know, I'll write down the memo, or I'll say something to myself, "Hey Elena, don't forget you have organized new class idea that this is something that you could do with the class, and I feel like this would be a great project," right? Talking to myself. And then afterwards, I'll say, "Okay, yeah, that's good." And then I'll say, "Hey, you know, Siri, can you please add an alarm, um, to remind me to check my voice memos?" And this is a way that I will set an alarm to remind myself to make sure that I don't forget that that memo is there, and that I am able to transfer that information from my voice memos into my planner. Because my planner is my main form of organization. I organize my life in this one book. And since it's all there, I want to keep it all there. So a lot of times I may use other forms and then make sure I transfer it or get it over into there. And I feel like when we can't get ourselves organized, when we can't organize our thoughts, when we are feeling all over the place, it is usually because we have different methods and we have no way of bringing them together. We have all of these different methods, we have the sticky notes, we have the long list in this one notebook that I was using on that one day, and then I have voice memos, and then I have notes, and I have a whole bunch of stuff over here, but there's no one app, there's no one notebook, there's no one planner that has it all. And so we need a spot that has it all. So that is why you really want to make sure that no matter what method you're using, it's not bad to use multiple methods. I like to use multiple methods because sometimes I just don't have the capacity, or I'm not able, or something is not, you know, I don't have it in front of me and I'm not able to do that. So having another method helps me to stay organized, as long as you bring those methods together, as long as you decide when everything is going to come together so that you don't lose any information. All right, so make sure if you do a voice memo, that you add that extra step to save when you're going to do check your voice memos. I love to set an alarm. You set an alarm in your phone, you make it like, mine is set for Sunday at 4 p.m. or 5 p.m. around that time. So then that way, I'm bringing all my post-it notes together, I'm bringing all my voice memos together, I am getting organized for the new week. I feel prepped, I feel ready, my mind feels clear, I feel ready to take on my new week. It's great to do this at the beginning of the week or the end of the week so that you're not carrying over that confusion, that frustration, that agitation into a new week. So try and find that. So it's a weekend reset. It's a reset, and I love to reset on Sundays. It's my favorite thing to do. After I get out of church, I will reset. I feel ready to take on my week. Okay, so that's the fourth way. That's the fourth thing that I would do.

The fifth method. The fifth method, the fifth way that you can organize your thoughts, add it to your calendar. Add it to your calendar. Such a great way to do it. Of course, if you have this big idea, this big thought, this is making an appointment with yourself. We love to add appointments for everyone else and everything else. An appointment to go to the mall, an appointment to go to dinner, an appointment for this, an appointment for that. Add appointments for the things that you really want to get done. The things, the ideas, the thoughts that are in your head, that big idea that you have for your business, add it to your calendar and add some time. Add, give yourself, set an appointment with yourself for an hour to let yourself be able to process and dig into all of the different ideas and thoughts that you have. So I will add an appointment on my calendar. I have done this on paper, I've done it within Google Cal, and I am going to do, um, an email class or email organization class as well, so that we can dive into what my digital organization looks like as well. Because I know if your calendar is, if your digital calendar is a mess, it's going to be challenging to keep any appointments with yourself if it's not already organized. But that's another, that's another class that we can definitely do. Um, however, you want to have a way that you can make appointments with yourself for the things that are important to you. You know, this is, I, I don't just make appointments for work and for home cleaning and stuff like this. I make appointments for my skincare routine and for things I just want to do for myself, or like if I just want to look up something and do a deep dive into a hobby. All of those things are on my calendar, and it's okay to schedule fun. We should be scheduling fun just as much as we are scheduling all of our productivity things that we want to do as well. So we want to make an appointment with ourselves for the different ideas and thoughts and things that we want to do in our lives because at the end of the day, you don't want your life to just be about laundry and dishes and all that stuff has to be done. Yes, but we still want to make sure that we are planning a life that we love, that we are living an organized life that is pleasing to us, right? That is not just all the different things that we got to do for other people, that we are still planning for things that we want to do ourselves. All right, so make up, make an appointment with yourself. Make sure that you set that up with each one of these. With all of these, you definitely need to have a moment in time where you're adding it into your planner, adding it into your calendar, doing something.

like that, um, this week on YouTube. And if you have questions, please, please, please add them to the chat box right now. We're about to jump into some questions. I think we have about 10 more minutes of questions.

But this week on YouTube, I am going to be talking about in Wednesday's video, as you can see here, how to, or how I organize my thoughts. So I'm gonna be talking about all the steps, the five things that I talked about today in Wednesday's video. I'm going to be sharing with you how I do them in real time, right? So I'm going to be sharing with you my brainstorming notebook, sharing with you how I use post-it notes, how I use voice memos, how I set it up within my phone, how I'm able to kind of use this to process everything that I want to do. All right, so that is going to be Wednesday's video. This is what Wednesday's video is going to be on.

