[Transcript starts at 1:16]
Hello, hello, hello my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. So we're gonna jump right into the episode today because we're talking about organization and I love that. Uh, today's episode is inspired by a DM request from my guy, Andrew, shout out to Andrew.
Folks, if you have questions or requests for podcast episodes, please slide into the DMs. Shoot me a text, 3 1 0 7 3 7 2 3 4 5. I love them and they're super helpful. Like, yes, I love creating content, but sometimes you're like, huh, what should I talk about? And it is amazing when someone's like, “Hey, can you talk about this?”
Heck yeah, I can talk about this. So we are going to be talking or responding to andrew's question that I'm going to read in one second. But of note, while Andrew did ask about organizing, let me use his exact words, organizing all of everything in your life, um, while he did ask about that, we are actually going to be talking more about organizing information because that is what he specifically asked about.
And I'm gonna read the question that he, that he posed. Y'all know that I love batching as it relates to organizing your days and organizing your energy and managing your energy. So if that's something that you're wanting to hear more about, please check the previous episodes that I've done about that.
My girl, Courtney- thank you- will link those for you in the show notes. Uh, and my boy JoeJoe will link those in the YouTube notes. It's got, I got a Rupert hair. It's flying by me. It's flying by me. Okay. All right. So Andrew's question, here, here's what he said. Here's part of what he said. Something I would love to learn about, and if I missed this episode, my apologies, but how do you organize all of everything in your life?
I know I need to be creating more than consuming, still working on that, but even the things that resonate with me and I want to carry with me, I have Google Docs, notebooks, random post-its, et cetera, as reminders of some of my favorite conversations or quotes or things to carry into my business, and then I never revisit because I have no idea where anything is.
It might be helpful to know how you organize info for your own mastermind, for podcasts, events you might attend. Where do you keep it all?
So of note, just the way he asked this, there was a before part and an after part and he's just super complimentary and just seems very kind. So thank you for the way that you ask this Andrew, and thank you for asking it.
Uh, and again, I'm inviting any of you who may have requests or questions to ask them. So we're gonna break this episode down into three parts, with the middle part being kind of the action step. The first part is simply the fact that I do this too. I have a zillion whiteboards. I have one right next to me on my big desk.
I have a massive one that Forrest helped me put up. It's like 60 inches wide. It's glass. That company needs to do something about that because they don't have an installation company they partner with and this thing is huge and heavy. Uh, I have two in the garage. Um, I have one on my, um, one on my fridge, I have this thing called Aqua Notes.
We'll, in the show notes. And yes, it is an affiliate. Um, cause it's through Amazon, but I have this thing called Aqua Notes that I can use to write in the shower. Um, anytime that I go to a conference, I am bringing a notebook. I have a million notes in my phone. I have all the things and I write all the things down.
But where we differ with this, cuz he said he has all these things written down everywhere, as do I. But where we differ with this is that I write things down not because I plan on ever going back to them. I honestly do not plan on going back to most things. Uh, it's actually quite funny when I was teaching for rock tape and then teaching my own course, you know, people ask for the slides and I'm happy to give them to them, but I'm like, does anybody actually go back and look at these things?
And maybe you're listening to this and you're like, I actually do. Good for you. I think that you're in the minority. Um, I do not write stuff down because I plan on going back. I write things down because it helps me internalize these ideas. It helps me integrate these ideas and it saves me the mental energy of trying to remember it.
Right. We've all had that where you're like, before I did a, I did a reel about this. Maybe I'll have Courtney link that. Thank you. Um, way back I did a reel about this. How if you're going to bed and you have an idea in your head, You must write it down because that thing is going to be gone in the morning.
But before we do that, we usually sit in bed, waste so much time, so much energy, and we're like, remember the thing. Remember the thing. Remember the thing. We're gonna do the dance inside of that thing, and we're gonna write on that thing. And then, then the reveal's gonna look like this and we just like repeat it to ourselves.
And then in the morning, that shit is gone. It's always gone. And we spend so much mental energy trying to remember it. So I write it down so that I can internalize it, I can integrate it, and then so I don't have to spend mental energy trying to get myself to remember it. I actually don't plan on ever going back to it, and I probably won't.
