The Proffitt Podcast
Are you thinking about starting a podcast? Launching a YouTube channel? Repurposing your old blog content into something fresh? Hi, I'm Krystal - host of "The Proffitt Podcast." And I'm happy to say you've come to the right place!
Business owners and content creators dream of building a platform where they can connect deeply with their audience, and marketing feels easy. But I also know what it's like to feel confused and overwhelmed.
Join us weekly as we strip down those processes and remove all the overwhelm with new tips, simple strategies, and great conversations with creators like you. Tune in to hear how I help creators start, launch, and market their content confidently. The motto here is, "We all have to start somewhere."
The Proffitt Podcast
Overcoming Challenges in Content Creation: A Journey to Productivity
Picture this: you're a content creator whose workload is piling up. The stress is getting to you, and you feel like you're drowning in a sea of tasks. Can you relate? Then this episode is for you.
Let's talk about the seven strategies that have helped me stay afloat in the churning waters of project and time management. These have been the key to making sure I remain productive and avoid burnout. We'll explore setting clear goals, prioritizing tasks, and ensuring you're working at your best.
Successful content creation boils down to knowing what you want to achieve. Whether your content aims to educate, entertain, or inspire, having clear goals in mind is critical. I'll be sharing a personal story about how setting precise objectives led me to make the difficult decision to wind down my daily podcast, The Poddy Report. Believe me, it was a tough call, but knowing my goals made it clear it was the right move.
Tools are your best friend in this content creation journey. I'll share how effective time blocking, weekly planning, and task prioritization can be, especially when using the right tools. So, grab your favorite brew, get comfortable, and let's dive into the world of enhanced productivity!
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You are so productive, you get so much done, how do you do it all? These are often like triggering things that people have said to me, and when I say triggering, it's like it kind of makes me tense up a little bit. It makes my shoulders like you know how you just like oh, I don't love it when people say that because I think it's something that comes from compromising. So I used to compromise all the time. I would compromise time with my family, and then I would compromise time with work, and then I would compromise. It's like I was constantly compromising my time and on the outside to everyone else, they were like you're crushing it, you're killing it, you're doing all the things and you're incredible, amazing, blah, blah, blah, blah. But internally I was struggling. I was struggling real bad. I felt disorganized, I felt super overwhelmed, I felt like I couldn't really keep my head above water. And so today, like you know, in this day and age, after doing you know, creating content, running a business and all the things I've been doing for the last five years, I feel like I have a lot of skills and knowledge that I can pass on to you so that if someone gives you that same compliment, you can say, yeah, I've worked really hard and I do have a sense of confidence behind what I'm able to accomplish, how organized I am, and I no longer feel overwhelmed. Will that be fantastic to say that? Oh, like it feels so, so good. So today I'm sharing with you seven things that I've learned about project and time management, with a clear focus on productivity, specifically for podcasters and content creators, because this is so important and when I was thinking about and planning this episode, I was like, yeah, there's like seven key things that I really wanna hone in on today. So let's get right to it.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the Profit Podcast, where we teach you how to start, launch and market your content with confidence. I'm your host, crystal Profit, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today, because if you've been trying to figure out the world of content creation, this is the show that will help be your time saving shortcut. So let's get right to it, shall we? Okay? So we have a lot to cover today and, like I said, we're talking about seven key things that I started implementing in.
Speaker 1:I mean, this is like a clear overlap between not just my work, my content, what I'm creating here. But it also overlaps with my life and if you've listened to this podcast, you know I'm a wife, I'm a mother and I have three boys and they right now are really busy. They're in the seasons of life they're 14, 11 and seven and there's just a lot going on. And previously, even when they were smaller, I remembered I would just start feeling overwhelmed because there was just so much going on all the time and I was like this is just how it's going to be forever and ever. And it was not a great thought, it was not very productive thinking, it wasn't very helpful. And if you listened to the previous episode, we talked about a week in the life of a productive podcaster. So I kind of shared the more tangible like how to like implement the prep and process and make sure that you do those five steps and then do your time audit and then let me show you my Asana boards and all the things. So we talked about that. That was the practical stuff.
