I have some tips and tricks for you today on things to keep in mind when you’re starting a new craft project.  I love crafting. But, maybe you’re new to crafting or like me, when I try out a new type of craft. There are some things that can help make it easier for you.

The first thing that you want to think about when you start a craft project is what inspires you. What motivates you? Are you attracted to seasonal crafts? Do you like home decor? Do you like sewing or painting? You get the idea. Finding what it is that  really inspires you helps motivate you to try it. But, you want to start simple. You don’t want to invest in a lot of supplies if it turns out that craft isn’t for you. It also keeps it budget-friendly.

For example, you decided you are going to start crocheting. Don’t buy a lot of yarn. Start out with the basics.

If you start making paper crafts like cards, you can purchase pre-made “colored” and folded cards and envelopes.

Next, you want to make sure to fit your crafts into something that you have at home, something that fits your style and current home decor.

Dollar stores are a treasure chest of craft supplies. You can find all kinds of things to use - bottles, vases, jars, baskets. Look at the items not for what they are but what they could become.

Lastly, it’s a good idea to keep some basic craft supplies around.

You don't have to go wild. But keeping around items that you can use for different projects.

For organizing tips and checklists, visit my "Free Goodies" page on my website at https://www.timewithpam.com/book-a-call-1-d25afb1b-17e6-4dcf-9d85-ea058eee373c and download a freebie to help you organize your life!

Do you need guidance on organizing your home and/or business? How about checklists, templates and worksheets? Coaching? How-to's? Get on the wait list for the launch of the Time Creators Society and ditch the overwhelm and feel at ease with organizing!

https://www.timewithpam.com/timecreatorssociety

Does your digital life need decluttering? Oh my goodness. It can get to be a mess, right?  So the first thing is email, oh my gosh email. I don’t know how many emails you can get in a day, but it can be a lot. If you don’t stay on top of it, it can get to be overwhelming and you want to give up on trying to organize your email at all.

So I've got some tips and tricks that may help.

These are some things that you can add to your decluttering list. It’s good to do this every once in a while. It feels good to clean up your computer and also helps make your devices run faster. It also can make your phone run faster if you get rid of some of the photos and things that you don't need.

For more organizing tips and tools, visit my "Free Goodies" page on my website at https://www.timewithpam.com/book-a-call-1-d25afb1b-17e6-4dcf-9d85-ea058eee373c and download a freebie to help you organize your life!

Do you need guidance on organizing your home and/or business? How about checklists, templates and worksheets? Coaching? How-to's? Learn more about the Time Creators Society and ditch the overwhelm and feel at ease with organizing!

https://www.timewithpam.com/timecreatorssociety

Would you love to learn three tricks to save you tons of money? I think these tips are really going to help you.

The first thing is that you can set up an organizational box and put it nearest the door you always go in and out of.

Tip number two is related to gift cards. Who doesn’t love gift cards? For me, it’s a hobby or book store card.  Did you know that there is over $1 billion a year not redeemed from gift cards?? Eeeks! When I saw that statistic, I was shocked! So, basically what is happening is that  someone is purchasing the gift card so the merchant already has their money. But, when someone doesn’t redeem the gift card, so much money is wasted.  I know I’ve been guilty of putting them in a drawer or basket and forgetting about them.

The third way that you can save money is to set reminders for things like birthdays. For example you have a family member that lives out of state and you need to ship birthday presents. You can set a reminder two weeks out. I like to use Google calendar and set up an alarm for this. But, you can use whatever works for you.

I hope these tips have helped and sparked some ideas for you on ways you can hopefully save a lot of money throughout the year - it all adds up!

For DIY organizing for your desk, visit my "Free Goodies" page on my website at https://www.timewithpam.com/book-a-call-1-d25afb1b-17e6-4dcf-9d85-ea058eee373c and download a freebie to help you organize your life!

Do you need guidance on organizing your home and/or business? How about checklists, templates and worksheets? Coaching? How-to's? Get on the wait list for the launch of the Time Creators Society and ditch the overwhelm and feel at ease with organizing!

So, a messy desk. Did you know that having an organized desk actually helps you feel empowered and creates a mindset shift?  Let’s talk about ways to make it fun, personal as well as less messy.

The first thing you want to do is do a complete sweep and clean your desk by taking everything off (and empty drawers if it’s been awhile since you’ve been through them). You could have boxes or bins and put the things you want to keep in one, the things you want to remove from your desk and maybe things that you just need to get rid of.  You can keep your computer or your laptop any electronics plugged in because you can work around those. A side note - make sure that you have those set up in a space that is really easy for you to use so that is ergonomic (you should be able to reach out your arm and touch your computer screen).

