Luxe Business Planning

Planners make me happy. They do. They are right up there next to sparkly unicorns and new shoes. Seriously.

On June 1st Erin Condren introduces her new line of life planners. I was sucked into the glam planning world in 2015. Previously I just went to target and picked up a plain Jane planner. The traditional planners were a bit too profesh for me. One day some goddess introduced me to Erin Condren...thank you who ever you may be.

I do know you offered me $10 off my first purchase and for that I say thank you. No worries, I have that same code for your first purchase...just click here and create an account. Check your email that you used then boom...$10 savings.

Erin Condren peeps were gracious enough to send me some goodies before the launch to show my lady friends. I opted for the luxe planner because I'm fancy. The cover is a vegan faux leather. It's not removable, but why would you want to take off such lusciousness. To touch it's very soft and thick. The color is a deep plum purple which in person is just gorgeous. The coil is rose gold [matches the foil lettering perfectly] and very easy to move the paper through. 

The updated paper is thick and has a nice feel. Paper quality is important, when you have important things to do! I opted for the neutral theme (black and white) and its simplicity is everything! It adds an extra bit of sophistication.

I have a business planner, a personal planner, a social media planner, a project planner, fitness planner and a ^i know I'm forgetting one^ planner. So I was just going to wait until January.

This planner starts in July. Only $5 more for the 18 month option [July start] . I've never started a calendar in July before and initially told myself I would just wait until January. That was until the Luxe Life Planner came.

18 month planning nice to meet you...I'm Kimber!

Previously I thought of 18 month calendars as something for the super [borderline obsessive] productive and "that" mom no one ever wants to admit to being. I digress...

I typically plan for business in quarters.

Q1 Jan 1-March 31st

Q2 April 1- June 30th

Q3 July 1 - September 30th

Q4 Oct 1 - December 31st

One big goal per quarter.

That means I have three months to break that goal down and make it attainable. Really pimp my productivity.

BIG Goals require BIG plans!

18 month calendars give you the opportunity to tackle Q3, Q4, Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 all in one book.

Doesn't sound like much until you are staring at the possibilities of your growth and success straight ahead. Growing to 6 and 7 figures does not happen by simply winging it. There has to be strategy and planning involved. In 5 minutes I can break down a business...5 minutes yo! That's my zone of excellence, but that alone didn't make me successful...strategy and planning did.

And if you enjoy life and being social as much as you enjoy work...planning makes it all possible.

At this point in my life my friends are marrying, having babies on purpose, turning 30, renewing vows, turning 40, divorcing, having more babies and just throwing amazing parties all over the world. Not to mention the social and school calendar of my babes.

This means I need to be able to take a real good look at my various work projects and these social events far in advance to make it work.

I usually don't start planning for the next year until October/November. Now I have broken the planner up into quarters, separated by these beautiful book marks.

I know how many clients I can work with individually per month and quarter. Depending on the other things going on in the quarter these numbers are adjusted. Quarterly planning helps me to know when I can release products and run groups. Planning is for bosses.

The month at a glance is the big picture for the month. A clear picture of everything that is going down and what objectives need to be met by what date in addition to the day to day work and life activities. You cannot negate the life. Seriously, it will pass you by, if all you do is work.

In the beginning of the life planner there is a section that says: "your greatest success is believing in yourself" with coordinating boxes. 12 success goals and a spot to break them down right in the front of your planner.

Save the best for last, my favorite accessory, which was updated is the insertable sticky note dashboard. I write quick notes to myself and ideas. It's incredibly easy to forget a million dollar idea...not with these babies. 

 Check out the video below to flip through the new EC Luxe Planner.

xo,

Kimber

Trello Gold is FREE yo + a quickie video

App sumo is offering Trello Gold for free.    

Trello is one of my freemium (free + premium AKA its free and rocks) tools that's I use to organize my biz.

I use Trello to organize projects and keep up with resources and tools quickly. Trello Gold allows you to upload more attachments and makes the experience more customized by allowing you to add various picture backgrounds and comment with emojis. Because emojis make life more fun.

I recommend Trello to all my visual lady friends. Trello is essentially a virtual white board for post-it notes.

Let's map a project out together real quick:

We Made It - Happy New Year + a download

Mama we made it!

If we were to ever hang out, which we really should in 2015 I would probably blurt that out randomly. You would be having such an amazing time that you wouldn't mind my animated silliness.

This year has been incredible.

IN-CRED-I-BLE

I can't pinpoint one thing or even ten that made this year so awesome, but that in itself just shows how miraculous it was.