Speaker 1:Now I wanna zoom out in today's episode and talk about the seven things that have really helped me, because these are things that you can do right now, today, even if you really haven't even started creating your content, but you're trying to set yourself up for success or maybe even for like, not even for those just starting, but also the next season of your success. So when we're recording this and when this is going live, this is towards the end of a quarter of the year. So even if you're listening to this five years from now, it could be a new season for you. It could be the beginning of the year, it could be in the middle of the month, it could be the beginning of a new week. It doesn't matter when you start doing these, but if you are struggling with feeling overwhelmed and feeling like, oh, you know, I just I gotta, I gotta get it together, then this episode was created just for you, because I've been in your shoes more than once and I love, love, love, love talking about time and project management for podcasters and content creators. It's one of those things that I was not good at in the beginning be totally honest, but I've honed and craft my processes over the time that I've been doing this, and managing everything effectively is essential for staying productive, achieving your goals and, let's just be honest, staying in the game.
Speaker 1:I hear so many people that burn out or they wanna quit creating their content. And when I like, put on my therapist hat and start digging into what's really going on, like where are you struggling, it's usually an overwhelm and it's the processes and it's all the things that they think that they're supposed to be doing, when in reality it's. They've set themselves up for failure, and the things that I'm gonna share here with you today can help you overcome those or avoid those challenges altogether. So, like I said, I have seven things to share with you. So let's go ahead and dive right in Number one.
Speaker 1:The first thing that we need to talk about is setting clear goals. So, before you start diving into creating content and, like I said, maybe you've been creating content for the last five years, maybe you've thought about creating content in the past five minutes and you're like, oh you know, stumbled upon this podcast, I'm going to check it out you need to define your objectives. This is so important and if you have been doing this for a while and you don't have any clear objectives, like hobby podcasters will come to me and say, oh, I just want to do it because I just want to talk and I have a passion for this, but then, six months into it, they're frustrated because no one's listening, their show isn't growing, and they wonder why. And it's usually because there's no clear goals in mind, right? They just? Oh, I thought I wanted a podcast. I love listening to podcasts, so I started one, I threw it out there and crickets no one's really listening. So what do you want to achieve with your podcast or your content Like this is a question I want you to ask yourself. Is it to inform people, entertain, inspire your audience? You need to have this clear goal and by setting the clear, measurable goals, you'll better understand what tasks are most important and how to prioritize them. So here's a great example. I'm actually oh, I'm kind of sad to say this, when you're listening to this, the audience will know, but I have decided to stop doing my daily podcast, the Potty Report. I know this is really the first time I've said it out loud. I've already made the announcement internally and everything, and I knew that I wanted to.
Speaker 1:I was at the beach, we went down to Port Aransas, so if you're familiar with Texas, you know that we're connected to the Gulf of Mexico and directly south of where we live is Galveston, and if you go a little bit further down, there is Corpus Christi, which is a really big town, and then just north of that like I guess it's like northeast of that is Port Aransas. We love this. It's our favorite part of Texas to go and sit on the beach and my husband loves to go fishing and the kids love to play in the surf and all the things. We love it so much. And I was sitting on the beach and I told my husband I was like I'm really going to check out this trip and I'm just like I'm not going to do work stuff, I'm not going to have my phone next to me unless I'm changing the tunes to listening to NSYNC and just all those things I'm like I'm checking out.
Speaker 1:So I was reading the book Atomic Habits. I decided to read it again. Atomic Habits by James Clear, such a great book and I don't know if this happens to you, but I'm reading fiction or, sorry, nonfiction is sometimes hard for me to read because when I'm reading nonfiction it inspires and it motivates me and then I'll get ideas and I'm like, oh, you can't be thinking of ideas. Just say listen to the book, read the book. It was the actual hard copy of the book. Just read the book, crustall, you don't need any ideas you don't like? No, no, no, no. Shut the brain down and just read the book. But I had one of those moments where I felt it in my gut and it was just this thought that arose that said you need to stop doing the potty report. So if you don't listen, you don't know about this.
Speaker 1:This is my daily show. I've released it since March 2020. For three years, I've produced this show Monday through Friday. It's five minutes or less, and the reason why I'm bringing all this up is I'm shutting it down, like by September the end of September 2023, it will no longer be something that I'm publishing on a regular basis. Will it be gone forever? I don't know.
