How to Organize Your Creative Ideas

1. Introduction: Do you ever get a pot full of inspirational ideas? Just pop corning all over the place. Great and wonderful and you don't want to forget them. So you write them down somewhere, anywhere, maybe in a random notebook or on a piece of paper, on a post-it. Or maybe you typed them up on your computer or you dictate them onto your phone. And so later when you have a spare moment to work on one of those grand ideas. Well, you can't find it anywhere. What was that idea again, or where did I put it? What file or folder? What book or paper? Hi there. I'm an yesterday snack, an artist from France. Apart from doing art and teaching, something within me, loves to organize, plan, and set things up. So this is the part of me that you'll get to see today in this class. But I also got into a chaotic mess once upon a time with all those great ideas flying all over the place. Until I realized that all that just took up so much mental space and brain energy that I could be instead using up on focusing on those creative ideas or on the project that needed to get done. Today. I work very differently, of course, after many trials and fails on the way. But I think that's what's led me to so crazy about organization. And so today I'm going to share with you one cool organizational tip that has worked really well for me and still continues to work for me today. As I create courses or maybe start on a book project or illustrate a children's book. I might even use these ideas for a big home project or renovating project, a decluttering project. Most of all is just categorizing all those wonderful, great ideas and inspirations. Having a place where you can put it all and see it, visualize it all into one place. Instead of my mind going a little bit all over the place with just a little time of planning and organizing and prioritizing. You'll notice that you'll get all those ideas just working in perfect harmony. So let's get started on this colorful, artsy organizing. I'll see you in class. 2. Materials Needed: Here are the materials that I use for creating my organizational plan. I chose to work with a picture frame with just a plain white background. Quite big because that's the size that I wanted to work with and it's the size that I want to post on my wall. If you don't have a picture frame or if you want something smaller, you could also use just a regular piece of paper. This is an A3 sheet of paper. Next, I will be using four different colored papers. So I've picked out green, yellow, pink, and blue. Since I didn't have blue, I'm just using a vellum paper. But go ahead and choose any four colors that you would like, or as many as you will need. You can start with Ford. And as you go through the course, you can decide if you want to use more colors or less. It's really up to you. Next, I will choose four colors of post-its. So again, I'm going with the four colors of my papers. Just a different shade of that color. Dislike everything color coordinated. As you can see. I've picked these four colors and to go along with my four different colors of post-its. I like the variety in colors, but at the same time, they're each a little different shade of that color. So that's it for my materials. Now, moving on to the supplies that I use. You will need some scissors, some tape, some glue. And I have a little piece of glue tack here. You will also need a pencil and some pens. See either a ballpoint pen or an ink pen. And if you would like a permanent marker just for something to stand out more. And you'll also need something round or different shapes. So I'm just using this candle. I'm just going to use the MID. If you have a compass, you can use that instead. Or maybe a cup or bowl. 3. Simplify Your Life: So in case you're like me, sometimes you just have an overload of ideas in your notebooks. Notepads, have another notebook and tons of papers or maybe post it's all over the place. Then I have to-dos and ideas on my phone. Then I have files on my computer. And I'm just getting an overload for my poor little brain and with ideas all over the place that get lost, I get forgotten about. Well, I don't need to tell you more of the problems because that's the reason you're here in the first place, I'm guessing. So let's move on to some solutions. Firstly, why do we want to get better organized? So for me, I like to ask myself those why questions? Because it keeps me motivated and it keeps me persevering to continuing on with my project. So you can get your little note pad or a piece of paper and start writing down the Y for you. What's your purpose? What's your name? So for me, I think my biggest y's are just as reminders. So I don't forget, important things are important ideas, inspirational ideas, because I feel that ideas are so quick to come and go. Also as a way to simplify my life, to sort and organize my ideas and to get it down on paper so it doesn't take up space in my mind. So I am pretty good at getting it down on paper as you saw in all my notebooks and papers. Problem with that is I couldn't find where I placed those papers or I didn't know which ideas were on which book or which patient zero or was it on my computer or my phone. I had a hard time remembering where I put those ideas. I think another big reason for me is that it improves productivity. I know exactly where I'm going with my goals. It definitely saves my time and energy from finding notes all over the place or trying to remember something. I guess the great thing about it is it also gets my mind thinking creatively with colors, shapes, and patterns. 4. Main Goal: We're going to move on to our main goal. And just before I get started with that, I just wanted to remind myself, remind you why I make time for this. Because you might just think, Oh, now it's taking time from, I could be working on a project or working on this particular idea. And yes, it's true it does take a bit of time. Planning, preparation, organization, it does take time, but in the end, you'll also see how it saves time. It saves energy time planning and organizing is not time wasted. So now, to get started with my main goal, I'm going to take my four different colored sheets of paper and also the lid of my candle, the circle shape. I'm going to draw that shape out using my pencil. And I'm going to do it twice. One on this color as well. I'm just going to cut them out two-by-two just to save a little time. First, I cut shape out to make it a little easier for myself. And then I'm cutting out a circle. These days are so many ways to get organized online. There's so many apps which can be very handy, very useful. Even I use some of them. But somehow having things on paper right in front of me just seems to do something to my brain. Not only is it bright and bold and clear, What I love about it is it