Creative Coaching for Musicians

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S3 E48: My Favorite Productivity Tools

Rebecca Hass

In this episode I share my favorite (mostly free) tools that help me in balancing my creative work, coaching business, and everything else that needs to get done. I’m hoping that one or more might also be helpful for you in getting your systems organized, so that compassionate productivity can pave the way to make the mental space for more creativity in your life!

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Hello, everyone, welcome to Episode 48 of Being A Whole Person. 

Today I'm gonna share with you some of my favorite productivity tools that helped me get this podcast done, helped me organize my coaching business, helped me just feel on top of things. 

But first, I have a few announcements. Number one, coming up this Thursday, October 7 at 4pm Pacific is the fall edition of my Build Your Seasonal Self Care Survival Kit workshop. This is great if you could use some new self care practices, if you want to return to some old ones, you just want to make sure that you have yourself ready to go for a new season. It’s a good time to check in and just see how things are going, and how you might be able to support yourself better. 

Having meaningful and effective self care really depends on having those go to practices that you can always have at the ready. So when something happens that's stressful, you know exactly what you can try without having to think about it too hard. 

I'll give you lots of ideas based on the framework of nine different types of rest, and you'll make a master list of everything that just sounds good. Then we'll take that master list, and we'll distill it down to your personal self care menu for fall 2021. The great thing about this is you can redo your menu anytime you want to. You probably will redo it, because you're going to keep growing and changing. You're going to keep evolving and your self care will have to evolve with you. 

This is a 90 minute workshop and the first, probably, 75 minutes, we'll be going through the list and making the menu, then there'll be time for questions at the end as well. So that's on a sliding scale $15-35. And if you are a member of Compassionate Creativity Coworking Club, you get into all those quarterly workshops for free. So if you've been curious about it, and you're curious about the workshop, that might be a great idea, too! The link will be in the show notes for that, of course. 

Second announcement, I'm still looking for questions for a Q&A episode. I know those of you who've been listening for a while, may have heard me say this a few months ago. You might be wondering, where's that Q&A episode? Thank you to those of you who have sent in questions so far, I'm still looking for questions. So you can email me at hello@rebeccahass.com or send me a DM on Instagram. Whatever works for you. I want your questions, and I want to answer them! 

Lastly, of course, please rate and review the show. It really helps with getting it found in iTunes and all the apps - the algorithms and all those things that we don't want to think about, but that really do make a difference in getting this show found by people, thus spreading the message of self care and being kind to ourselves and having the creative lives that we want. I want more people to be able to do that, don't you? So rating and reviewing is a really small, free way to help out the show. Thank you very much in advance. 

So let's get into today's episode. I was kind of putting off doing this episode actually, for a while, because productivity tools are helpful. But as I've been talking about compassionate productivity over the last couple years, I think I've been thinking about how these articles about productivity tools usually go, and how they're so rooted in “get everything done as fast as you can” and you know, kind of the toxic productivity, hustle culture kind of attitude. 

That's not the kind of thing that I wanted to do here, but honestly, having more tools is helpful, because this is what is going to allow us to construct our lives in a way that we get the things that we actually want to get done, and get your important creative goals done. 

I know I've talked a lot about the “how”, like, the methods and tips for how you can organize your life and what attitudes you can have toward it. And I've talked a little bit about the “what” - the tools, the nitty gritty, but I've never done a whole episode about tools. So, people asked me about this, here you go, here's the episode! 

I also want to give a quick disclaimer, I kind of was already saying this, the reason for productivity is determined by you - you knowing why you're maximizing your time. What will that actually do for you? We don't want to maximize our time and be as productive as possible “just because”, so that we can live up to some unrealistic standard, and you're feeling like you're trapped in the hamster wheel. So I just want to reiterate that that's what I mean when I say “productivity”. We care about that, so that we can make the mental space for more creativity. 

Second of all, me sharing my tools is so that you can try stuff that you think sounds good. It is not me telling you to use all of the tools that I use, or prescribing that you need to do things exactly like I do them. Everybody's different, different things work for different people. 

Sometimes we get in a trap of thinking that this new tool will change everything. Then you spend all this time getting all your to do lists, and all your stuff moved over to a new app, or whatever. But if you don't actually commit to continuing to tweak how you use it, then it doesn't end up working in real life, and you might just kind of give up on it. 

So there's no magic bullet, there's no perfect tool. You don't have to load up your plate at the productivity buffet. If one of these things sounds good to you, that's awesome. Start there, with one thing. Most of these things I'm sharing today are free, or have a free option. So hopefully the things I'm talking about will be very accessible to you. 

First of all, Trello is my hub for everything, all of my to do lists, all of the things that I have to do. I know some people really like Asana. I used Trello at the beginning, because it had the more visual, cards, lists and stacks way of laying it out, it wasn't just little bullet point lists. Now Asana has that too, I just...all my stuff is in Trello, so I'm not gonna change it up at this point. So not saying it's the only way to do it, but I love Trello. 