Speaker 1:But the reason why I'm bringing this up is because we just talked about setting clear goals, and the reason why I'm shutting it down is because, when I look at the goals for my business, my goals are is this talking about a piece of content? Is it bringing in a new audience? Is it bringing in revenue, or is it building my email list? Those are the three lenses when I look at a piece of content, so let me repeat those again Is it bringing in a new audience? Is it bringing in revenue or is it building my email list? This show was not doing any of those. It wasn't. It doesn't have podcast show notes, so it's not really SEO optimized. It isn't something that I really do. I do some promotion on there, but again, it's five minutes or less. I'm not going into a long spiel about promoting something on there.
Speaker 1:So my clear goals I have clear, very clear goals for my business and it wasn't meeting any of those. It was my creative sandbox and that's why I love it so much, but at the end of the day, when it comes down to it, I just kept saying I don't have time to do this and I really want to pursue sponsorships and creating some user generated content for other brands, and it just wasn't in alignment with my goals anymore. So setting those clear, measurable goals will help you make decisions in your business and in your content, and it's super important. So that's point number one set those clear goals, make them clear as day. They shouldn't be something that you're questioning all the time. It should just be. This is my North Star, this is what I'm trying to accomplish. So set clear goals for what you're trying to do, alright, the next thing when you talk about create a content calendar.
Speaker 1:I love talking about content calendars to. It's one of those things that it's a roadmap for your content creation journey. That's really what it is. It's like it helps you plan your episodes or your you know YouTube videos, your newsletters, your tiktok post, your Instagram reels, like whatever, and it helps you be consistent and stay organized with everything that you're doing. So you can use tools like a Google calendar or Trello or a simple spreadsheet to map out your content schedule and, if you have if you're in my course, profit podcasting.
Speaker 1:I give you a very modified version, I will say, of a podcast content calendar for Google sheets, because this is what I do. So I use a combination of Google sheets and a sauna, and I actually am the link to a YouTube video that I did. It's called how to set up a content calendar in a sauna and I walk you through exactly what I do. But the reason why I love this is because I don't have to think about my content like once it set up, and I do this like once a month and I will set up every single piece of content that I need to create, let's say, for the month of September, and so I go in, I input everything.
Speaker 1:Ok, podcast episode comes out on Tuesday, newsletter goes out on Friday and you know all the other things in between, like a Facebook group post goes out every single Wednesday. It's the plug, your podcast, like all those things. Every single one of those line items is in my sauna and I don't have to think about them. I don't have to think, oh, what is today, what do I have do this week? When people ask me, how do you batch content? Well, it's because I have an organized content. So whenever I sit down and I realize, oh, I can plan content for an hour, what am I going to do? Well, I can plan for podcast episodes instead of just one, because I have a content calendar and I know what my next four episodes are going to be.
Speaker 1:So it can just be game changing to really understand content calendars and have one in your business. And actually, if you're listening to this in real time and you decide to join Marie Forleo's time genius program, I'm actually giving you all of my sauna boards. So, like I said, I have a YouTube video that will show you how to do it. But if you're joining time genius with me, then I'm giving you all of them, so you can download my files and upload them into your project management system. Whether you're using Monday, calm, notion, a sauna, like any of those, you'll be able to just download them and upload them right into what you're using, and it's super helpful. So creating a content calendar can be absolutely game changing and if you do not have one, this is your task today sit down and create a content calendar, because that is where half of the overwhelm was really just overnight gone for me.
Speaker 1:Once I started saying, oh, this is what I'm going to be doing next and this is the thing that I need to talk about, so do that immediately. Create a simple content calendar. All right, the next thing time blocking. So this is the third key thing that we need to talk about today, and this is one thing. If you're unfamiliar with time blocking, so this is a productivity technique where you allocate specific blocks of time to work on particular tasks. So for podcasters and content creators, this can mean designing time for research or scripting or recording, editing, promotion, marketing, all of those things, but what happens is, when you time block, you're going to reduce the distractions and increase your productivity by allocating focused time blocks. So I what I will do. I've actually, I need to create a YouTube video for this because I haven't done in a while, but I will sit down and I like I need to create one that shows you how I play my week.