also gives me the big picture. Because I get to see all of my ideas all in one, go one place. So I have my four circles. And the reason I'm using a different shape than a square is because I already have the square for my post-its. So I like it to stand out a little bit more and be very clear because these will be my main goals and how I will categorize all my ideas. So I'm just going to give you an example here of what I'm going to use these four. But of course, feel free to personalize it for you and write down on your papers what you would like to use them for. I asked myself, what is that main goal? What is the reason for categorizing, organizing all those inspirational ideas? Are you writing a book? Are you creating a course? You illustrating a book? Are you organizing your creative space? So in line with that, you can refer back to that project that you want to do. For me. I'm going to go back to my business plan just to remind myself of my mission, my purpose, my vision, and my goals, and see if these ideas tie along with my business plan. I think that's the first important step. Just so you can kind of narrow down your ideas and you're not just going all over the place. And so you can stay true to yourself to who you are. If I go back to the process for each thing that I've decided to create as part of my business. 5. Create Your Ideas: Alright, so now we're going to categorize our ideas. What I like to do is to break them down. We have our main ideas. So my main idea is creating a course. And because I have so many ideas all in one go and they're all pop corning everywhere. I'm just going to narrow them down a little bit. So that's the reason I've created these four circles. And I'm going to break them down all my ideas into four different categories. So again, you do this project for you in a way that is personalized to you and your goal at hat. And I'm going to use my marker to label each one. Productivity. Summer on the topic of self-care. Some are more mindfulness, and some are just artsy and creative. So I love to break them down into smaller goals because that just helps me to clarify them even more for myself. And why do I use circle shapes? Well, just because it's something different than the square root post-its. So again, it helps my eyes to focus on something different. And I used the different colors just as a clear overview to me, it just seeing the big picture, all colorful visual. It adds contrast to my white paper and the colors just pop out to the brain and gives me a reminder signal to look. I think that's why they came up with post-its really bright and fluorescent colors. 6. List Your Ideas: So now that I have my four categories, then we can go to the next section, which is listing or ideas. So now I'm going to gather all my notes, all my ideas from my notebook, my phone, my papers, and this is where I'm going to put them all together into one place. Again, making sure they're all in line with my purpose and my goals and my mission. So that's when the post-its come into place. So I can put these away for now. And I'm going to take my four colors. And I'm just going to take a few of each. I think for space sake, I'm going to cut them in half. So depending on your piece of paper or your picture frame, you could cut them in half. Or maybe depending on how many ideas you have, you could even cut them in fourths and quarters if you wanted to. I love post-its because depending on what you need to write, their space to write a sentence, a phrase, or word. You can even draw a picture. And if you don't want them as big, then you can just cut them out like this. I'm just going to place each color together. I just doing a couple for now. And I can always cut more to size later on if I need them. With blue, pink, green, and yellow. So they stand out enough, but at the same time they each have a different shade of that color, which is what I love. So you start with one that you would like. Thank you. Gather all your ideas that would fall into this topic. So I've already made a list for myself. And now all I have to do is just write each idea down on my post-it. And for that, I'm going to use either my pink pen or my ballpoint pen. It doesn't have to be as bold as my title, as my main goal. So this is anything related to artsy and creative. So I might be the only one to understand what it is or what it means, what it relates to. But that's okay because that's really what it needs to be. Needs to be clear to you, doesn't have to be clear to anybody else. As an example, I'm just going to do one of each idea related to self-care. So I'm going to take post-its footstep cover. My very last one. Alright, so I have one of each ideas just to give you an example, but feel free to add in as many as you need to, as many as you want to. And then we're ready to move on to the next class. 7. Prioritize: So now I will show you how I set up my board. So here I have my picture frame. I'm not sure if you can see the whole thing. It's too big to show on camera. So I will just show you the top. So you will need your little circles. And this is where my a little piece of glue Taq comes in handy. So I'll just place a tiny little piece in the back, like lose using glue tab because it doesn't mess up. If I'm doing this on paper. I'm going to place my circles on the top. So each of my main topics, my main goals. So you can do this on your paper. You can do this on a bulletin board. You can do this on your frame, just putting them on the top, evening them out nicely. Then I can put my little post-its down right underneath. And it's so easy because they're all color coordinated. And what's great about these Post-its is that they just can easily come off and you can move them around. You can dispose of them when you need to. You can add new ones. So I'm going to add in here some other ones that I've made. Sometimes my post-its don't stay down, especially if I've moved them a lot. So I just take a little piece of tape and I added to the other side or to the top, either way, whatever way you would like. And because it's on a picture frame and it's glass than it works really well in a few more. Just so you can see how beautiful it can look and what you can make of those crazy, chaotic, creative ideas all over the place. If you don't have enough space on your paper, you can even put a couple on top of each other like this. Alright, so now we have our board filled up full of ideas. Look how organized they are. And now, once I'm done putting them all down on my board, I think about prioritizing them. So I might move them around. And this is the wonderful thing about the post-its and also the glass board. You can just move them around. Oh, I would like to work on this one or however you feel the need to prioritize. And just as a little recap, a little review. Here are some of