Weekly Goals #29

Hellooooo loves! Happy Monday! Well, I'm finally back from my trip to Colorado. Though lovely, I feel like I've been gone forever. I've hardly opened up my computer in a week and a half and it feels just weird-weird-weird. I'm still getting back into the swing of things so I'm keeping things super short and casual today.

Last week, I made a goal to exercise while on vacation. But I sooorta underestimated how much of an exercise skiing is in itself! Did you know that you can burn upwards of 400 calories an hour skiing? Yeah, for real, you can believe how excited I was to learn that, especially considering that some days I skied from 9 till 4. That's a whole lotta calories to get rid of! Needless to say, I got them all back with some Nutella ;) So I'm totally fine with not exercising officially all week since I walked around town lots + skied. 

But I'm not gonna spoil too much since I have a little recap planned for later this week. Just know that my awesome week included not only skiing, but also tubing, good food, drama and dogsledding. Yes. And if I can convince him, H might share a little bit about when he went snowmobiling!

Until then, let me share my goals for the week. I've got a lot to do to get back in place for the coming weeks. I'm missing classes again today because I'm in Tennessee. I'll need to be super focused to get caught up on classwork. In addition, I didn't write any blog posts for like ten whole days (they were all scheduled! gasp!) so my stock of prewritten posts is down to nil. This week I want to get back to my normal schedule of being at least three or four posts ahead. 

That's all today--what are your goals for the week?

Creating Productive Habits

Hey loves! Another one of my all-time favorite bloggers is here to blog about creating meaningful and productive habits in your life. I absolutely loved her advice + I hope you do too!

Hello Call Me Sassafras Readers! I’m so happy to have the chance to fill in for Allie today. My name is Amber and I blog over at And Yes To Joy. Over there, I blog about designing a positive life filled with intention. Like many of you, I aim to have as many productive days as possible. Balancing running a blog and being a full time student with a list of other activities, I survive by making the most of the time I have to get things done. The fact of the matter is, I’m big on setting goals, and it takes a lot of focus to stay on track to achieve them.

I've blogged about useful tools to help keep you organized and productive, like creating effective to-do lists and staying organized during crunch time. But no matter how many tools you try to utilize to boost your productivity, nothing is more effective than creating effective habits. Humans, after all, are creatures of habit.

A few elements are key when you’re working towards creating new, productive habits:

Create an intention
The first step to implementing any new habit is to first create an intention. If your mind and heart aren’t really in a place to form a new habit, the rest is a waste of time. If you’re ready to really focus on the task as hand, create a powerful intention to live your most productive life by focusing on what you hope to accomplish and why forming this new habit matters to you.

Create a routine
The key to true productivity is consistency. Keeping yourself on a schedule of some sort is essential. Opting the “go with the flow” route could easily lead to days spent on the couch. Start by implementing small tasks like waking up at the same time each morning and going to bed at the same time every night. Knowing that certain things should take place during certain times of the day helps you to make better use of your time.

Organize and Plan
Take some time at the end of each day to organize and plan the next day. Write important meetings and pressing items in your planner – include times and locations to help keep you in sync. If the traditional to-do list isn’t your think, organize a “Daily Game Plan” where you break down the day into blocks and assign tasks to each time block.

Give it some time
It takes about a month to successfully initiate any habit. Be sure to practice the same routine for at least 21 days, to give it time to take. This time of repetition will give you time to strengthen your will power, and overtime the amount of will power you need to get things done becomes less and less.

Evaluate
After your 21 days are up, sit back and evaluate how things have gone. Did you find yourself less overwhelmed and pressed for time than usual? Did you get more done, and feel less stressed?

It may take some time for you to tweak your new habit to make it really work for you and your lifestyle. Remember, while staying at it is important, stressing yourself out to the point of overwhelm is never a good idea. If something doesn't feel right, change it up. Productivity should decrease your stress levels, not increase it.

How to Make a Super Effective To-Do List

Sup guys. Happy Valentine's Day!! If you're a lover, I hope you're having a lovely day/night. If you're single, do not watch any Nicholas Sparks movies. Trust me. It's a mistake. 

Anyways, let's get going. In case you haven't noticed, I'm obsessed with planning and organizing and making lists and scheduling and planning. I'm very analytical minded. I'm also a student, I have a job + a blog (surprise!). And of course, what happens when you mix that? An insatiable lust for to-do lists. Yes. I make about six a day on average. So basically, I'm an expert.

You might make to-do lists + hopefully, they help you get stuff done. BUT, I thought I'd share a couple of the things I've learned that can help you karate chop your way through that list.

Write out everything.