Speaker 1:I will look at my Google calendar because that's where we have like our family stuff, appointments, and then I have really big items on there like interviews or Any other places, like where I have like a masterclass I need to teach, or I'm doing a training or I'm a guest speaker in someone else's program. I have all of that on my Google calendar. So I look at my Google calendar and I add it into my planner and I time block everything. So I'll look at those big things, the big rocks that I need to add to my calendar for a week. I put all those in first and then I go in and I fill in every single day that I'm going to eat lunch. I know that sounds super silly, but I need an hour to check out midday every single day and if I don't do that, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that every single day and if I don't do that, it will either be shortened down to 30 minutes or 15 minutes or like I like. Time will just get away from me and I could block my whole day off. So I make sure that I give myself time for lunch.
Speaker 1:I also work out five days a week now sometimes six but I walk. I walk in my neighborhood Monday, wednesday and Friday. I used to walk walking. I used to run a ton and now I just walk. I listen to my podcast and I walk. And I do that Monday, wednesday, friday, no questions asked. And the reason why I can make it happen is because it's in my calendar. So I time block the time that I'm going to be gone and I put it in my calendar for every single day when I'm planning my week, and then I will add in other things, like if I know I need to take a break, if I know I need to have this, if I have an important meeting, like, I go through the whole day.
Speaker 1:So, while it might sound really, really neurotic, I have a calendar that and I'll tell you what it is here in a second the exact one that I use, but it is a daily one that goes from 6am to 9pm. Now, let's be honest, I'm not going hour by hour and writing exactly okay, from here to here I'm doing this, like down to the minute. I'm not that that crazy about it, but it does help me know, okay, from this time to this time I can write a podcast script, and from this time to this time I can go on a walk and from here to here I'm getting ready. From here to here and I do. It helps me Because whenever I have that, I know that I have breathing room in my calendar and it's not just back to back meetings or you know, doing something for way longer than I really need to. It kind of forces you into hey, you got an hour to do this, you need five hours, you need an hour and this is when you're going to do it. And it's like giving you that accountability that people typically lean on others to give them. You can do that for yourself whenever you start time blocking.
Speaker 1:So I've tried all kinds of planners and calendars in the past. I have I tried to put everything into my Google calendar that was too visually overwhelming for me. I don't like to look in a Google calendar that has so many appointments. Like I said earlier, I only put Important meetings, you know, doctors appointments, if the kids have something going on that day, I will put those in my Google calendar. But my Google calendar is pretty clean, like it's mostly Not filled to the brim with stuff, because I still use.
Speaker 1:I know I'm old school but I love a paper like hard planner and I used to use the living well planner. That was one of the first ones that and I have a YouTube video that I have to it's old YouTube video. It's not great. I didn't unboxing a long time ago. It's not great, but the planner is fantastic. So if you, if you need, if you like a beautiful planner, that is absolutely. I mean, it's third day of stickers and all kinds of fun stuff, but I didn't really. It had too many bells and whistles for me. And then there was the full focus planner, which I know Amy Porterfield really endorses Michael Hyatt it's his company that has created that and it's great. It is a fantastic planner. But it had too many bells and whistles for me, like it was too detailed, like it was just too much.
Speaker 1:It was something that I tried it and I was like you know, I'll give it a shot, but it's just three months at a time, so it's like a quarter of the year that you're doing. I was like man, this is. It just seems like a lot of paper for just three months whenever I could get. So I use today. It's called the Clever Fox planner and it's a weekly, undated one, and I'll link to the one that I use on Amazon. But I love this one because, again, I it's a 12 month one, it's undated and I can plan months at a time. I could plan, you know, the entire month of September. I can plan the quarter and I can plan my week and I can see it at a snapshot, whereas other ones, like, give you a full page for the entire day. I don't need all that, I just need the time blocking where it's like from this hour to this hour, I'm doing this, from this hour to this hour, and that's what it allows me to do. So it shows me from 6am to 9pm and, yes, I go to bed at 9pm, so I'm not doing anything fast that. So it works for me.
