Time & Task Management for Creative Freelancers

1. Welcome!: If you're a first-time creative freelancer or have been freelancing for quite awhile and just needs some tips to stay organized. Then you're gonna need a time and task management system to make sure that everything is running smoothly. Hi, my name is Jen Van Horn and I'm a character animator, motion designer, and digital painter living in the Pacific interest. Other than my animation skills, i clients know me best for my speed communication and organization. And I've had numerous jobs to help me build up the skills. I've been able to design a time and task management system for myself. It helps me feeling confident in control and ready to take on any obstacle. I designed this class to help you do the same for your life and creative business. In this class, I'll be teaching you how to build better, smarter goals. Create the ultimate spreadsheet for tracking clients, reach out e-mails and referrals, how to master your daily and weekly to-do lists. Design that work-life balance that we hear so much about. Win the battle over your imposter syndrome. And more. For the class project, you'll be setting up at least one new personal project with David milestones. Start listing and prioritizing a daily to-do list. Create a color-coding system for your calendar. Start scheduling some networking events and come up with positive alternatives to negative inner dialogue. By the end of this class, you'll be feeling ready to take on your creative business with a renewed positive energy and a solid plan moving forward. I am so excited to get started and I hope to see you in class. 2. S.M.A.R.T.E.R. Goals: Before you do anything, you're going to want to set some short-term goals and some long-term goals. You might have heard the phrase smart goals before. Smart stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. But why have smart goals? When you can have smarter goals, the E and the R stands for E for evaluate, an R for Reward, going back and evaluating how your process went, it's going to help you fine tune your goal-setting in the future. And also why shouldn't we reward ourselves for our accomplishments? Common types of goals are to increase something, make something, improve something, reduce something, saved something, and develop something about ourselves. You don't have to start with a long-term goal. How about you pick something small and then I'll walk you through the process to practice. Let's see. Do you have a short personal project that you've been meaning to get to. How about a plug-in that you bought that you haven't had a lot of practice with yet. Let's start there. Now I'm a motion designer. I'm gonna show you how I go through the process of goal setting with one of my small projects. The first part about setting your smarter goal is to be specific. What's your overall mission of your goal? Use real numbers, real deadlines, and the outcome that you wish to see. In my case, I would like to do a small 30-second animation. Let's see, smarter goals specific. My overall mission is to accomplish this by the end of the month. So real deadline at the end of the month. The outcome of my goal, I just want it to be something that I can be proud of and something that I want to add to my real. Next is measurable. Adding milestones. In my case, a milestone will be breaking this project up into sort of major points that I can check in and see how my process went for my project. I would say I would break this up into researching what kind of style do I want to go with? What do I want the sort of overall concept or the script to be? Concept sketching, basically a loose sketch to kind of feel out what my storyboards are going to look like. Then Illustration, finalizing the style. And finally, animation and sort of wrap up. So that includes sound effects, music if there's any sort of like a final overall mix and render, next up is attainable. That is breaking down all of the tasks that help you get to each milestone into small, manageable bites so you don't get overwhelmed. Also it just having sort of more things to check off really helps motivate me to keep going. Next is relevant, prioritizing this task in-between the milestones, what order should they be going in? And finally, time-based, assign deadlines to each milestone, or even assign deadlines to each small task. If you really just need that accountability to make sure that you're hitting every everything on time. So you're not procrastinating and waiting to the very last minute to finish. Let's go back to the E and the R. Evaluate and reward. After you reach your goal, go back and review how you did, did you meet each deadline? Was each small bites small enough? Is there anything that you did that you didn't want to do next time that you can actually maybe pay someone else to do. And finally, reward. Congratulations, you just accomplished your goal. That's amazing. Have you told anyone yet posterior accomplishment on your social media sites and in your networking groups. So you can be congratulated. Not to mention a lot of people really like to see the poll behind the scenes process. Anything that you can document as a case study for each project even better if you have a pen and paper, I highly suggest writing down your goals versus typing them up. The physical act of writing something down will help strengthen the neural pathways in your brain like a computer writing code. In 2021, there was a study in Japan that showed that memory recall was stronger with written notes versus ones that were typed up on a mobile device. Obviously writing down something in ink has a certain permanent because you can't erase it, control Z it, or delete it. That's gonna be a little bit more motivating. Either checkoff that tasks are scribbled it out. Messy. Don't like it. If you can think of some goals already, go ahead and write them down. I'll be going over how to prioritize and fit them into your schedule shortly. Happy goal-setting. 