Some things you can do to give your desk some "fun flair."

I thought I’d get your creative juices flowing by finding ways to make your desk and work area fun and personal, but also functional and comfortable for you. You want to have plenty of room to get your work done, but also a space you like the feel of. We want to enjoy our work time too, right?

For DIY organizing for your desk, visit my "Free Goodies" page on my website at https://www.timewithpam.com/book-a-call-1-d25afb1b-17e6-4dcf-9d85-ea058eee373c and download the free checklist.

Do you need guidance on organizing your home and/or business? How about checklists, templates and worksheets? Coaching? How-to's? Get on the wait list for the launch of the Time Creators Society and ditch the overwhelm and feel at ease with organizing!

https://www.timewithpam.com/the-time-creators-society-wait-list

Feeling overwhelmed with all the things you need to get done - business, family, school and life? This process helps you organize your time so you feel accomplished and more in flow without being too structured.

That's why the Time Creators review process is a good way to get started in seeing how your day rolls out and where you are spending your time. Remember, it's important to give yourself grace and be kind to yourself and set realistic expectations. Can you realistically work on your business two days a week? That's okay!

So, after you've done this review and planned your day, look at the big picture. Did you include time for you and your family? Rarely does my week (or even my day) go exactly as planned. But it does help me to know what I should be doing at any given time and in turn it helps me be much more productive. Another way you can plan your week, is to "theme" each day and break out projects you want to accomplish on each day.

You can download the free Daily Planning System checklist at www.timewithpam.com.

Want to get more organized with your life? Check out the Time Creators Society at www.timewithpam.com/timecreators

I am a planner to the max and sometimes I can overdo it. Sometimes I would even waste more time planning than actually getting things done. The Time Creators system is a good way to get started in seeing how your week rolls out and where you spend your time. Remember, it's important to give yourself grace and be kind to yourself and set realistic expectations for yourself. Can you realistically work on your business two days a week? That's okay!

So, after you've done this exercise and planned your week, look at the big picture. Your pages might look overwhelming. But, don’t be overwhelmed. Rarely does my week (or even my day) go exactly as planned. But it does help me to know what I should be doing at any given time and in turn it helps me be much more productive.

It also helps me relax and have down time because I know when I should be working and when I shouldn’t be working.Now that you have your calendar together you can give it a trial run for a week or two to see how it goes. Obviously some days just don’t go as planned and that’s fine!

When I know I only have a certain amount of time to work with, things naturally get prioritized. I tried to make sure I did what task was most important first in the block so I had enough time. I also started getting better at knowing how long things took so I wouldn’t over-schedule a block.If this works for you, it will become a routine and it will flow easily for you.

To download this free planning system, visit my website at www.timewithpam.com.

Desk organization is something that can be fun and creative! Plus, did you know that it helps boost your productivity when your desk and workspace is organized to fit you and is also functional. Using one you already have at home "to try things out" is a budget-friendly way to make your office space fun and workable. It's a great way to test things out by using a DIY version to see if you like it before you invest a lot of money and/or time. 

It's fun to try organizing your entire office in a color scheme. For example, if you use mason jars (I loooove mason jars), you can decorate them with ribbons or washi tape in your themed colors. It helps create a customized mood in your office.

Consider an L-shaped desk. Now, I don't mean you  need to go out and buy an L-Shaped desk, but set up your desk with a "side" table or cabinet. It gives you more workspace without taking up a lot of extra room.

In this episode, I've also put together ideas of how you can set up your desk space so it's functional for you and how to make DIY office organization supplies. 

To obtain a copy of my free worksheet on DIY organizing, you can visit www.timewithpam.com and I'll send it out right away.

Enjoy!

This is Part 2 of using Clickup to organize your business and life. To download a how-to video and workbook for free, visit www.timewithpam.com

Time for a Click(Up) quick tip - You can save the lists you use all the time as Favorites and they show up at the top. For example, I have my links list, my "active to do," scheduled tasks, networking and leads lists saved as favorites.

All of these features are available on desktop as well as an App version.

I have put together videos that are easy-to-understand and most importantly, take intentional action quickly. Now, the videos would be super long if I went over every feature because there are a ton, but I'm going to cover the foundational steps to get you going.

Now, let's talk a bit about the views. I mentioned earlier the flexibility of being able to view your projects in many different ways in ClickUp.

This is the most powerful place to manage your tasks. You can sort and filter tasks by just about anything, batch edit tasks with the multitask toolbar and view all tasks across all Spaces.

This is a view you'll be familiar with if you've used Trello.

Box View

This is perfect for a team setting. You can see workflows and tasks.

Calendar View

You can drag and drop your tasks to your calendar AND when you two-way sync to your Google calendar, it takes it to a whole new level.