Some people definitely disagree with this one, so feel free to ignore it. But when I make my to-do list every day, I write down absolutely everything I have to do. That includes brushing my teeth (or at least 'morning routine'), eating lunch, and exercising. Just because it's on the to-do list doesn't mean it's work, it just means I'm planning time for it in my day. BUT notice I said write down the things you have to do. Not everything you 'could do.' Keep it simple so that you don't get overwhelmed by the sheer number of things on your to-do list. 

Choose concrete tasks.

Okay, you've heard this. Don't say 'work on design project'. Try writing 'insert picture from email + design border for the hello blurb' or something applicable to what you do. Make your tasks small + manageable too. Instead of 'clean the house', try 'take out the trash, wipe down kitchen counters + pick up clothes on bedroom floor.' Cleaning the house sounds scary but anyone can do those three little tasks!

Prioritize your tasks.

The second thing I do is prioritize all of my tasks by how important they are. The things with the soonest deadline are first and the last things are the items that I want to work on + should work on but that there will be no tangible consequence if I don't (i.e. I won't get fired). I just write a circled number next to each task; it only takes a minute. This helps me make sure that my most important tasks (sometimes called MITs or MVTs if you read productivity blogs) get done before the marginal things.

Set time goals.

Look at each item. If it's something you're going to want to do for awhile or might get caught up in (aka catch up on blog reading or emailing), set a time limit for, say, 30 minutes. You can even plan to have two chunks of 30 minutes at different times of the day. 

Then, see if you have any items that are time-based that you need a goal length of time. For me, that might be reading for a class. I don't technically have to do it, so if I don't have a goal, yeah I'm stopping after fifteen minutes so I can retreat to Netflix. For items like this, set a goal time (such as 30 minutes). For every other item, just write an estimated amount of time. This will help you be realistic about how much time you have in a day + how much you can get done. 

Plan out your day.

Our your afternoon or lunch break or whatever. Think about how much time you have and how much of that time you can actually work. Pick items, based on your priorities, until you have enough goal tasks to fill up your day. I like to start with something productive but relatively quick. If I have just a small piece of a design left for a client, I'll do it right off the bat. By starting off my day getting something done, I've set my pace for the rest of the day. When I'm planning out my day, I like to write out each of my tasks in order + create a loose time schedule to my day. My schedules are fluid (which is why I change them about six times a day haha) but they can still keep me on track.

Plan space into your day.

I've been working with this system for maybe a year now, so I know pretty well how long everything takes me. I cushion 5-10 minutes in between every task in case is takes longer than I expect or I run into some other roadblock. Also, every few hours, I plan 20-30 minutes that is meant for a real break. Walking around, talking to people, and getting outside are all great ways to take a mini-break + refresh yourself for finishing your to-do list. 

To-do lists: love 'em or leave 'em? Do you have a method for getting things done?

Weekly Wishes #23

Oh man, I hate to say it but I am not looking forward to today. After a long Christmas break, it's back to classes. I have to say, I really don't like starting off a day on a bad note or without anything to look forward to, but to be honest, I'm not looking forward to anything about today before I go to bed. Oh well.

But anyways, it's, of course, Monday, so I'm sharing my weekly wishes! Before that, let me recap last week's wishes. I made two wishes: give H a random compliment everyday and dance with him at the wedding we were going to last weekend. 

H and I liked to be silly-sweet with each other so giving random compliments wasn't hard, I just had to be intentional about it. But the other one, dancing at the wedding, was going to be super hard for me. Luckily for me though, there actually wasn't even any dancing at the wedding at all, so I didn't achieve my goal but I didn't exactly fail. I will admit, I'm just a teensy bit disappointed since I had really gotten myself mentally ready for looking like an idiot, but I think I can deal. 

This week, like I mentioned, school starts back up. And while I usually love most of my classes, I'm just not feeling it this week. So #1 I want to make a smooth transition into classes. I'll be working hard to stay away from procrastination so that I can get things done without stress or enormous amounts of gummy bears (which I sometimes adopt as my coping mechanism of choice). 

My #2 goal for the week is to stick with my new checklist system. I made this big checklist just yesterday to help me keep track of various good habits in my life, from flossing to exercising to sleeping early. So my goal for this week is to not worry about checking off every box, but mostly just remember to keep the checklist accurate and updated. If the system works for me, I'll be sharing it with you in the next few weeks! Sorry if this project sounds super vague so but just know that I'm super excited to see how it'll work!

What are your wishes for the week?

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4 Ways to Get More Out of Your iTunes Library

Guys, it's about to get nerdy in here. Get excited.