3. The Free Time Freelancer Conundrum: Yes. The free time conundrum for creative freelancers. What do you do when you need to line up your next job? This pitfall was the biggest contributor to my stress and the beginning of my career. What do you do when you find yourself with too much free time between projects? Do you a focus on landing at your next gig by searching and applying for every job you see online, Be work on marketing yourself with a portfolio website or a real C network network network. Or D. What tutorials and take classes and workshops to help boost your skills. Do you know the answer? Actually a trick question. All of these are important when you first start out or you have a big block of unknown downtime, all four hold equal weight for your business. You're going to want to schedule equal time for each one. In the beginning. I know how terrifying it is when you don't know when your next paycheck is coming from? I used to get so stressed because I didn't know which test jump on first. I ended up doing nothing. That's why I consider all of them equal. If all four tasks of equal importance, then there is no wrong answer on which one you can start on first, just pick the one that you are most drawn to at the moment and go. But you do need to schedule all four, because if you get pulled into one task for too long, you'll end up neglecting the rest. It might take awhile before you find your specific rhythm. When it comes to how you schedule these time slots, you may have other priorities like family chores or other jobs that you need to schedule around. So try breaking it down into one task day and see how that feels. You might decide later to try smaller windows and fit all four in one day or try stretching each test scout for over a few days. Remember that this is about customizing a system that fits your life. Experimenting at the beginning is going to be a must. 4. The Ultimate Client Tracking Sheet: I like to call my client, reach out sheet, my masterpiece I've worked on and perfected this ultimate client tracking sheet for years, and I am so excited to share it with you now, there's a downloadable file of the spreadsheet and you can customize it if your creative business has different or additional items that you'd like to include. I've always had a knack for research because I have a natural curiosity to learn all kinds of things. After several research and project management positions, I have fine tune these skills. And so when it was time for me to start reaching out to clients, I knew exactly how I wanted to organize my findings. Let's break it down before you can start filling out information you're gonna need some clients. Now I prefer to reach out to companies who produce the content I like to animate, instead of talking to clients one-on-one, your process might be a little bit different. If you want to find one-on-one clients, the narrowing down the industry type and specific niche you'd like to work in is gonna make your Google searches a lot less intimidating. For example, medical equipment rentals for healthcare, or as scheduling app for babysitters. Or how about custom sympathy cards? Design and animation can be found in every industry. And going after one-on-one clients might be more time-consuming and the research phase, but landing a client versus going after a production company can be pretty lucrative. There are multiple ways to find production companies. I like to start local. I Google motion design in my city, and then I search for the type of work that the companies that are local are doing that I want to be a part of. If you're remote, then choosing any city and doing the same Google search is going to work just as well. One other thing that I like to do is I look up websites that poster awards for creative companies, like the motion awards, or websites that list reviews for agencies and marketing companies like clutched.com. Try googling Annual Awards and motion design and see what comes up. Once you have a list of companies, you'll want to start filtering them out by a few factors, starting with their website. How does it look? Does accompany field current? Do they have any latest blogs or news items that you could see? Then dig even deeper, try to see if they have a video hosting channel and then bring up their LinkedIn. Once you have their LinkedIn open, check to see how long they've been accompany. How many employees do they have? The more you dig, the easier it is to decide if you want to reach out. Another thing I like to do is to pick one or two projects that they've produced. That's either right at my skill level or right above. So I have something to compliment them on later. Sometimes I like to pick out projects that are right below my skill level. I have something more to bring to the table. Linkedin is also great because you'll be able to tell if the higher remote by checking if their employees are based at a different cities, you can start filling in your notes as you go along. But if something is a red flag or a deal breaker, still mark it down, just drag it to the bottom of your list into what I like to call a questionable group. This is how you can keep tabs on those red flag companies and avoid them in later research. Also in your research phase, it to take notes on