I have my main board, that's called “SPM”, short for Super Productivity Mofo, which is what my college roommate and I used to say to each other. We'd be like, “Okay, it's SPM time, let's do this.” And we’d kind of work together, or one of us would say, “When you get back, I'm going to have all this stuff done, because I'm going into SPM mode.” So that's kind of silly. But that's still the name of my catch all, main to do List board. 

It's organized loosely, according to the framework from the book Getting Things Done by David Allen, which is kind of rigid. He's very prescriptive about exactly how you have to do this method. Honestly, I don't follow it exactly as how he's laid it out, and I don't think that you need to, to have things work well for you. 

But I have columns that say Today, Working On, This Week, Next Week, Waiting On, Would Like To Do, Low Priority (so that I can batch those things together when it's a Friday afternoon, and I need to get something done, but I'm kind of tired or whatever), Bigger Projects, Planning ahead (so I can scan that and then move those cards over to the more urgent Today or This Week lists.) Then there's the Done column for the things that are finished. That's kind of my loose way of doing that framework. 

That way, I can just move a card from place to place depending on when I want to do it. And I can kind of, at a glance, see the things that are the most urgent, and that works really well, to me. If you want to get even deeper, and completely nerd out about Trello, and how that works, let me know. I can go deeper, but I don't want to get too stuck in the weeds with that. 

I also like to make boards for this podcast. I have repeating tasks for each episode with checklists and all that kind of thing. Then I'll make a board when I have a bigger project or a launch, like, Compassionate Creativity Coworking Club just started, or when I did a Kickstarter to fund my album, or when I actually recorded the album. So you can kind of see everything that's going on, in one spot. 

Even though I really like having this digital repository of all the things, I also really like using paper. So I use the Get to Work Book planner. Actually, I don't use the planner, the whole book, but I use the printable weekly layouts because I found that I didn't really need the whole planner, I just wanted this weekly spread on one sheet. So those PDFs work great for me, really simple and clean looking. They kind of encourage you, with how they're laid out, to have three important things for each day and three important things for each week, which is a really great way to start. But there's even more room on there, of course. 

Every Monday, I'll look at Trello and make my to do lists for the day in the Monday column, but then I'll also make a list for the whole week in a post-it note, so that I can kind of fill in each day as it goes. Then I do my weekly check-ins right on that planner sheet, on the Saturday and Sunday columns, because I don't usually make to do lists on those days. Or if I do, it's kind of at the bottom of the Friday part. 

Another tool I love and couldn't live without is Acuity Scheduling, which is where I schedule all my coaching appointments, discovery calls, workshops, free coworking sessions - all that stuff goes through there. There are, of course, a whole bunch of different options for scheduling and calendar software out there, but at one point, Acuity offered their lowest paid plan for free if you were a Squarespace user. I had a Squarespace website, so I wanted to do that, and I'm grandfathered into that deal, hopefully forever. That helps me ensure that my calendar is taken care of because it syncs with my Google Calendar. That way, I can't get double booked with anything. So that's amazing. 

I know, Google calendar is not an unfamiliar tool. But, of course, it's extremely important to have all that stuff organized. The way that I use it that isn't immediately obvious, is that I have my main calendar with all of my commitments on it, then I also have a private calendar where I mark off time blocking for myself. 

So if I want to time block out my day, it doesn't block off my entire Acuity calendar, people can still book times with me for appointments. I will also use that to make full day appointments that say, like, Cat and Couch Day for my rest days after something busy, or if I just want to block off a morning for working a little more lightly or something like that. 

Another tool in this sort of obvious category is Gmail, but specifically, the filters. I filter all of my newsletter type emails into a folder that I just call “Automail”. I don't remember where I got this idea, but it was totally brilliant, whoever had the idea. I just filter using the word “unsubscribe” or, you know, words that come up in newsletters, so that they all go into this folder that isn't my inbox. 

Then I got more granular with it, filtering from each sender of newsletters that I get more regularly into more specific folders that are subject-based. So I glance at the Automail folder every day to make sure I don't miss anything important, because filters are not perfect. But this way, my main inbox doesn't get too scary. There's not that much stuff in it, and every time I look at my inbox, I don't have that mental load of seeing each email and my brain thinking, “Oh, I got to do something with that later.” 

You know how it is, when you have so many things that are just cluttering your mind, it's better not to see them immediately. So Gmail filters are super helpful. 

I mentioned that I use my Google calendar for time blocking, and I sometimes use that to also track how long things take, if I need to update, like on an invoice, I thought I was gonna spend two hours doing that thing, and I only spent an hour and a half, or whatever it is. But I also really like Toggl for time tracking, and, you know, anything where I have to invoice on an hourly basis. That's great, because it's all in one place. Or if there's something that I just want to know how long it took me to do a certain project. It's great for just letting the timer run until I'm not working on it, starting and stopping whenever I need to.