I have a bunch of things I'm looking over. If you're on YouTube, you can see I have a bunch of things written on this whiteboard that are there, and it was just like, I need to write it down because it's a concept that came up and I want to kind of work through it and if I come back to it, great, but probably won't come back to it and at some point I'll have that very, um, I don't know, it's kind of like cathartic moment of like, it just feels good when you erase the board. But I get that feeling of like, oh, I don't wanna erase it cuz maybe I totally get that.
Where we're flipping the script here is that I am not intending to go back to these things. I think that, you know, part of the reason we write stuff down, um, when we are, you know, at a, at a course or at a conference, and we're like, oh yeah, that's good. I think it stems from excitement, right? We're excited about that thing.
It seems like, yeah, like we're making connections and we're like, oh yeah, like I can just help my people or it makes sense, you know, in relation to the things that I normally do. But then once that excitement wears off, we're good and life comes back into play. I mean, you don't really have time to go back to that, that stuff.
This, few tangents here. Or a few, uh, subpoints here. This is number one why I encourage posting in the moment and not putting things into your drafts because it speaks to that excitement. You'll have an idea and you'll be like, oh, this is really good. And then you wait till the next day and then you're like, eh.
It doesn't really, it doesn't hit the same. It doesn't hit the same. I strongly, strongly suggest that you post. Don't put it in drafts. Or Instagram does have a cool new feature that actually allows you to schedule posts. I've never been a fan of post schedulers and we can talk about that later. Um, but Instagram does have a post scheduling feature now.
You have to go all the way through, like you're gonna post it, you go to advanced settings, and it's an option in there that you can schedule when it's gonna post. I would suggest doing that because we know when that excitement wears off, and then we don't really wanna post it anymore.
The action item here, if you're like, okay, I get it, I can kind of like internalize this idea of, or conceptualize this idea of, you know, writing things down just to, to have them, but not necessarily needing to go back to them. But I still want like, a little bit of organization to it. Cool. My suggestion there is to keep things centralized.
For me everything that's like actually quote unquote important will go into my notes section at some point. I'm typically using the whiteboards to flesh things out. It's not things that like I have to remember. It's like, okay, let me kind of process this idea. Anything that I know that I may wanna revisit, I put into my notes.
What if you're a Droid person? I think Google Keep is the app. Figure out, find something. Um, I like using Notes cuz I'm all Apple and this way I can put it in my phone and then I can open up my computer, open it up, my laptop, whatever. This way, everything is in the same place. And we're gonna take it a step farther and we are going to have different folders.
So one, this allows things to be searchable because it's in your Notes section. But then we can have some organization to things by having the different folders. I have a bunch of different folders. If you don't know how to make folders on, um, Notes, Google it. I'm not gonna do that for you. I do have a post, but you have to scroll way, way, way back.
Um, I'm just looking at mine right now. I'm looking at my notes right now, and I have a daily Maestroisms. Remember those? I got a Daily Mastroisms folder. I have a broadcast channel folder now. I have general ideas, Intensive, Legacy, Maestro, Mafia, Marketing slash Branding, Moving with the Maestro- remember that? Throwing It Back. Newsletter, podcast, post ideas, quotes, rock tape posts. Alright clearly this goes back. Rupert. Social media responses.
Um, storytelling. The book. You know, I would like to write a book at some point maybe, but I got some things written down for now. Um, TikTok, back when I was doing that. To do, Twitter, volleyball, YouTube. I have a bunch of different folders, and then within the folders I have different notes. And this way I can always go back if I want and, and scroll through things.
And one of the ways that I will use this is actually for things like a podcast where if I'm like, I don't have any ideas today, I have a running list within the podcast, um, folder that I can always go to. Notes are great cuz you can put pictures in there, um, like inside of the actual note. Um, I'm sure if you're using your, like, using a laptop, not a laptop, a, um, what is it called?
