Friday, July 16, 2010

Five Random Things: Organization Day

shaktidrops

"Shakti Drops Mandala" Print of Mixed Media Original
(available in my etsy shop)


This week I have felt super busy, but haven't actually gotten a whole lot done.
Do you ever have weeks like that?
I was pretty jet-lagged at the beginning of the week, still flying high on Hawaiian time and so I was up all night every night and then exhausted and dragging during the day. Being away for several days also left me feeling behind on the tasks of keeping business up and running. 
In an attempt to catch up, I've been jumping around from task to task, catching up on emails, getting some new work started and it has felt completely unorganized and cluttered. 

I also taught my first scheduled yoga class at BLYS on Wednesday. I poured an incredible amount of energy into dreading and feeling fearful and doubtful about the class. It's amazing how much energy can be consumed by resistance! It always surprises me how the things I want most in my life (like becoming a yoga teacher), are also the things I am the most scared of. 

All in all, it's taken me the whole week to realize that I'm just not completely grounded.
So, in order to get myself back on track, 
I let go of my to-do list today and spent some time getting organized!

5 resources I'm using to help keep myself 
organized and motivated:

This blog, run by Charles Gilkey, has all kinds of daily tips about how to get creative, stay organized and   get things done. Also, he offers a whole bunch of planner templates which you can print out and use to organize your month, week and days! I printed out several and filed them into a binder which I am hoping will help to keep me organized!

I found this podcast series by a guy named Duff McDuffee and listened to an episode where he interviews another guy named John Wesley about letting go of shyness and becoming more confident. One of the points they made really stuck with me and is something I'm going to try on the next time I'm feeling dread and fear about my teaching. They talked about how if you believe you're cool (or in my case, if I believe I am confident), then I will be. If I believe that I am confident person, then others will believe it to. 
I've heard this same lesson before, have even written about it here. But a gentle reminder every once in a while is always a good thing, especially on a week of feeling a little less than confident.
(p.s I taught another class last night and went in with this attitude of believing I was confident and totally NAILED it. So there must be something to this.)

I ordered this book from Amazon and it arrived this week! I had the book Craft Inc. checked out from the library for a little while and found it very helpful. So I decided to get the business planner as well. I have begun to slowly work through it and it's helping me to organize and think about different aspects of running a creative business!

4.  Yoga Teaching Tracker
After printing out all the planner sheets from the Productive Flourishing website, 
I decided to make a couple of my own. The one below is a way for me to keep track of my teaching schedule and what it is I'm teaching and a place for notes/thoughts about how the class went, ideas for next time and that kind of thing. If I can figure out how to make and share this as a pdf, I will put it up here on my blog for anyone who wants it! (If anyone knows how to do this, please let me know!)

yogateachtracker
This is yet another helpful blog that I stumbled upon this week! This one has lots of great tips for de-cluttering and staying organized in my home and office. I'm planning on spending a few hours this afternoon and this weekend cleaning and organizing my living and working spaces, which have gradually deteriorated in their level of organization over the last few weeks. I learned from my mom that it is much easier to live and work in a clean, organized space then a messy one.
After this week of cluttered craziness (and not actually being all that productive) I am thinking that there might be something to this. Thanks mom!

What do you do to stay organized? 
What do your time management/planner/tracker systems look like?


Have a wonderful weekend!

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6 comments:

Theresa said...

I am in the midst of going to that place where I won't be getting things done like I want per say. I am getting ready to go out of town and then will be readjusting and catching up when I get back~ I love using a daily to do list with my high priority items to make sure at least they get done.
All my best, Theresa

jacqueline said...

This is inspiring!! Thanks soo much for sharing your resouces! Have a lovely merry happy weekend and love to you!

Lessons Learned said...

HI, I came over from Flying Lessons! Thanks so much for sharing your resources. Those Craft Inc. books look amazing. I'm following you. I did Yoga for a while and haven't done it in a long time. I should get back into it.

Kat said...

Thanks for posting the resources Eliza! And keep working on acting confident, the actual feeling will follow. A few years ago after taking some big risks at work and just diving off into something new, a guy at work described me as "fearless." I was shocked, I mean, couldn't everyone see that I was full of fear? Apparently not. And, over time, the fearlessness has become less of an act and more of who I am now. It will come.

wildflowr said...

Wow- I love your blog concept and this post was really informative. I teach bellydance and paint so I identity with you! ;)
I have led classes I call the 'Dancing Paintbrush' combining my need for physical movement with mental/creative/visual expression.
Art Asana is really cool!
Hope you are able to find success in your organization attempts ;)

gina said...

We all need those organization days sometimes. I've been in a flurry of creating and now I have to start cleaning up and getting stuff done. Thanks for sharing your resources.

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