 It's also good for more intense time tracking, if you want to track everything and see how you're using your time. I don't do this very often. Sometimes I'll take a week and just sort of do that as an experiment to study how I am actually using my time. It's very illuminating. Sometimes it feels a little incriminating to myself, how distractions are showing up, and stuff like that. But honestly, when the time tracking is on, I get distracted less, because I feel like I have to perform better for the robot that's tracking my time. 

Even though that sounds silly, maybe you could use that as a tool. This is making me think I should come back to this soon, and do one of those time tracking weeks. Perhaps that'll happen soon. 

On that same note, I really love Pomodoro timers. There are probably a million Pomodoro apps out there. You might have one that you like, but I really like marinaratimer.com because it's free, it's browser based, and you can customize it to do different time intervals. If you're not familiar with Pomodoro, it's this method of 25 minutes working, then a five minute break, then you do four of those cycles, and then a longer break. There are definitely variations on it, probably a ton of variations on it. 

There is research that it's based on that says the ideal focus work period is like 25 to 40 minutes. I think that length of time is really good because it forces you to get up, or you're supposed to get up and not take your break on the computer. Take a stretch break, walk around the room, go get a drink of water, whatever basic needs need to be taken care of. It's nice to have a timer telling you to take that five minute break. 

Also in the vein of time related tools, the iPhone screen time settings are really good for knowing how much time you're taking to do various things, and for restricting you from using the more distracting apps. Although, it's super easy to override and say, “15 more minutes” or “Ignore limit for today.” I definitely use “Ignore limit for today” more than I would like to admit, but those tools are there, built into the phone. I'm sorry, Android users, I don't know what the option is for you, but hopefully there is one, too, let me know. 

It's good to be able to either block or restrict the apps that are kind of my go-to culprits for the “digital munchies”, the endless scrolling. For the mindless stuff on the computer, I can do that with the Self Control app for Mac. I know I've talked about this on the podcast before, but I have to put it in this roundup too. It allows you to blacklist websites that you don't want to be able to get to, or you can whitelist just a few of them, and everything else is blocked. You set a time limit and press go, and that's it, you are blocked from whatever you tell it you are blocked from for that period of time. Even if you restart your computer, you cannot override it. 

I like to block social media and email, and you know, websites that I might want to read things on when I'm trying to do really focused work. There's also an app called Freedom for PC, which I don't think is free, I think it's a subscription based thing, but you can check that out if you're not a Mac user. 

So those have been my favorite go-to tools for a long time. I'll just really quickly mention a couple that have made their way in there that I'm learning to use. Airtable, which has relational spreadsheets, sort of like a souped up version of Excel, or Google Sheets. You can make different things relate to each other on different sheets. So it's been great for organizing my SEO keywords, for instance. Then I can look at it in different views, based on the keyword or based on what article I want to write that has to do with that keyword and all the different content ideas that might come up in the future. 

The other one that I've started using more recently is Miro. It's like a giant virtual whiteboard. I use it mostly for my social media planning. I make a little template grid that has spots for each day, and each platform, and all that stuff. Then you make little what's basically like virtual Post-it notes, and you can drag them around to different spots. So it's like the virtual version of sticking a million posts on the wall, and you don't have to waste all that paper. 

Sometimes I do want to go analog and do that, but I really love Miro, it can do so many different things that I've barely even scratched the surface. I just make my little grids in Canva, and then boom, it's all there in one spot, and I can zoom in, zoom out, move things around. Very cool. 

Before I go, because you know, I can't not sneak a little self care tip in here, my bonus tools are going to be: plenty of water; sometimes green tea; because I'm very sensitive to caffeine and green tea is like, as high as I go; 100% dark chocolate, and mental clarity oil, because those are all things that help me focus a little bit better, and help me show up to be more productive. 

I have other episodes that are about focus, and some strategies for that, and if you want to get more into the time tracking and making your schedule kind of stuff, you can also check out my workbook called Fuel Your Creative Work With Compassionate Productivity so you can get into the actual method behind that. 

If you've heard all this, and you're like, “Cool, these tools sound great, but where do I even start in getting organized? How do I make this work for my real life, for my own creative projects?” I'd love to meet with you and help you talk through it. 

My Rise Above the Overwhelm sessions are a long one-time session where we get together, and we just sit down, get everything organized. We could set up whatever new system you want to use, going forward, in a way that will actually work for your life, your work, perhaps your various jobs, your various projects. I know every single person has a little different scenario. That means that there isn't really a one-size-fits-all solution. So if you need help getting organized, I would love to talk to you about that, let me know. 

And if you're thinking about coaching, and you're not really sure what option is good, you can always do a free discovery call with me too, with no pressure, just come and we'll get to know each other a little bit, see if it's a fit. You'll definitely leave with some strategies by the end of that half hour. 

So let me know which one of these things you are going to try. Is there something I talked about that you had been thinking about and you're like, “Oh, maybe now's my time to actually try this”? Like I said before, definitely don't treat this like a checklist and do every single one of these things. I hope that they will prove helpful. I hope you have a fabulous week, maybe I'll see you at the workshop on Thursday, and until next time, be well!