A, I want to say tablet, but that's not what it is. An iPad. Like it is a tablet, but like, it's like a, you know, not cool way to say it. If you're using an iPad then you can write and things like that. I have terrible handwriting so I wouldn't do that. Um, but it allows you to have some organization in a centralized location for all of your things.
You know, maybe you want to do a folder that's quotes that I've heard. And then you just put separate notes within inside of that folder. This way it's all in one place. I also suggest having albums in your phone for your pictures as well. So, you know, I have thousands and thousands of pictures and I actually have more videos than pictures.
But if I screenshot something, usually it's testimonials. Um, and I run a few different programs. If I screenshot it, then I can put it right into the folder. You could also move it into notes. It's your choice. But for me, it's easier to have it in albums in, uh, my phone. The photo album. So if you're like, yeah, I get it, I probably won't revisit these things, but I wanna have them and I want some organization to it.
Cool. Then let's centralize it. I recommend using your phone cuz you always have your phone with you and then you can have all the things in there.
The second point here, and this is the action item. The true action item and why I actually don't feel the need to go back to any of these things is because I am a huge fan of immediate implementation.
The only person who's faster is probably Jill. Um, This often for me looks like immediately creating content. Um, I've heard, I hear a concept, I, I hear something, a quote. Even if I, I was watching a thing that, what was I watching? I'm watching a Ramit's course and there was two quotes that were in the course and I just tweeted them cuz I was like, this is good stuff.
I'm gonna create content for it immediately. Back in my PT days, my physical therapy days, this looked like going into clinic and immediately implementing one thing, one single thing from the course. Because that book is gonna be there, right? That, that big ass book that they give you, or now that I think a lot of them are digital, but either way you can, if you want, go back to that.
But let's turn that energy in our brain instead of using it to try and remember something, go and implement and go and actually learn. This is something that I spoke about from the presenta, from the presenter side of thing in episode 4 45, which was titled, Best Practices for Hosting Your First Live Event. Courtney.
Thank you. Um, but what I used to do when I was actually teaching my own courses was at the end I'd have a summary slide and I would tell people, pick one thing from this slide, and that summary slide would have the major points that I wanted people to take away from the course; the things that we had gone over during the course, and I told them, pick one thing and go back on Monday and implement it.
If there was time we could go around the room and say what people were gonna implement, but this way you're not wasting or using up brain space trying to like remember things and then just being like upset that you're like, but I can't remember where anything is. You take it back and you implement immediately.
Uh, most recently for me, I am currently taking Ramit's Endless Audi- Endless Audience. It's a self-paced program. It's pretty good so far. Um, and I got through the first module and literally sent out an email that he suggested sending out. I sent it out that night. So it wasn't like, oh, let me wait and like, write this down somewhere.
I was like, my friend, I'm gonna do it right now. I'm gonna go and do it right now. And this way I'm immediately implementing. Um, I'm reading this book Competent- by reading, I mean listening to it on, on Audible. I'm reading this book, Competition Demystified. I'm in this kind of like pseudo fake mastermind.
It, it's, I say fake cuz we don't pay for it. But one of the guys in there, Jim, he, I really, really value and respect the things that he says and things that he suggests. And he's brought this book up twice. So we actually decided on the last call, we're like, we're doing a book club and we're gonna talk about it in two months.
He was like, should we talk about it next month? And I was like, who are you kidding? It is gonna take me a much longer to get through. This is a long book. Um, but I am currently listening to it on audiobook and yes, I do take notes as I go. They are in my, um, Note section of my phone. Um, they're in the Maestro folder for those of you are wondering cause I don't read that many books.
I, I could by all means start a new folder that's books I've read. And then within that have, you know, uh, a, a note for each book. But either way I take notes as I go again, so that my brain doesn't waste energy trying to like, remember the thing. But the main thing that actually helps me is that I integrate it immediately.
Um, and so in that case we, they're talking heavily about, um, what is it called? Uh, competitive advantage. And so like that night, I'm thinking about how that relates to my industry. I am on coaching calls with people and thinking about, okay, let's talk about competitive advantage. Let's discuss how you can actually create that.
