Happy 2021 Fv Fam! We made it to another year. *smiley face*. Let’s kick off 2021 with a post to help you stay as organized as possible. I get asked a lot how I manage to do it all. How I juggle everything I do while still having time to have fun and enjoy life. If you are a content creator or blogger, then you know how many different things you are juggling and how hard it can be to get it all done. There is always something to do and something you could be working on. I currently work as a full time blogger and work with various brands to create content for them. I create content for them to use on their socials, non sponsored content for my community and content for branded campaigns as well.

I also started a new home decor rug import business with John (Casa Brixe) last year (which has been a challenge), but I still have plenty of time to do things that are purely for fun (like roller skating or going on a road trip to create content just for fun). I am also currently working on a Course for you guys that I hope to to have ready to sell very soon! I am busy for sure, but I am a huge believer in never being so busy that you don’t get to enjoy life. If you are stressed all the time, then whats the point?

At the beginning of 2020, I knew that it was going to be crazy, jam packed and full of new challenges. I remember sitting down when my husband and I launched our new business and asking myself what I was going to do to stay organized, efficient and most importantly, sane. I made it my goal to not get carried away in the hustle and stay hyper organized in order to tackle it all in a less stressful and more efficient manner. In an effort to help you guys as well I want to share what changes I made to my life that really helped me stay organized and on track and what I do on the daily to help me reach my goals.

I asked for help

First thing I did was figured out where I needed help. What would help me be more efficient with my time and money? I knew that I was in over my head with two businesses plus wanting to finish a workshop. Remember, I have ADD and its super hard for me to organize my thoughts so I tend to multi task like crazy when unchecked.  As you know, Multi- tasking can be very unproductive so that is no bueno. I hired a Business coach (LOVE HER)  to help me understand how to better organize my days and understand where my attention was most needed and how to prioritize it.

Here’s what I was mainly struggling with and how we tackled the problem together:

Problem : I always felt I didn’t get enough done in a day. I would complain to my husband about my lack productivity and he would always say ” You work all day! What are you doing if not getting stuff done?”.

Solution: I created a daily and monthly schedule on excel to track what I needed done and what my goals were. My random messy written down lists of things I needed done and daily planner books weren’t really working for me for some reason.  My coach helped me organize myself using Excel. I hated excel until last year! Now every Sunday I sit down and plan my week out and every month I look over my month ahead.

Scheduling my days of the week by the hour helped me tremendously. As I finish a task, I highlight it green. If I don’t get it done, I highlight it red and yellow for unfinished but in progress. At the end of the day, when I look back at what I highlighted, I can actually see my progress now of what I did and did not get done. The highlighting was CRUCIAL to help me feel productive and at ease at the end of the day. It can be easy for it to all become a blur which makes it seems like you did nothing when in fact you did SO MUCH.  Below is an example of what my daily schedule looks like (blank). At the bottom you see there are different dates, I just duplicate the form and continue it every week.

Separating the tasks by roles like “ceo” “sales, marketing” Personal” and clumping like roles together instead of jumping from one role to the other really helps with focus and efficiency as well!

Problem: All the little tasks I had to get done to complete one big goal would get lost. For example, things like, sending in my insights to my manager to show brands for a collaboration, sending money to our artisans that make our rugs, remembering to connect Facebook shop to our Instagram or fixing a bug on the website,  shipping out a depop package I sold. Without having these all in an organized space, they would get lost and my progress would be slow or things would never get done

Solution: I started using ASANA. I love Asana so much!!! It’s especially helpful for the business I run with my husband. It’s so well organized, easy to use and just helps keep everything on track. Basically you can have as many projects as you like with as many tasks as you like within each project. My husband and I have a weekly meeting to go over what our weekly tasks are for our business. Then we write them down in Asana and assign things to each other. When it’s done you can easily write DONE and you can both see the progress and stay on track. There’s so much more you can do with Asana. I even use it to keep larger projects and tasks for Frank Vinyl in order.

I built a team

If it wasn’t for my team I would not be able to get anything done. It would take me forever! I have spent a lot of time and effort finding the right team members. Hiring a team is a personal choice but for me it was worth the money. Like they say, you got to spend money to make money. Having a team allows me to fully focus on creating quality content.

I have a manager who responds to all my emails, does my pitching, helps with negotiating brand deals and keeps all my collaborations in order and looks over contracts for me. I also hired a graphic designer this year to help me get shizz done when I am too busy or need something done asap. She helps with my newsletter graphics, Liketoknow.it collages, blog graphics and more. People always ask me why I have a graphic designer if that’s what I studied in school, but the answer is simple. TIME… and time is money.

I also have a web coder who helps me with my blog whenever there are issues. I found him on UPWORK which is an amazing place to find anyone for web coding, html, shopify, wordpress or that kind of stuff. I’ve been working with him for years now so I know I can always rely on him and it wont cost me a fortune. I also have a few different photographers I work with often, my husband and a close friend who I have been training for years to help me shoot photos when I need them.

I have a content calendar + collaboration tracker

The only way to stay on track with my content for my blog and my IG (for both FV and CB) is to have a content calendar. I have a whole post on why this is so important and what mine looks like so make sure to check it out! For my Rug import business, I take a day out of the week to pre-plan 5-7 of the next posts on IG so they are ready to go. For FV, I have a collaboration tracker on Excel that has all my frank vinyl collabs written down. It looks something like this (blank) :

I check both of these every day. My manager fills in the collaboration tracker for me and makes sure all the important information is there and up to date but  you could totally do it yourself if you don’t have a manager. This helps so much to have everything in one place instead of having to look at a calendar, open up a contract or search through emails every time you need some information.

I separate work and play

I always make sure to stay on a schedule because it is the best way to separate work and play. I try to stick to a 9-5  Monday – Friday schedule whenever possible just so I have time to do yoga, skate, hang with John, do house stuff (like laundry or clean the dishes) on the time off. Luckily with my job I can move my hours around, but mostly stick to it about 85% of the time. I find this is so much more productive in the end. If I don’t find time to play then my creativity just gets bogged down and my content suffers. Not only that but my personal life also begins to suffer. Making sure I have time for my brain and soul to recharge is my top priority and should be yours as well!

I hope you found this helpful!  Let me know if you have any questions. Email me or DM me on IG.

xx Francesca