Speaker 1:But you do you find a time blocking system that can work for you and at the end of the day, the most important thing you need to do is put your non-negotiables on the calendar first. This is absolutely what I do. I don't fill in all the little details of everything. I just say, oh, I have to go to an appointment on Wednesday. I'm putting that on the calendar so that I don't forget. Oh, I need to work out. You know, go on my walks Monday, wednesday, friday, and then Tuesday, thursday, I'm doing strength training. So I put it on my calendar every Sunday when I'm planning and it is how I make those things work. So the key to time and project management is to get those important things in your calendar before you let things just start filling in with all the little to-dos and the other tasks that you have throughout the week. Okay, you're still with me, right? Right, we're still in this because we're, you know, almost halfway, like a little over halfway. We have seven, so we're like three and a half right, so we're almost there. But key number four that you need to pay attention to is prioritizing your tasks.
Speaker 1:Now, back in the day, I think I was in college. I don't know what year in college that was, but I read the book the Seven Habits of Highly Effective College Students. So if you've heard the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, this was the one that was adapted for college students and I wish that it would have sunk in, because I read that book and it didn't really sink in. I think it was one of those that I was just appeasing one of my professors by reading it because it just it didn't work. I mean, I learned the systems and I learned the processes, but I just didn't really apply them. So this just goes to show you, just because you read a book, you take a course or whatever, like you have to actually apply the things that you're learning, because prioritizing tasks doesn't usually come natural to people. You just see stuff on your to-do list and you're like, oh, let me do you know, number one first, number two, number three, number four.
Speaker 1:There is a better way to do it, because not all jobs are created equal. Some are more critical to your podcast success or your content success, your business success, than others. So, using method like the Eisenhower Matrix, which I'll link to an article on this, it'll be really helpful. But basically what it is, and this is similar to Stephen Covey's approach with the seven habits of highly effective people, but you put everything into four quadrants. So you have urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not necessary, and neither urgent nor essential. So make sure that you focus your energy on those jobs in the first two categories to maximize your time.
Speaker 1:So a great example is email. People will say well, it's the most important thing for me to read my emails and respond to them the first thing every single day. And I disagree. I totally disagree. So I'm an early bird. I get up at 5 am and typically I will write in the morning. I'll do you know my gratitude journal, my creative writing, and then from there am I checking my email. Nope, I am usually the most creative first thing in the morning.
Speaker 1:So I know that's when I need to take that time and either use it to plan new podcast episodes, write emails, it's when I need to get in a sauna and make sure things are looking good for a specific project, or sit there and do like a brain dump of all the things that are coming up that I really need to work on. And then, throughout the day, I can look at other tasks that I need to do. But I prioritize those things that absolutely need to get done first in the morning, right at the beginning, not like, oh, I'll get to that after lunch. No, I won't, I'm tired after lunch. I kind of get brain foggy after lunch and until my afternoon coffee kicks in, I'm kind of useless for a little bit. So I know that I need to do the things that are the most important and the things that are the most pressing, and if you need help with prioritizing, I cannot recommend it enough.
Speaker 1:The book the One Thing by Gary Keller and Jay Papazon is one of those that I mean. It was life-changing for me, like I reread it at least once a year. And it is a small read. It is not a big book and it's just it's so helpful. So for anybody that struggles with prioritizing their tasks and not really knowing well what is the most important and what is urgent, this is a book that can absolutely help you figure out what your priorities should be. So that was number four is prioritizing your tasks. Number five, one of my favorite topics of this year leveraging tools and automation. So this is, I mean, it's very clear.
Speaker 1:I created a YouTube video and podcast episode earlier this year about the three AI tools that I'm using in my content every single week and ever since they were introduced to my life, like they are just like another habit it's almost like I learned a new way to brush my teeth and now that's how I just do it. I just brush my teeth that way. It's how I create content. I just have AI in my content. Now I lean on tools, like I ever since I set up my Calendly link to have people schedule calls for the podcast. I don't even think about that, like the question doesn't even come up, like, oh, did I email that person and you know, ask them these questions and get that? No, I don't even. I sent them my Calendly link. That's all I needed to do. So there are so many tools and software that are available to streamline your workflow as a podcaster or content creator. So using tools like Asana or Trello, social media scheduling tools or podcast editing software, that can save you time and just reduce more of that manual work.
