Sometimes you just have to be proud of yourself

I am old school, I still use a Filofax which I’m sure most people under 30 wouldn’t even recognise as being the classic piece of genius it is. I like writing things down (partly because it helps embed it in my brain) and I still proof read on print outs because I just find it more effective. 

I will say, though, that there’s nothing old fashioned about the way I work- I keep up with all trends, I do my CPD on my social media qualifications, I always check out new systems and I love learning. I’m also a massive believer in systemising where you can- spreadsheets can work but the bigger and more complicated your business gets the more you need systems to reduce the human error element, make everything simpler and save you time and money. 

One thing I’ve played about with but never really enjoyed using is project organisation software like ClickUp, Asana or Trello. I’ve had clients use it before and I’ll happily work with the platforms- and I have worked across all 3 but I’ve never really ‘got them’ before, I’ve never really seen them used more effectively than a spreadsheet or a sheet of paper.

That is until last week. 

I recently signed on a new client for an initial 3 month social media project- it’s the kind I love where no one had touched it in ages so I’m basically working with a blank sheet of paper and things can only go up from there! I decided that my best plan of action was to plan and sort the full 3 months at once- mostly so I could see the bigger picture and partly so I could save myself time across the months. 

I knew I needed a minimum of 3 blogs/case studies, 40 captions and 40 graphics - drafting straight into Canva wouldn’t work, I didn’t want a long, run on word doc and I didn’t feel excel was the way to go so I looked at Trello. 

Now, if you don’t know Trello (and the other ones I’ve mentioned above) is essentially a giant pinboard with the ability to add sections/lists (they call them cards) in a lovely laid out, linear fashion. 

For what I needed that was perfect. I started with mapping what I wanted to achieve, then the themes I wanted to cover in social, then set up separate cards for each theme and added captions under there- building up until mid fleshed out every section. I also added draft blog content (thanks to a combo of chatgpt and old fashioned research) and made a wish list for other things I wanted to do. 

Honestly, it was beautiful- it was organised, clear and simple and in theory I could hand it over to anyone to just create the graphics and schedule it all. Yep, I’m incredibly proud of it and this blog is basically me blowing my own trumpet. 

But to give it a more business focus… if you’ve not tried any of these project organisation tools yet, give them a go. They are useful and you too could create something you want to boast about!