Do you have that? How can we lean on that? So I'm not worried about like, I gotta to go Rizzy visit that thing. I'm using it right now. I'm integrating it right now so that I actually remember it. Um, I saw a quote recently. I probably was in James Clear's email and I did make a story about this, so I made content immediately.
Um, but it was something, something along the lines of if you want to learn, quickly, read, if you want to learn deeply, do. I am paraphrasing it, but that is what stuck with me. Um, cause I went and talked about it quickly. Um, but this is why I want the action steps, right? It may not be as fast, but you're actually going to internalize that and you're not gonna be like, oh, what was that thing?
And like, uh, and I have to try and remember it and like, oh, it's all scattered over the place. Implement immediately. Do. If you want to learn deeply. Do.
Uh, and then lastly is just, again, reiterating this idea of using these things right away. Um, and using this language that you've just gained these concepts this right away to create content.
And this isn't about like, oh, I'm gonna go say that I'm a expert in this and now I can just like teach the world. No, it's just integrating it and sharing your thoughts, figuring out a way to put it in your own words, not just reciting it, although maybe that's how you learn. Okay. You can start with that.
But for me it's how can I actually re- restate this. How can I actually explain this? Um, perfect example, broadcast channels. So they just came out for Instagram and I made a Reel about it, but I read a whole like thing about it on online. I Googled it to see kind of what it was, and then the video wasn't me just reading it. It wasn't me just reading what that article said. It was, let me put my own spin on this. Let me, how would I explain this? And the way that I explain the Broadcast channel is that it's basically a mass group DM, but only the person who's created it, the person that's created the Broadcast channel can post things and share things. Everybody else can just react to it.
So this idea of immediate implementation will help you actually, one, implement, two, integrate, three, utilize these things so you're not like, oh, but where is that? Where's that thing go and implement right away.
And point number three, this is the final point, is acceptance.
I did a post about this the other day on Instagram. We'll link that. Thank you, Courtney. And in the post I said, sometimes the answer isn't better time management, but rather better expectation management and simply accepting how much you can actually get done in a certain amount of time. I think this ties into this question that was asked because it's not necessarily that this per- that Andrew, or you, actually need more organization, that may not be the case.
It may need to be that you accept that, Hey, I write stuff down and I collect all this stuff and I'm never gonna go back to it. And that's okay. I have made peace with that. It's, it is enough for me to know that I have it if I want it, and by really leaning on step number two, which is immediate implementation, I know that I'm getting out the stuff that I really want, or I'm internalizing the stuff that I really want.
I'm taking away the stuff that I really want, and if I want, I can go and find that other stuff, which we talked about. You want a little bit of a better organizational strategy is just to centralize it so it's all in one place and you can actually search it.
Right. So there you have it. There is a different app- approach.
Wow. There is a different approach to organizing your quote unquote life.
Step one, understand or not step one, just point number one, understand that I do it too. And I say that not cuz I'm like, oh, some big person. But because you're not alone, I think most of us do this. Two, my action item for you is to implement immediately.
And then number three, accept that this is how things are and that it is, okay.
All right, we gonna wrap it up there. I'm enjoying these shorter episodes and I am really enjoying receiving questions, suggestions, requests from you folks. Yes. I'm pushing it because it's really cool to hear, right? I am, you know I've said it a million times, recording a podcast can be very unidirectional. Like I'm just talking at the camera, talking into the mic to myself. Uh, so I appreciate endlessly knowing that you folks are listening.
Like I see the res, the reviews that you've left, like and the stars, like you folks are, are freaking awesome. And if the spirit moves you and if you have a question, please by all means, shoot me a DM @themovementmaestro, drop me a comment on YouTube, shoot me a text, 3 1 0 7 3 7 2 3 4 5.
I love, love love to hear from you. All right, and officially wrapping it up. Until next time, friends, Maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
MOTM #278: Batch Your Time to Get More Done
MOTM #444: Breaking Down My Weekly Schedule
You NEED Aqua Notes
MOTM #445: Best Practices for Hosting Your First Live Event
My post on expectation management
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