recent events like an award, a move to a new office, a cool project or a company merger. This will help personalize your warm reach out e-mail. But before we get to that, you're probably wondering why I haven't even mentioned job search sites yet. This is why if you see a job being posted online, it's because they've exhausted their internal network and referrals list. Meaning they've already asked their current employees if they can recommend anybody. Think about that. Why would you apply to a job that has a ton of competition when you could be prioritizing being the first-person they think of before the jobs even posted. Not to say you stop applying the job postings altogether, but I would highly suggest prioritizing networking if you have that option. So where do you start? Go back to LinkedIn, pick an employee who's at the level you want to be at and send them a casual message, something like, hey, how's it going? I'm so and so and I'm a big fan of your work at company X. I'm an aspiring creative and I'd love to connect with more creatives in the industry. That's it. Short, friendly, informative, and inquisitive. You can ask for a Zoom chat or a digital coffee later, but let's just get the ball rolling first. If you send a few of these messages to more than one person at the same company. Whatever you do, do not copy and paste. Just change the language up a little bit just so it's not the exact same. After you get some first connections on LinkedIn, then feel free to move on to a bigger fish, like a manager or director or producer, it will be much more likely to connect with you if you're already connected to some of their employees, list the context that you reached out to on your sheet. Store their name once their first connection, and copy their profile link to refer to later. Now you're ready to send out some reach out emails. Create a second tab in your Excel doc or Google Sheets doc and call it templates. I have templates for initial reach outs, follow-ups and follow-ups with rate examples. In case I want to share some projects to show the range of styles, complexities, and a general timetable for how long it took me to complete them. By the way, if you're not timing yourself while you work, I highly recommend you start using toggle just so you have a good idea of how speedy EUR. Here's some examples of each time the email that I use. Take note of how short into the point they are. Having an alternatives list to switch up an e-mail according to the company data that you've already mind helps turn a cold reach out into a warm one. When I'm sending out a batch of reach out emails, I create the e-mail on a Google Doc or use the notes app first. This way I can customize it using the information on my reach out sheet and also do a pass on spelling and grammar. Then I copy the e-mail over, added the subject heading, and then finally I add the contact email. This is so there is no chance of sending over an unfinished email by accident. Trust me, you do not want to ruin your chances for lending a really cool gig just because of that mistake. Some say there's an art to the subject heading, but I suggest including your name, what you do in your availability. It's actually really helpful for a producer who's actively looking for new talent. Maybe even include your city if you're local. And absolutely don't forget to put your contact information and the link to your work in your email signature. In fact, you should probably do that right now. Now let's go back to the tracking tab. Now that you sent out your first batch of reach out emails, it's time to group and color-code based on their responses. Keep the unsent research lines at the top of your page so you don't forget them and color the ones that you sent out. If you get a response back, then change the color and track your results. If you don't get a response, the way to week and send a follow-up e-mail. Always track the dates you send out e-mails, so it's easy to find again, you don't want to keep checking each one. So try setting a calendar alarm for a week later to remind yourself to follow up and update your tracking sheet. If you haven't heard of response after the second e-mail, I suggest following up a month later and then every three to six months, if you wish to keep trying. One more quick tip, Don't send an e-mail out on a Monday or Friday, try to keep it between Tuesday and Thursday because on Fridays they're wrapping up high priority tasks before the weekend. Mondays are trying to catch up on the task and emails that were sent in over the weekend. 5. How To Master Your To Do List: Study freelancers know that when it rains it pours. Work requests can happen more frequently when you're just learning to turn down projects. The workload can start to pile up. But if you can handle a multiple projects at a time, then you're going to need to learn how to prioritize and delegate, breakdown your bigger goals into small bites by adding tests to your daily to-do list and then arrange them by importance for what needs to be done today. Be for something that you could do today, but also if it's pushed it tomorrow, it's no big deal. And see what needs to be finished this week. Feel free to add numbers to these tasks in the order that you want to accomplish them. You can always add to your to-do list later and just leave the numbers off. I actually do this all the time to pat myself on the back for a smaller accomplishment that I do throughout the day. It helps me stay motivated to tackle the rest of my list. Remember that the B and C list tests can always be pushed to the next day if you don't get to them, prioritize those