For the record I hate all those buzz words (juicy, magical, miraculous) I see them everywhere which demeans the juicy magical miraculous goodness people were intending.

Off the record I think you're amazing and we can use that word as often as we please!

My wish for you is that you reflect on the last hours that we have in 2014 and truly examine the past year.

What are you grateful for?

When did fear and doubt almost stop you in your tracks?

What challenged you the most?

What were your three biggest WINS?

Who did you support?

Who supported you?

Describe a good day in 2014

Describe a remarkable day in 2014

What new experiences did you have?

What baggage did you pick up this year?

Save these questions to your google drive so you can easily reflect on your own.

I also wish that you take time in the next few days entering 2015 and visualize on how you want your year to look. Take your time with this. When done right this process is amazing *insert juicy, magical, or miraculous if you must*

I challenge you to unsubscribe from emails and newsletters that you don't read. If by chance I fall in that category, I wish you nothing but the best. Anything that isn't serving you don't take it with you to 2015, friday, next week, or next month. That's anytime.

That junk drawer in your kitchen and office, sort through it and get rid of all that junk. Fabulous Solopreneurs only have junk in one place and it isn't in a drawer.

via

Secondly I challenge you to set aside four days in 2015 exclusively for you. If you want to sleep all day or pamper yourself. Whatever you fancy..four days...they don't have to be consecutive. You'll thank me next year. You're welcome in advance.

Thirdly I challenge you to verbalize the one thing that you hate doing in your business and create a system to optimize it if you aren't in a position to outsource it.

In January I’m hosting a series of webinars and trainings on organization and productivity. If these fall under your one thing, join me and I'll help you sort it out. I promise I won't embarrass you and scream "Mama we made it."

Happy New Year my love! May 2015 be filled with your hearts desires and lots of laughter. Oh and of course automation and a chic streamlined business.

Google Drive

No secret Google and I are pretty close. Hey G! We're besties.

Google Drive is one of my favorite tools.

I didn't start using google drive effectively until this summer. Previously I was just saving pictures randomly and things I bought from Fiverr.

Google Drive from now on will be referred to as “GD” because well it's shorter and this whole post is about Google drive.

Okay, glad we're clear on that.

GD gives you 15GB of storage which doesn’t include the documents, spreadsheets, forms and presentations that you create within GD. Can you say, “SCORE!”

I create folders in GD for everything.

Okay folders...who cares? We do!! Organization is the key to streamlining.     

DOCUMENTS

I write all blog posts, site copy, love letters, EVERYTHING in GD. I have a list of hashtags that I use regularly on Instagram. Life saver!!! Especially if you have the GD app on your phone and you’re out and about getting your instagram on.

Now see I used to do these things in Evernote BUT Evernote and Macbook must have a dysfunctional relationship because the Evernote app wouldn't open for weeks and even going to Evernote’s website wouldn't open, but when on a windows computer it would work. All that drama was too much for me. I was tweeting them every other night. I don’t even tweet that often, so they probably flagged me as spam.

GD has a wonderful feature “revision history” that keeps track of the revisions when you make changes to documents created and edited in GD Documents.

GD allows you to share folders and documents with others. Genius! So if you have a collaboration no need to send things back and forth or upload to another program. You can control the settings so if you want to give the other party access to edit or just read. Both of you can edit at the same time also. You can share folders and documents/spreadsheets/forms/etc.

SPREADSHEETS

I love spreadsheets! They help me to stay organized. My editorial calendar process begins in a GD spreadsheet. [I’ll share my editorial process one day, just know it’s truly a process, but it ROCKS] My biz and personal budget are spreadsheets in google drive. Social media & promo tracker are also GD spreadsheets. Same sharing capabilities.

FORMS

You can create surveys and such to query your clients. I created a calendar for my mentoring girls based on a calendar another user created.

If someone emails me an attachment  I can save it right from gmail to guess where... GD. I can even be in gmail and access GD to send an attachment.

Google Drive has an extension within the Chrome Browser called Save to Google Drive which is an excellent way to save images, links, and documents from websites.

Google Drive can be used offline.

Google Drive Folder can be added on your computer similar to Dropbox feature.

Here is an awesome reference that I bookmarked with 100 Google Drive hacks.

Are you using Google Drive? Let me know how you’re using it.

Live. Love. Action

1. Be adventurous and try something new this week.

2. Create something awesome in Google Drive to share with the world.

3. Organize your folders in Google Drive if they aren’t already.