Gantt View

For the project managers! You can plan out projects, manage time spent and set deadlines. This is in the paid version.

Wiki and Doc View

Create, collaborate, and keep all your work in one place by creating wikis and docs for whatever you're working on.

Embed View

You can embed a Google doc, for example, and when you make edits to the document in ClickUp, it also updates your Google Doc. Great, huh?

Now, I know what you may be thinking...."Pam, I've used Trello or (insert another project management tool here) and I have all my boards set up." No worries! ClickUp allows you to import from other platforms. It's easy peasy.

MY VIEWS / WORKSPACES - This is a breakdown of how I have my Spaces, folders and lists set up. There are many ways to do this, you need to find what feels good and works for you.

Workspace - Pam's Workspace

Space #1 - Pam's Business

Space #2 - Personal

Folders & Lists

I know it can be hard to get started with organizing your time. I get it! I've been there. Try to think about those days when you feel like you're getting nothing done - you have distractions and interruptions and all you want to do is finish a project, write some content, spend time with family or maybe do something for yourself.

What if you had a way to automate, delegate and eliminate things from your list and know which items those are? There is a tool that can help you do just that. It's called ClickUp - it's a project management system, but way more than that - it's a super charged productivity tool. You can create documents, use it as a resource library, tracking, record videos (yep you can record videos right inside ClickUp), forms and so many automations and integrations.

Are your wheels turning? I have used Trello in my business for the past couple of years and don't get me wrong, I love Trello.  One of the things I don't like, though, is the limited "views" to mainly boards.  Hence, I researched many platforms - monday.com, todoist.com, 17hats, Asana but none had the flexibility in the way you process and organize information.  Then, I stumbled upon ClickUp and wow! It was like the streamers started falling from the sky and lights starting flashing (lol). I went through my checklist of what I was looking for and it had it all plus more including the flexibility I needed. It's also a free-forever plan with great features for free.

SOME REASONS I SWITCHED TO CL ICKUP:

I have created videos that walk you through how to set up your foundation for ClickUp. Just go to my website at www.timewithpam.com

How many of you can relate? You sit down at your laptop at 9 a.m. and before you know it, it's Noon and you wonder what you got done? Did you go down a rabbit hole on social media? Jump from project to project and not complete one? I totally get it. This happens to me too. But, I've implemented some tools that have helped.

First, scheduling "themed" days. For example, Monday may be a day to create plans, outline you're goals for the week and figure out what tasks you can batch together to get them done. Then, Tuesday may be your content day. You outline and write your Blog or Podcast (and then re-purpose parts to be your social media posts).  Wednesday may be lead generation day and networking. You get the idea. Now, when do you work on those projects?

Well, are you an early bird, a lark or a night owl? You want to work on your big projects and create when you're energy is the highest. For example, if you are a night owl and get up at 8 am, it may not be the best time in the am to work on your content planning. But, around 11 am to 1 pm you're energy is raring to go and you can get a lot done.   Some other key points.

Value Your Time: You need to set and limit your working hours. You own your own business to have time freedom and spend more time doing the things you love.  Well, being chained to your laptop doesn't do those things. It can create burnout and overwhelm. Also, when you limit your work time, you can be more productive. If you have only 3 hours to get work done, you’re more likely to stay focused and do what you need to do.

If you have set aside the whole day to work, you’ll probably pretty quickly go down a rabbit hole of checking Facebook and it turns into 2 hours, checking email or find other distractions. You're creating more pressure on yourself. It's about ease and flow. s

Embracing Technology: Technology is your friend. It can help you automate something in your business. It saves time and money. Do you have a welcome packet you send out to your new clients with their contract and invoice? You can automate this and put it on auto pilot.

Setting up Standard Procedures & Processes: This may take a little time in the beginning but once it's set up, all you do is go to that process and checklist and you're ready to start your project with ease and know what buttons to push. What you want to do is document every step of your process. Create an SOP (Standard Operating Procedure). This is totally flexible. Perhaps there's an extra step you can take out or something you can batch with another task. The idea is to have a clear way "standard" that you do things. Then, if you bring on a VA or other team members, you can show them the exact steps you follow to get things done.

It's about time...you're time. You want to have more ease in your business and less overwhelm...To help you organize your life, you can learn more about the Time Creators Society at www.timewithpam.com. It's an App (also available on desktop) that has templates, checklists, worksheets, processes, how-to's, time saving tips, home and business organizing, the list goes on and on.  My mission is to help you to do what you do best and I take care of the rest.

Time Creators Society - A one-stop place to organize your life so you can organize, streamline and go!

https://www.timewithpam.com/timecreatorssociety