Speaker 1:And actually I'm super excited because I just recorded a podcast interview that'll be coming up over the next few weeks with Joe. He was fantastic. I met him at Craft Commerce in Boise, idaho this is ConvertKits Conference, and we immediately kicked it off Like our oh my gosh. Our episode was so much fun. We decided we need to be Trivia Night Partners and he was so fun and so knowledgeable about podcast automation. Like he blew my mind because he told me he was like Crystal, I record a podcast episode and when I hit done and I like add it at, like, add everything to the folder, I don't touch it until it's really like I don't, I don't see it, I don't do anything like until it is aired, and I was like what? Like like Scooby-Doo. That's exactly what I felt like when I said that. But oh my gosh, so I cannot wait for that episode to come out. But leveraging tools and automation can absolutely work in your favor. So go watch my youtube video about how I'm using AI tools right now in my content and it can absolutely give you a peek into what this can look like. All right, last two we're around in the corner.
Speaker 1:Last two key elements that we need to talk about today. Number six setting boundaries. Oh my gosh, like all the topics we're covering today, I'm so passionate about it. I told you I'm passionate about content, calendars, I'm passionate about project management, time management, all these tools and everything. Boundaries let's just talk about them.
Speaker 1:So when you're passionate about your content, it's easy to overwork and burnout. So it's crucial to establish those clear boundaries for your work and your personal life. So you need to define your work hours, take regular breaks and make time for self-care, because burnout can seriously just you. You pod fade, you don't have any more creativity, you don't have any more productivity and I have unfortunately seen a lot of creators in the space end up with really, really bad health problems because they're not taking care of themselves. They have no boundaries. They're just like I gotta be on. I have to have, you know, the Instagram selfie mode, like I gotta be like, constantly sharing what I'm doing, life updates like all the time, and I just don't subscribe to that. So set healthy boundaries for your content. You don't have to be connected digitally 24, seven. In fact. I encourage you to have breaks where you're like I don't even know where my phone is, or I deleted all the social media apps for my phone because no one needs me right now. It's perfectly fine. So set healthy boundaries and you're like well, crystal, I don't even know how to do that. I have a book recommendation for um I. It's an older book saying it's older, it's probably like 10 years old at this point, but it's called boundaries, by Dr Henry Cloud and John Townsend. So I heard Henry Cloud speak at um.
Speaker 1:We went to a Ramsey Solutions event a long time ago and I'm trying to get. It was the smart money conference. So this was in Arlington, texas. My husband and I went and you probably heard me talk about Dave Ramsey before on the show. But, um, I mean, I, I owe so much to their organization. They've helped me a lot in my creator journey. I went there in 2021 and, uh, jade Warsaw, who is the new Ramsey personality, she was my coaching buddy. Like I just have such a connection to the organization and they helped our family like get out of debt. Like we are out of debt besides our mortgage. Like I have so much to thank for this organization. But Dr Henry Cloud spoke on stage and he works with, you know, the Ramsey company from time to time and when he talked about boundaries, I was like wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
Speaker 1:I didn't have enough and this was for my personal life. This was even before I started my business. I did not have boundaries in place in a lot of my personal relationships and I finally understood for the first time how it was really affecting me and I'm so glad that I learned these. Like I had this tool in my pocket before I even started my business, because when people's opinions crept in or people would say things that you know it was well intentioned, it didn't affect me as bad because I had this tool in my toolbox, I had boundaries in place, I had set clear boundaries for myself in a personal way that I was able to just bring that into my business. And now today I have no problem setting boundaries none whatsoever and I believe that it's helped me avoid burnout. It's helped me continue to work as hard as I do on my business and all the things that we have going on at profit media. It's because I have a clear boundary on when I'm going to start the day, when I'm going to stop the day, when I'm with the kids, when I'm at work. You know it's like all these things.
Speaker 1:So if you struggle with boundaries, I cannot recommend this book enough. It's so helpful for like. If you struggle with this in your personal life, absolutely go check it out, but it can also help in your business as well. So setting boundaries is point number six and, moving right into point number seven, this is super crucial. It's reviewing and adjusting. So I told you from the beginning I've had different systems, different processes.