tasks, some say that you should prioritize the smaller tasks first to get the ball rolling. But I actually disagree. I tackle the big rocks first aii, the more difficult tasks, and then it's smooth sailing the rest of the day, checking off the pebbles. Otherwise, you'll find yourself at the end of the day tired and not prepared to handle a big rock and then you end up pushing it to the next day. And if it's an alias item, yikes, personally, my brain is fresh and ready to go in the morning. And then I had a wall around five or six PM. If you're the opposite though, and you need to check off some smaller tasks just while you're still waking up, then it makes sense to hold off the big rocks until you have the mental bandwidth. Same as choosing when to plan your to-do list. I make it part of my morning routine when I'm enjoying my coffee. But sometimes it makes sense for others to plan the night before when you can get a quiet moment, when the kids are asleep. And when you get to the point in your career that you can't handle it all by yourself, but you're making good money, then you'll need to start to think about delegating. Look over your pass goals and to-do list. Is there anything on there you don't like doing that. Maybe you can pay someone else to do, like an assistant or a dog walker, a babysitter made Gardner personal chef, intern or junior employee. Recently I paid a friend with top-notch research skills to fill out my research sheet for me, it was the best money I've ever spent. And now I have 20 new companies that I can reach out to. I've also had a few animation colleagues hit me up when they have over spill animation that they need help with. Once you start building out your network, take note of the people who have the skills that you don't have or don't want to do, because most likely you're going to want to hire them for our project later. 6. Outsourcing And Referrals: What I like most about the motion design industry is how friendly and non-competitive it is. No really there are more than enough jobs out there for all of us. Because design and animation is helpful in every industry. You just have to keep digging to find the right spot. When you find your little pocket of the industry that you want to stick with, your schedule starts filling up. You're going to need a good referrals list for those out of nature requests. I think it's a great idea for you to become a beacon for clients who may not have worked for you, but who come to you anyway because you know all the right people. Why exactly. Because they'll still be recommending you to others. And good testimonials are gold. Just be sure to let them know the kinds of projects that are available to work on. You can help them focus their referrals. Also referring your friends and colleagues helps them get paid and that's just a great feeling. Let's go back to the track sheet and edit third tab called referrals list all the contact info for the people that you are closest within the industry, especially if you've worked with them before. I also like to list their location as well because I'm a wide variety of international colleagues who do amazing work, I separate my contexts into two groups. Those who do what I do and those who do what I don't do, I keep notes on what their strengths and styles are. If you're not sure who to add, talk to your networking groups, explained that you're building or referral list and you'd love to include someone who's good at a, b, or c skills. And would anyone be interested in being included? You can get the people who respond by their portfolios from there. The pandemic really amped up the word requests I was getting. I needed backups for my backups. I'm really glad that I had a great list of people I could recommend. I would suggest spending a little time talking to those on your referral list just to get a good sense on if they're dependable or not. Don't fully vouch for someone that you don't know. I usually say something like, I haven't worked with this person before, but I kept my eye on them because I really liked their work. That way. You don't get any back spray if their project doesn't go well. 7. Fun With Color Coding: I don't know if you can tell yet, but my wig selections, but I love color. I color-code everything, my monthly calendar, my project to do lists, even my project animation layers. The psychology behind how we perceive and are affected by color is fascinating. And the more you stick with a similar color-coding system, the easier navigating the things becomes, and the more motivated you are, especially when it comes to the color that you use to check off each task. You could track your progress to project completion. I designed my color coding system for my track sheet based on the general psychology of color. For instance, the clients I'm still researching and haven't center, reach out e-mail to yet. I leave white. White symbolizes innocence, cleanliness, beginning impurity, because they haven't ****** me off yet. For the clients that I sent reach out e-mails to eye color purple. Purple can symbolize imagination, mystery, wealth, royalty, wisdom, bravery, and all things exotic. Because these clients still our mystery until they reach out to us. Next for those clients that I followed up with eye color orange. Orange can symbolize enthusiasm, happiness, autumnal, meditative, and uplifting. Because we still hope that they get back to us. For these clients that I have send out follow-up e-mails to eye color yellow. Yellow can symbolize warmth, energy, excitement and attention. It's still hanging onto that hope that they're going to respond to me. For the