Between TikToks, Reels, Brand Partnerships, Home Renovations, Website Renovations, Course Launches, Content Creation and … oh yeah, life, I know what it’s like to be overwhelmed by it all. Feeling like it’s hard to balance and maintain healthy work/life boundaries while staying on top of everything you have to do. Whether you’re just getting started or just starting to get overwhelmed, I am going to share some tools to help you stay organized as a Content Creator!
There is no “One Size Fits All” to maintain a healthy work/life balance
Maybe you’re a visual learner, maybe you need alarms, or you need to physically write it down. Either way, if it’s not working for you, right now, it’s not working. A huge part of tackling 2022 is figuring out how to stay on top of everything now in the first month of the first quarter. You want to start forming healthy habits to maintain a good work/life balance, so let’s dive in!
Phone vs Paper
You might find an old school planner works best if:
You’re The Type of Person Who Hits So Many Times the Alarm Auto Turns Off
Writing down tasks, appointments, doodling and taking notes by hand promotes better information recall vs just copying and pasting and much like coloring, can help to reduce stress and anxiety.
One new digital product that I’ve been working on is a printable content calendar! (If this is something you are interested in, make sure to comment below!) Monthly calendars are great for big due dates and planners can help you jot down ideas for batch content shooting, creative concepts, email addresses and more. I recommend picking ones with a lot of room for notes and that are in the colors you most often use for your feed, ensuring they catch your eye often.
You might need to outsource to an app if:
You’re The Type Of Person Who Buys a Planner Every Year and Only Uses It For A Month
Yeah. I called you out. Buy the planner as a prop for your photos and videos but then head over to the App Store and download Trello. Not only is it visually engaging, it can cleanly and effectively organize everything from meetings and projects to events and goal setting. And if you’re starting to expand your growing empire? Add them in and the intuitive workflow will help you navigate your goals efficiently as a team.
I personally use Trello to organize all of my content ideas and love it! Above is an example of how I would organize my brand collaborations, from email pitches to completed campaigns.
Budgeting as a content creator
If you know me, you know I love spreadsheets. I have an excel sheet for everything. So here’s me hoping some of that excel sheet love rubs off on you, because even if you’re just getting started, or you’re part time, you’re going to want to start tracking your income and expenses (especially if you don’t have a separate business account). Not only will this help with budgeting for things like bills, and track when those pesky net 30-90 day payments should be coming in, but it’ll also come in handy for tax season.
If you don’t feel like making your own excel sheet you can use this Google Docs Template or, for an even easier way to track (and even take pictures of your receipts) download QuickBooks Accounting.
Utilize Photo Albums
If you’re not already using your phone’s photo albums to organize all your feed posts and story slides, I’m about to introduce the most simple way to efficiently find everything you need for brands and posting.
Create a folder in your phone and title it “Brand Collabs”, or anything you want to title it so that you know the folder is dedicated for all of your collaboration content. In that folder, create an album and name it something like BRAND NAME (DRAFT DUE DATE) and save your submitted stories, photo, video and any other content in there. You later change it to the posting date when it’s approved (as shown in my first screenshot above).
Same goes for any of your “regular” content that you batch created and edited. You can even title that album as something along the lines of “Monday-Friday posts” solely for this purpose.
BONUS: iPhone users can even save captions and important hashtags in the image description feature (as seen in the second and third screenshots above). So no need to scramble through email threads looking for what your approved caption is!
Make your phone work for you and never lose track of content among your thousands of other photos.
Plan “Me-Time” If You Have To for a better work/life balance
I talked about work/life balance on my Instagram last week and overwhelmingly most of you said taking time away from social media is hard. So I’m here to tell you, if you need to write down me-time, off time, if you need to silence notifications after 9pm just to get yourself away. Do it. Burnout is real. You have to take care of you to take care of business.
I hope these organization tools help you find the balance you deserve to hit all your big goals for this year. If you’re looking for more tips, make sure to check out my post on How To Balance Time As An Influencer. Feel free to share any other organization tips so we can all learn in the comments below!
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Eek sounds so overwhelming, but I’m sure that it will fall into place once you get into a rhythm of things.