Thursday, if you are a part of Organize U, Thursday we're going to be diving into procrastination because I know that that is a big hindrance for our organizing of our mind, organizing our thoughts is you feel like you just kind of can't get past or get started taking that action. So we're going to be diving into procrastination and how to get past that where, you know, you got a bunch of things to do, you have written out all the lists, you have all the things written down, but you just have a hard time doing it, like starting. So that's what we're going to be talking about on Thursday.

And then on Friday, on YouTube, on Friday's video is going to be on my commonplace notebook, which is my learning notebook. It's a notebook that I talked about a while ago in an older video, but I am going to be sharing with you my updated system for my commonplace notebook and talking to you because that's how I process a lot of the things that I am learning about my faith, a lot of things I am reading books and all of that. It's how I process those thoughts as well. All right, so that's everything that is coming up.

We will be going live again next Monday. I will be on live. It's going to be, um, a Q&A session. I might have a guest on with me. I don't want to say it just yet because I got to make sure that we are confirmed, but we will be back on Monday live next Monday. All right, so let's get into some of your questions. Let's get into some of your questions. I did see, um, let's see, I saw this one.

How do you organize your work using the mind map method, especially when you're a new entrepreneur just starting out? I have Etsy, YouTube, social media for both businesses. Great question, Lauren. Um, and the one thing that I would say is when you are starting off, your mind map, your business, your business name is at the center of your mind map, right? This is the main thing we're trying to grow. This is the concept right here. And then I would draw the lines from it. And each one of these things that you have put out is a different leg of your business. So you have Etsy, you have YouTube, you have Instagram. Um, and you may do one for one business and one for another business because it seems like you have, um, both businesses. So I'm assuming there's two. So you're going to do two separate mind maps. One is for one business, one is for the other. You're going to draw out the Etsy and the YouTube. And then you're gonna break it down. What are you trying to do with Etsy? What are you trying to do with YouTube? If your ultimate goal on Etsy is to put up 10 listings, right? So you say, I want, I want to add 10 listings. All right. So then you put Etsy and you put another line and you put 10 listings. And then you might say, okay, I want to have a new listing every Tuesday for the next two months, right? And then you see how I'm breaking it down to even further. So once I say it, I want 10 listings, then I want a new one every Tuesday. And then I just need to think about what's this Tuesday's listing and I'm working on that this week. You see? So I would start off with the concept. Start off with the thing that you want and then break it down, break it down even more, even more. Okay. And same thing with Instagram. Um, it's on your business. How often do you want to post? I'm posting to Instagram. I'm posting once a day, every single day. Um, I want to post something related. And then you could post, you could put out the different topics. Like from for me, for instance, I would put budgeting, I would put productivity, organization. Um, and then after I put those, I might put, um, under budgeting, how do you budget on a daily basis? And then on the productivity, how do you stay productive? Like just writing out the different things that I might want to talk about in that particular area. And remember, Lauren, I gave y'all four posts. This is Organize Business. I know I'm kind of sidetracking, but I know you're from Organize Business, but I, I gave you all four posts that you should be posting every single month. And then I told you additional ways to come up with your content ideas. So based on that, I would love for you to break down your mind map even more. Like break it down, break it down until you know exactly what you want to do and when you're going to do it. So then now all you got to do is add it to your, your planner. All you got to do is add it to your planner. All right, so that is, um, where do you get the binders for the planner? Can I buy, can you buy without inserts? So my binders, um, I currently have two different types of binders. I currently have this one, which is my tool. So this, this cover comes with the tool notebook. Um, and then I also have my Notique cover, which both of them I have listed in, um, well, my tool one, I have listed under my Amazon favorites. You could definitely check the description box. I should have it there. And then the Notique one, I believe I also have that one linked, um, to where you can find that one as well. And I bel, I do not, I know with Notique, you can buy it just to cover. With the tool, it comes as a notebook. So you can't buy it without the notebook. It just comes as a notebook, but you could definitely take it off.