clients that haven't responded yet, I colored blue. Blue can symbolize productivity, calm, stable, and inspiring. I actually really liked blue. It's a very calming color for me. Instead of using a very scary color because I'm still waiting on these clients. I do blue because I still have hope that they're going to respond. For the clients that respond positively, I colored green. Obviously, green means go. Green symbolizes com, natural, money, luck, health, and it releases stress because you gotta yes. Finally, for those clients that maybe have responded with a no or not right now, as I like to say, then I colored them red. Red is kind of a controversial color because it can mean a lot of different things. Anger, power, passion, love, stimulation, danger, and aggression. I leave all of the red responses to the bottom of my screen. Once you do enough of these, you won't see the red anymore or you can even hide the lines if that makes you feel better. When I color-code my project list, I generally use a similar color key, but I typically avoid red because it's rather aggressive and I like to stay positive. Green is always my final reward color. I use blue for the last step before green color-coding, my calendar is a bit different because I'm old school. I use a paper daily, monthly planner with ink and colored markers. I tried going digital a few times, but I just get so much joy at a physically writing my to-do list and doodling icons on my calendar, probably because it's part of my morning ritual before I turn on a computer. So it's still feels really special. But when I'm working on my computer, I use a color-coded to-do list in the notes app. Color-coding can be very personal, but no matter what colors you use, try to stick with a similar color palette for each system to strengthen that visual association. And eventually you won't even have to think about it. I even have a color system for my character rigs and after effects, so I no longer have to label each layer. I can just easily navigate to the right color. 8. Prioritizing Your Health: Freelancers generally have a hard time prioritizing their health over their work, at least in the beginning and especially if they're young. I remember in art school I was all about staying up for days, slamming coffee and energy drinks and then crashing on the weekends. It wasn't sustainable. And in my 20s I had an ulcer and I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder before. A doctor tells you to if they haven't already, let me be the one to say prioritize your basic health needs first, I'm talking sleep hydration, nutrition, exercise, and hygiene. The basics. I'll be the first to admit that even I have a problem with making my health a priority, especially when I have a heavy plate of projects going on. I need to set alarms for everything, meals, stretch and dance breaks, power naps, and drinking water. I have a tracker for my steps in heart rate, a meal plan and prep on the weekends. And I use a workout program that helps keep me motivated, fun. Fact, my morning alarm clock is bird sounds. I feel like a Disney princess when I wake up. There are numerous apps and programs to help keeping your health on track. And communities that provide accountability and encouragement. It's so important to stay on top of these needs because without them, things start to spiral fast. For example, how many times have you woken up after getting only a few hours asleep and then just made one bad choice after the other. You start your day with a sugary carb heavy comfort breakfast item which you crash from shortly after, and then you crawl up on your couch just to watch one TV show, but he went up spending most of the day binging. Then you order fried take out with a soda, another sugar crash, and then you take a nap, which just takes way too long because you forgot to set an alarm so you're groggy the rest of the day, then you just snack on popcorn and cookies for dinner until suddenly you realize it's 1130 and you end up crawling back into bed. This happened to me yesterday. My original plan was to wake up, do a quick workout, get a shower, get about a half-hour of Skillshare script writing in, make a tuna sandwich for lunch, clean my kitchen and bathroom work on a few art projects. Bagel lasagna for dinner, and then watch a movie before going to bed early at ten. Somebody that just doesn't happen, you got to roll with it. But today, today has started over. I set my alarms, I prioritize my health, and I wrote this chapter. Everyone else who has different diets, exercise plans, medications, etc. So I encourage you to talk to a doctor and do some research before starting a new health plan. I also highly recommend getting an ergonomic chair if you're sitting for long periods of time or look into an adjustable standing desk, blue light blocking glasses really helped with ice strain as well as a hand therapy kit if your hands start getting tight by the end of the day. Investing in these items really helped my posture, my pain and my stamina as an animator. 