the ways that I think about prioritizing my projects and my ideas. First, I see all the tasks in one place like we're doing now. Review your purpose and values. Figure out what's most important to you. Understand your true goals. Ask yourself how you feel about it. Consider the effort it takes, and the time it takes. What's your inspiration level? And of course be flexible, changes along the way. It's okay to change your mind or to change your priorities. And that's the wonderful thing about these post-its. They can be moved around from place to place. I think your priorities determine your next steps of action. So I usually put the top ones as my top priorities. And further down they go the less priority they are. Sometimes it's because of inspiration or what I feel like doing or as I mentioned before, all those other reasons. And so now it'd be the time to move them around and place them, prioritize them. Think about what is your top priority, and that's how you would display it on your board or your paper. If you're doing this on paper. Another really fun idea, which I kind of do once in a while. So I'm going to give you an example here with my artsy creative ideas. So you take those same papers and you can have a piece of paper for each color, for each main goal, and you just place them into different patterns. So sometimes I do this for variety and I'll just place them on my paper or on my board as a flower or as a son and the rays. So you can work that way as well. If some patterns speaks to you at some point that feel free to work that way. And depending on my priorities, I put the top ones, top priority, the bottom one's lower priority. Or if you have a lot of ideas, then you can even make these centred ones your priority. And then your next line would be your less priority. You would just move them lower down or further out from the center. So that's another little idea. Or if I, again use my whole sheet of paper, I would list my top priorities on one side and my lease priorities on the other side. Again, this is really helpful to simplify your life and organize all those ideas. So Priorities, priorities to feel free to move them around as you wish. So those were the three different ideas of how I like to prioritize all my ideas. 8. Touch of decor: In this class we're going to add a little touch of decor. I'm just curious here, but does decor matter to you? Is it important to you just as much as it? It's important to me. When do you take time to add a little fun and artsy stuff on your page? Even in your organization. I think I get a bit decor crazy sometimes. Maybe that's just because I'm an artist and I like everything looking beautiful and pretty. So I have my organizational board here Full of Colors. And I can't forget to add in some extra pictures. It just calls out to me whether it's flowers or something from nature's some leaves. So I'm going to keep it very simple. They just add in a few little touches like that of decor. It just makes me happy. Maybe something personal to me, an object or something that brings meaning to me. Something that creates a beautiful Logan invites me to come back and look at it. Any little thing or object, item, sticker or a piece of paper that I can use as a little extra decor on my board. I think it adds some fun play. That's where my artists can come out and get creative and playful. You can also use some meaningful items. For me, leaves and flowers, they just make me happy. Remind me that this is my journey. We're all on a growing journey, evolving, changing, and something from nature just reminds me that I can be patient. These really colorful post-its already stand out. So I think these touches of decor just make it all blend together nicely. They don't distract from my planning and ideas and goals, but just kind of brings it all together in a beautiful way. And of course it motivates me to come back to it. Remind myself of these goals, of these ideas and of my priorities. 9. More Details: So this class, we're going to delve a little bit more into the details. As you may notice, some of my papers have little numbers on each side. And the reason for that is, once I've gotten the general ideas all prioritized and organized into categories, into top priorities. Then my next step is to get more into the details. Of course, there are many ways you can do it, but this is just one way that I've done is I've listed all these ideas on another piece of paper. These are related to my courses, and I've numbered them. So that's the reason for these numbers. So I'll take you through my process of how I go about getting more into details. I'm going to take this one as an example, since it doesn't have a number yet. And we can do it together. So I'll go through my list and I'll number it. The next one in line would be number 49. So I'll add a little 49 on the corner of my post it and then I can put it back on my board. And I'm also going to list here the title. So it said business plan. This is just so I know my ideas. Just the title the same, that's on my board. Then in order to get more detailed, I've taken those ideas and I have another sheet of paper for each one of them. So if you'd like, you can also do this in a notebook. I find it handy to just do it on a piece of paper. Because it that way when I want to do is just one of them. I just take my paper along with me and I don't have to take my whole notebook. But of course, if you'd like to keep them all together in one place and feel free to do that. I like to keep mine all inside this one paper. Sometimes I just find it's nice to work off the computer offers screen because I do most of my work on a screen. So having just that planning time away from the screen is I find a lot of benefit to that. And it helps me organize my ideas a little differently. So what I do is I first start with my number, so it's number 49. I just give it a circle and I put the title, which was business plan. And I might underline it. And then this is when I will go and list a few more details. This is related to my courses, so I might list some of the ideas I would like to include in my course, e.g. I'd like to include part about my mission, my vision for my business plan, my purpose, my goals, customers, marketing. So this is what I would do. And of course, you can get even more detailed if you want it to go into each of those points. So when I create my class, I would take this paper and then I would go to my computer and list even more ideas, maybe write a clear outline, but at least I have somewhat of an idea on paper, so I can always refer back to it. So that's just the way I delve a little bit into the details of my creative ideas. So thank you again for joining me on this organizational journey for all your creative ideas. And last but not least, congratulations for finishing this course.