Do you review your budget, money spent, bank accounts every day or just once a week? Every single day. Every day. Now, this is just because, um, of the way that, um, my setup in my morning routine, my morning routine, I will check my transactions. I will jot them down. Uh, let's see, like, it, I might miss a day or two every now and then, but especially over the weekend. Usually, if I miss it, it's going to be over the weekend, um, because I'm just not going to be as adamant on a Saturday to check and write down all my transactions. But every day, every weekday, yes. And then on the weekends, what I'll usually do is check in. And I can show you what it looks like. This is what it looks like. This is how I will process. And I just basically will write down any transaction that I have, um, done that particular day. So the date is right here. So this is 7, 8. And then this is all, these are all the transactions that happened on that particular day. And then at the end of the week, I will kind of add it up so I can keep track of how much I've spent for the week. And then I start over for a new week. But yes, I will track it on a daily basis. This is the one that I am looking at every single day. And the other page that I will look at every single day is my monthly page, um, because my monthly page, which is this one, is where I'm just kind of checking in on my bills, making sure that I have paid everything that I've done, everything that I need to do, all of that is within this section. So between those two pages, I do check those two pages every day. Um, and then at the end of the week, I kind of just close everything out. I will update my monthly budget and then just kind of keep going from there. But yes, yes, yes, yes.

Um, oh, as an entrepreneur, how do I pay taxes? All at once? Monthly? I pay quarterly. I do pay quarterly. Um, with as a business owner, I usually recommend that you pay quarterly. I usually will keep, keep up with my taxes within QuickBooks. I pay myself from my business running through payroll through QuickBooks. And then QuickBooks does calculate my taxes. It estimates how much I'm going to owe in taxes based on how much I am paying myself. And then once QuickBooks tells me that number, it tells me how much I'm going to, you know, end up owing for the quarter. And then I write a check and I mail it off. And so that's how I process mine. I believe that you can pay online as well. I'm just not set up to pay online, so I just did it there. Yeah.

Um, the, oh, it's not Tom Academy anymore. It is the Organize U, which is the new name of the site. It's basically the exact same thing. I just rebranded it to fit exactly what, um, we were doing at the time and to move from Patreon. So at first, we were on Patreon. Um, however, I was not able to keep up with all of the classes and to send you all of the links and to add the PDF downloads, like how I'm going to add the download to the class. I was having such a hard time with all of that, which is why we moved from Patreon to Kajabi. Now that we're on Kajabi, I did rename it the Organize U, so that people really understood that it was completely separate and apart. So yes, um, uh, it's now the Organize U. And if you look in the link in my description box, I will have the link to the Organize U there. It is $25 a month. But once again, like I said, we do, um, we do podcasts, we have a private podcast, we have a Facebook group, we do the book of the month because we do have a book club. And if y'all are a part of the book club, then you should have gotten the email, um, Organize U members, that we are doing the Power of One More. Let me get the book. This is the book for this month. It is the Power of One More. Um, I do have it linked on my Amazon favorites. Even if you're not part of Organize U, read this one. It's a good one. Um, we just finished the 12-week year, and now this is our next book. So definitely be on the lookout for that one as well. That's what we're talking about. But the new name, um, is the Organize U, and it is still open. You can definitely check out the link. All right, thank you all so much. Any more questions? Any more questions before we jump off?

I hope that this class, um, really, really helped you as you are processing your thoughts. I feel like as I was processing my thoughts, it was, this is the first step where I started to kind of feel like I had stuff together. And I don't feel like I have my stuff together at all times. I really don't. But once I was able to learn how to process and organize my thoughts in the different areas of my life, I felt like I started to make progress. Not like I made it, but I was making progress. Like I could see movement within my business. I felt like my home wasn't as much of a mess as it had been before. I felt like I was showing up a little bit better as a wife and as a mother, as a pastor. I was a little bit more together. And that helped me so much, um, with this process of just getting my life organized. So if you're trying to adult and get yourself together and get yourself organized and do all of the things that you need to do, then I hope that this class will help you. Remember, you can check out my brain dump video. That one is a YouTube video that I will link. And also the life categories video. That one is a video that I will link in the description box after this live as well. And if you want to go a step further and get into the accountability group and get into some group coaching, the Organize U will be linked in the description box as well. All right, this will be on the site. This will be on my YouTube channel, so you will be able to watch at any point in time, especially if you missed the beginning, you'll be able to rewind. I'll see if I can add chapters. I'm gonna try my best to add chapters as well because I know the replay people really, really are grateful for the chapters. All right, and it was so great to talk to you all.

Okay, I see, um, name of the book again? The Power of One More. The Power of One More. Um, a friend of mine introduced me to Ed Mylett, and I have been binge-watching his stuff and really, really into, um, a lot of the things that he's talking about. It's great. It's all about like success and creating this life that you want, and it's right up my alley. So I think it would be one that we really enjoy. So that's going to be our book for the entire month. And then we will dive into our book club meeting, um, in the month of August on this book. All right, so thank you all so much. I really missed you all. So happy to be back. And I will see you all next Monday for our next class. All right, so I will see you all then. Bye guys. Have a good one.