9. A Work/Life Balancing Act: We talked about prioritizing your physical health needs like diet and exercise. I want to talk about three more sides of your life that will help you feel more balanced, your mental, emotional, and spiritual health. Along with the physical, these four sides are called the four bodies when they're all for working together, you feel more complete. They give them the four sides of a table. If you neglect one or more for too long, the table will tilt and tuple. Let's start with mental health. This is gonna be your intellectual thought analysis, focused clarity, direction, communication and contributions to society. We're all not right or left brained. We have both sides and both sides need to be stimulated to be healthy. If you do to stimulate your mental health, some ways that I like to engage my mind are placed strategic video games or a puzzle game on my phone, like my daily solitary and Sudoku challenges, learning recipe or skill, read a self-help book, research a current passion of mine, and networking with colleagues. Sometimes nothing beats a stimulating conversation with interesting people in my industry. I also like to support live streams by being active in the live chats and answering questions. I'd say that watching this Skillshare definitely counts towards your mental health. Now let's talk about our emotional health. You are a 100% in charge of how you react to things and what you spend your time and energy on. Would you rather spend your energy fighting with internet trolls who are beating you into an argument or spend it enjoying time with your family, friends, passions, pets, etc. I know it's not that simple and I spent a lot of time practicing walking away from escalating situations, but I am getting better at it. I'm also getting better at saying no to projects when I don't have the energy or the mental bandwidth to do properly. When you feel a strong emotion, identify what it is and what was the cause and then ask yourself, was it worth your time and energy? If not, say no, walkaway, take a break and reset. We're freelancers. Time is money, energy as money, you are highly valuable. And if you have trouble recognizing that, then it's time to change your mindset. One thing that I do for my emotional health as I keep a gratitude journal, I write down one thing a day that I'm grateful for and it really contributes to my positive mindset. I know some people recommend five to ten things a day, but can you really think of ten things a day that are different that you're thankful for. I have a hard enough time thinking of one. If your inner dialogue tends to lean negative. Try gratitude journal and see what you could do to shift it by journalist pocket size, and every line is a different color, so the pages are a rainbow positivity. Other examples I do are catching up with family, although more on the Zoom and FaceTime side of things lately, I can't wait for the pandemic to be over because I really miss my game and movie nights with my friends. I also have a stack of movies that I know will make me cry every time. Because sometimes when I'm frustrated, I just really need to let it out. And letting it out is crucial. When I was a kid, I was labeled too emotional, but I didn't have any constructive advice on how to express myself without bottling it up. Bottling up just lead to inappropriate outbursts. I actually didn't find my healthy solutions until I was in my late 20s. By then I wrecked my physical and emotional self with years of stress and anxiety. It's been a process to redefine my triggers, heal old wounds, and give myself some grace whenever things didn't work out the way I planned. Letting off steam prevents me from exploding or worse, imploding from a panic attack. I'm also an introvert. Spending time alone helps me recharge and fill my tank backup. Everyone is different. So if you don't know how to relax and recharge yet, definitely look into it and build it into your schedule. This is where I'd like to encourage anyone who's feeling overwhelmed and depressed to seek out a professional to talk to. There are lots of resources online including remote sessions if you don't have any options locally. Now let's talk about your spiritual health. Now, hang on. If you're not a spiritual person, there's a phrase in a holiday song that sums up with spiritual health means to me comfort and joy. Spiritual health does not necessarily mean that you have to believe in a higher power or powers. It's about the connection you feel to yourself more than anything else. What are you doing to bring comfort and joy into your life? Start with making a list of your past and present passions. Sometimes if you can't think of something that makes you happy now, going back to something that used to make you happy will help shake some new ideas loose. Some examples would be scheduling time to listen to a music album used to love revisiting an old book, buying fresh art supplies or going for a scenic drive. What feeds your soul is a creative prayer meditation seemed to work for most people, but personally, I need to go for a drive once a week. I need to crank up the volume, put on one of my curated playlists and sing until my lungs are sore. Am I good singer? No, but who cares? It's for me only. And after I do it, I feel hello again. Cooking and gardening also bring me great happiness and peace. I make sure that both of those passions are part of my everyday life. If you feel like something is missing, check your list. Feature soul. Life is busy. For a freelancer. It seems like you have an endless battle of things to do. I'll get to it when I have time is an excuse that I am all too familiar with. It wasn't until they started prioritizing and scheduling my life things that I actually found that work-life balance That's so elusive. Yes, it does exist, but only if you make a plan and stick to it, and don't forget self-care, dance, take a bubble bath, put on a face mask, watch a funny comedy special. Treat yourself to a fancy meal hosted digital happy hour with your friends, work on a puzzle. Really anything can be considered self-care as long as it feels like a treat and helps balance due out. When you make your health a priority, then you get the added perk of energy, stamina, and a positive mindset. It's incredible how something that seems so minor can make all the difference in the world. 