Let's start with a bit of a story about Allie, shall we? So over the last three or four years, my dad has made me take four or five of those "career placement" tests--you know, the one's that ask you to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 how fun 'building a birdhouse' or 'answering the phone' sounds to you (hint: the answer's always 1). Basically, my dad thought that as there's no way I was capable of knowing what I wanted to do with my life so I had to get some people in an office a thousand miles away to tell me.

Anyways so every time I had to take one, 6 to 9 weeks later, I'd get a massive package in the mail, with all the answers I need for my life, ever (sarcasm). Every single time, the tests told me the same thing. I should work with science (not people! ha, they know I'm an introvert), numbers, data, etc, etc. Well actually one time, a test recommended me for 'personal services'...meaning being a bartender or a manicurist. Yep. (Not that there's anything wrong with either of those, just not for me.)

Point is, I have a through-and-through, dictionary definition analytical mind. But I could have told you that. I mean, I'm the girl that plans out her day down to the minute and tries to get through boring runs by squaring numbers in her head. I could have saved you the money, Dad.

I literally analyze everything (guys, I promise I'm fun!). And my iTunes library is no exception. I get all organize-y and analyze-y to the max when it comes to things I love, so of course I have to constantly organize my iTunes library. So please, allow me to teach you my ways, young grasshoppers.

Remind yourself of forgotten music. 

Click the little squarey thing in the top left corner >> New >> New Smart Playlist. Then select "Last Played" and "is before" and then a date, I recommend a year before today. You may find some old favorites that you've just forgotten about (especially if you have a large-ish library like me) or you may just want to trash them all.

Delete that music that you think you like but actually hate. 

In theory, I really like the band Bon Iver. Y'know, they're folksy and acoustic-y and I dig that. So if someone asked me if I like them, I'd say yeah, sure. But my iTunes library "skip" filter tells the truth. The more you 'skip' a song (meaning it comes up in a playlist or shuffle and you click to the next song), the more you honestly don't like them. To see your skips, right-click on the menu bar on the top (with song/artist/time/date added/stuff like that) and select skips. Then sort it and see which songs you skip most. Just delete them. You can do it.

Rate your music + create a system. 

I almost hate to say it because I know it takes awhile but I've found it to be worth it. So if you're not super obsessed with music (like me), you can skip this. But if you are, make sure you're rating. As much as you can. As you're listening to it, try to take a second to click a rating in. Make definitions for what each rating means for you. For me, 5 stars would be a song I play over and over again. A song doesn't usually stay on 5 stars forever though. When I get a little tired of it, I bump it down to 4 stars, which means that I really like it. 3 stars means I like listening to it, but not all the time. 2 stars means I like the song but I'm really tired of it. Anything that deserves a rating below that should be deleted. I choose not to rate songs that aren't normal listening music. This means holiday music or music that I only listen to while working out or studying. I also try to go back through and rerate my 2 stars every once in awhile.

I like to make a few different playlists out of my ratings. One smart playlist is out of 5 star songs. The second is out of 4 star songs that haven't been played in at least a week. Then the third smart playlist is 3 star songs that haven't been played in at least a month. I put all three of these into a folder and shuffle from the folder. It tends to make a really nice mix of current favorites and songs that I like but haven't heard in a little while.

Delete duplicate songs.

For an easy, quick(ish) way to clean out your library, click view>>show duplicates. Delete the duplicates. You're welcome.

Next time, I want to show you all how I really analyze my iTunes library to find out more about my music-listening patterns. I promise you, it'll be so nerdy.

Until then, over and out.

weekly wishes + orderliness + hippo flips

Hello pretties! ]Can I just say this is the second weekend in a row that has just been fantastic? My team won our soccer championship earlier today, I love my new design + I've just been blessed by so many kind words from so many kind people today. I'm just really, really grateful.

As far as weekly wishes go, last week I made a goal to watch a TEDTalk everyday. So I failed at that; I maybe only watched them three days. But I watched more than seven talks so I'm counting this week as a success. I'll be sharing my favorites in the next few days!

In this coming week, I want to practice orderliness which sounds like something I'd be practicing in 18th century England or something, but it's more of a state of mind. I actually looked it up + it means 'the quality of appreciating method or system". And that's a big thing I strive for. Whether that means keeping my things organized or my living space or just my mind, I want to keep my life neat.

Science Bit of the Day

Not super sciencey, just cool. (Image + excerpt from The Guardian)

An elephant bull charges a female hippopotamus as her calf scampers to safety. This female hippo was flipped several feet into the air as she stood her ground against an aggressive elephant bull at the Erindi Private Game Reserve in Namibia. (The hippo was just fine) (Also, how cute is the calf?!) Photo by Rian van Schalkwyk/Barcroft Media.