Speaker 1:I started with, you know, just a plain google sheet. I have done all the different tools, all the different project management systems and the fancy ones, the cheap ones, the free ones, the paid ones like I've done it all and the thing that has worked for me is a sauna, and this isn't like I feel like this should be sponsored by a sauna, but it is not. But reviewing and adjusting your time management and project management strategies over time is what will help you stay organized and just knowing what's really working for you. So the digital landscaping and podcasting in general, it's constantly evolving. There are tools out there today that y'all tell me about. I don't even know, because I've been around for a while and I'm kind of setting my ways in some, like some stages where I'm like, oh, I didn't even know that there was a company that did that, because I've been using this tool for you know, two or three years now and I'm just I just keep using it.
Speaker 1:So I want you to take the time to review your processes and make adjustments as needed regularly. So look for feedback from your audience and stay open to new ideas and techniques, and a great example of this is I've had several of you. Since Descript bought Squadcast, many of you came to me and said, oh, I already used Squadcast, now I can use Descript, or already use Descript, now I can use Squadcast. That's an example of things may change, like your processes and project management on the back end may look different because you decide to go with a new software, or maybe you hire a project manager or you hire a VA and then all of a sudden, things have to change like.
Speaker 1:Don't think of all of your business and your content as like set in stone. Be prepared to review and adjust and have a more fluid approach to what you're doing in your content, because your systems will grow and evolve with you. For example, I started with simple spreadsheets in Google Docs and I eventually migrated everything over to Asana and now, like I said, this is not sponsored by Asana, but it should be, because I can't live without it. But get started where you are today so that you can monitor your progress over time and you can also use tools and software to be your virtual accountability buddy, when you'd otherwise have to rely solely on yourself. And this is the one thing that I really truly love about Asana or any of the project management tools that are out there is you have accountability where you would otherwise not have accountability. Because, let me tell you, just putting stuff in a Google Calendar, that's not holding you accountable, because unless it's saying, oh, this is due tomorrow, which, unless you're looking at your Google Calendar every five seconds which I hope you're not doing that then it's just confusing and it's not helpful. But with Asana, I can see like, oh, this is the next task that I need to do. So we talked about the PREPA method in the last episode, so if you haven't listened to that, go back and listen to it, because I'm talking about how you plan, record, edit, publish and market your content, and I track all of that in Asana. I keep it together. It's how I have my shiitake together, because everything is tracked that way.
Speaker 1:So review and adjust your tools, your systems, your processes on a regular basis just to make sure things are still working, because I don't want to be the dinosaur that started her podcast in 2018 and just like, oh, I'm not open to new ideas, I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing, even if it's taking 10 times longer than other people. No, I look at and I adjust to things as needed, and it's why I use AI and so much of my content creation today, because it is something that is newer and I knew that it would be so helpful to this show, and I knew it would be helpful for me to learn it, to pass on that knowledge to you. So review and adjust your processes as needed and continue to work on project time management productivity, because it's a skill. It is a skill that you can learn If you're like Crystal, I'm not good at it. Yes, you can be. You can be better, and I mean there's just so many other points to it today. But success in this field is not about just creating great content. It's also about managing your time and projects efficiently to make sure that your message reaches the right audience.
Speaker 1:And if you're listening to this in real time, then I encourage you to check out Time Genius. I talked about this earlier. This is a program with Marie Forleo and it's actually closing soon. So go to crystalprofitcom forward slash time if you're listening to this in real time, because her program closes on Friday, september 22nd 2023. And I don't want you to miss out, because I do have bonuses in there that can help you with project management and, you know, getting your system set up in Asana and I actually don't teach that and I don't, you know. Give you the templates. I'm giving you all of my templates from Asana in this program and I don't offer that anywhere else. So, again, go to crystalprofitcom forward slash time to learn about Marie Forleo's Time Genius program. But that's all I have for you today.
Speaker 1:So let me do a quick recap of all the seven points we talked about. Number one you have to set those clear goals. Number two create a content calendar. Number three make sure that you're doing that time blocking. Number four prioritize your tasks. Number five leverage tools and automation. Number six set boundaries. And number seven review and adjust as often as needed. This was such a great episode. Like I said, I love talking about this. I could keep going on and on, but that is enough for today. So make sure that you hit that follow or subscribe button wherever you're listening to this, and I would love it if you would take a screenshot where you're listening and tag me on Instagram. I'm at Crystal Profit TX and I would love to know what your number one takeaway was from today's episode. But, as always, remember, keep it up. We all have to start somewhere.