10. Tips For Transitioning Your Brain: Now I want to talk about one of my favorite tricks that I use to help transition my brain from task to task. It's called sensory memory and processing. And it sounds super complicated, but it's actually one of the easiest things in the world. Since high-school, I've been taking advantage of this trick. As you know, your five senses are touched, taste, sight, hearing, and smell. But smell is the strongest sense when it comes to memory recall, I stumbled on this research when I was learning to study for my SATs. You heard me right? I studied how to better study. I went to art school and they didn't even look at my test course. Back then, I learned that if you choose a strong flavor gum or you smelled a little satchel, lavender or rose petals when you studied. And then you choose the same gum and smelled the same sense we need took the test. It really helped with your memory recall back then I had a lot of test anxiety. This trip really helped me in my junior and senior year in high school and throughout college. Now the truth and the situation is not about which set is best for a specific action. It's more about what you're convincing yourself as truth. Remember that you are in charge of your own mindset. If you believe it's going to work or you're believe it's not gonna work, you're gonna be correct. Now if you backup that truth with practice and repetition, those neural pathways are going to get nice and thick and really cement that idea in your mind. Do you know why you can't teach a dog new tricks? It's actually a lot harder to convince a dog to rethink his truth. Some examples of how I use sensory memory and processing in my own life. I have multiple oil diffusers in every room depending on what task I'm doing. I have different body washes depending on what time I take a shower, I drink different types of T depending on the energy level I need. Now the caffeine helps, but so does the smile. I love a good combo of smells to lavender pine bark for relaxation and sleep, citrus and meant for energy, and orange and cinnamon for study and focus. I also pair an audio and visual for studying focus. Usually it's a YouTube video of a thunderstorm and a classical piano music channel that's playing low in the background. I feel more focused when it rains, which is a really great perk about living in the Pacific Northwest. But in the summer I really start to lose my focus. Having a rainstorm that's playing really helps me get me back into the mindset to get my work done. If you haven't considered this concept before, I would start thinking about the smells around you and the ones that have been deeply embedded in your brain that immediately take you back to a memory. Some examples are seasons, florals and the spring, groundbreaking. Suntan lotion and fresh cut grass in the summer and warm ****** during the fall and winter. Or how about people that may be aware too much perfume or cigarette or cigar smokers or your grandmother smelling like vanilla or basal. Also fun experiences, popcorn at the movies, campfire smoke and salty sea air at the beach. And finally, nothing stronger than a childhood nostalgia, like a fresh box of crayons being opened about an old library books or chalk and whiteboard markers. I bet as soon as you heard some of these things, you could automatically recall those smells. It's a powerful tool that you can harness and use for your own productivity. Essential oils are super trendy and easily available, but you can also use room sprays, candles and lotions. They kind of smell or a combination of smells that's pleasing to you that you'd like to associate with your productive time and start using it whenever you get to work. After you make it a routine, it'll help trigger your brain when you're having a hard time getting in the right mood to be productive. Also, I have one more trick. If you have a quality topical grade peppermint oil smearing a little bit on the back of your neck will help give you a nice tingly pick me up feeling if you're dragging after lunch. 11. Battling Your Imposter Syndrome: You have a working system in place. A client has reached out to you for a project and you accept. You get up early to start work. And that's when it hits you. Imposter Syndrome. Imposter syndrome is very real and it affects us all? Yes. Including me. For the past two weeks, I've been letting my imposter syndrome just take over. It, fed myself, doubt. My bad mood lead me to not staying on top of my chores, dishes or laundry just kept piling up the visual clutter everywhere. It just made my bad mood worse. I let myself be distracted by literally anything that was around that was not the thing that I needed to work on. My diet and exercise went out the window and instead of sticking to a routine or making my own meals and made excuses to get takeout, I can't doubt on the couch and then that made my muscles tighten up. So you can see how really it could spiral very, very quickly. When I traced it all back to the origin, I realized that it was all because I was avoiding working on this class because I doubted whether or not I could make a difference. The key is to recognize those signs of self-doubt and have tools to fight back. Challenge every line of negative inner dialogue was something more positive. You're not falling behind, you're not, not good enough, and you're not too old or too young to do something. You're trying your best, you're learning, you're improving. And H has nothing to