Top Tips for Organizing Your Creative Life | 3 Minutes

Good morning, Believe Nation. Today's message is organize yourself. Over to you, George Carlin.

Write everything down. You have to write. You have to write, write, write, write, write. Write all your ideas down and classify them. My first boss when I was 18 told me that. He said, find a folder, put your ideas on paper. Any idea you don't think you can use it now, if it seems useful, put it down on paper and then classify it, 'cause good ideas don't mean anything unless you can find them again. Yeah, you can't go through a pile of papers 10 years old of notes. You have to, now you can use a computer. I had, before that, I had index cards and things. You have to be able to find. Race, religion, business, government, politics, men and women, sex, you know, all the different— and then those categories, you break them down into categories. So organize yourself.

I think a lot of entrepreneurs, and especially creative entrepreneurs, have a hard time staying organized. We're the creative cats, we're out creating new ideas, we're the visionaries, we've got all these things of what we want to accomplish. And then, you know, maybe you write a to-do list and it just keeps piling up, or maybe you forget about the idea. You had an idea and then poof, that inspiration is gone and you forgot about it. And so the two things that I do that really help are: one, every time I get an idea, I email it to myself. It's just an easy way to keep track of what's going on, any of these that I have. I used to stay up all night because I would think about this idea and then I'd be so stressed out and worried that I would forget the idea the next day that I wouldn't be able to sleep. And so if I get an idea, I'll just email myself and then, "Poo, okay, I'll know I'll be able to deal with it." on Friday. The second thing is tied into that is when I'm out with my wife for personal time or doing something else or having a meeting and I need my attention to be on here and not on this new idea I have, I find that again sending out an email makes sure that I'll be able to deal with it when I have the time to do it as opposed to being distracted and spending all my time thinking about this idea instead of doing what I'm supposed to be doing right now. Then on Friday what I'll do is I'll go through all these ideas and I'll categorize them. And I'll figure out, okay, which one has to deal with salsa, which one has to deal with my YouTube channel, which has to do with my business, which one has to do with personal stuff, or vacation stuff, or travel stuff, or speaking, or new gear, whatever it is, right? I classify it so that I can put it into my schedule of when I'm gonna deal with it. And some of them are just ideas for the future. And so that process, I find, really helps me because otherwise I forget a lot of the ideas that I have. And it's frustrating. So I know as a creative person, staying organized and finding a way that works for you can be really beneficial. And that's what works for me. So the question of the day today is, I'm curious, how do you guys stay organized? What are some of the top things that work for you in your business, in your life to help you stay organized? For those of you who are creative cats who aren't very organized, maybe you can learn something from the people who are commenting below as well. So leave it in the comments below and I will join the discussion. I also want to give a quick shout out to Kathleen Gordias. Kathleen, thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book. It really, really means a lot to me. I appreciate that support. For those of you watching, if you want your chance at a shout out in a future video, make sure to grab a copy of the book. It's really, really good, I promise you. And also email in your receipt so we can keep track and send you the free bonuses. Thank you guys so much for watching. Have an amazing day. Continue to believe, or whatever your one word is. And I'll see you again tomorrow morning for another shot of espresso.