do with it, then your mind, one bite at a time. Taking your own advice isn't always easy. And that brings me to my next point. You're gonna need to find your support group. This could be a family member, a friend, a colleague, an in-person, or an online group. Really anyone who's gonna make you feel more comfortable expressing your frustration and worry, and who can remind you that you're doing just fine. And to tell you to tell your imposter syndrome to take a hike. In the meantime, I've included a bonus video of me telling you all of those things until you can find your own tribe. How do you find your people? If you're an introvert like me, you may not like this next part. And I think you've already guessed it. Networking. Networking is so much more than elevator pitches and chasing down job leads. Your network can be a wealth of knowledge for running your freelance business. They can help point you to the right contractors if you need to outsource, help you build your referral list. If you get projects that are outside of your scope or you just don't have time for. And most importantly, connect you with other freelancers who know exactly what you're going through. Your mom gives you your amazing and to keep up the good work. But hearing that same comment from someone who actually stood in your shoes and understands exactly how you feel. Much more effective. There are a lot of ways to start networking thanks to the Internet, not just in-person meetups, clubs, or conventions anymore. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, many groups have moved into the digital space to host events, Zoom calls, live streams, etc. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Google discord, Slack club house. Where do you start? Personally, I stay active on LinkedIn. I belong to a few networking groups on Facebook and discord. I have two active Instagram accounts. And I tried to participate in two to four weekly clubhouse or YouTube live chats. But if that seems like a lot, don't freak out. We are still currently experiencing a pandemic. So my social life is practically nonexistent and I also don't have kids or family responsibilities that I need to put time aside for. My participation also changes when I have more complex animation projects on my plate, which I don't have right now because I did take off time to build this class. Your networking efforts are going to depend on your schedule and your bandwidth as well. I suggest at least getting a profile up on LinkedIn, joining either a facebook discord or Slack group where you can ask questions and get feedback and adding one weekly clubhouse or YouTube live chat that relates to your industry, to your schedule. I think it's gonna be more than enough to hit the ground running, start connecting with others and get your name out there. 12. Let's Get Started!: Now you're ready. I have a couple of assignments for you to download to help get you started on crafting your own time and project management systems. In the downloadable material, you will find the following prompts. One, write down your smarter goals for one personal project to list and prioritize your daily to-do list for the next five weekdays. Three, create a color-coding system for your monthly calendar, for schedule one weekly networking event, either online or in person every week for the next month. And five come up with one positive alternative to each five sentences of imposter syndrome, inner dialogue. That should be fun. 13. Thank You!: If you're not an organized person and this class was a bit overwhelming, It's okay. I'm not expecting you to just flip a switch and change your whole life. Starts small bite-size pieces. Remember, even your basic health needs. Try adding just one glass of water to your daily routine. Maybe go for a walk around the block after dinner, maybe reach out to at least one client. Remember to start small and prioritize that small to-do list first scheduled time to relax, recharge, and reset. Give yourself some grace. If you don't complete your to-do list, it's okay. You can't do all of the things. No one can. Every day is a new opportunity to start over and we're all doing our best, like even this Skillshare class, I wanted to upload this way earlier in the year, but life got in the way as it usually does. I hope this class was helpful and that you leave here knowing that you are in full control of your time management. And it gives you a sense of power that I know mine gives me stick with it and streamline your success. Thank you so much for watching. And I challenge you to write down at least two goals to get started today. Good luck. 14. Bonus Video: We're doing all the right things. Don't beat yourself up because you can't do all of the things. No one can. Failure is a myth. You're always moving forward. And obstacles can be opportunities if you choose to see them that way. Stick to your plan. Are you scheduling time to work on your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health? Are you getting enough sleep, enough exercise, eating well, if not, start there and see how you feel. We're all on different paths. We have different backgrounds, we have different sets of responsibilities, and we have different priorities and goals. It's not fair to compare yourself to anyone but who you were yesterday. Look how far you've come. Why are you doubting yourself now? Shake it off. You're not going to lose your progress just because you tried something new and it didn't work out, you just gonna come right back here to where you started. So why not try it? You can do this. Take a breath, let the fear go, and begin. Good luck.