This post was inspired by yesterday’s YourBrandYourBusiness show where PetraCat joined us to discuss organization. As we said in the show, with organization there’s an element of “I know it when I see it” but it’s hard to strictly define. That being said, it’s really important for a business owner and especially a streamer to be organized. Let’s cover some of the benefits of being organized plus some of the tools I use.
Benefits of being organized
The first benefit of being organized is that it reduces your stress. You know where things are, what you have to do, and by when you have to do them. You’re much less likely to wake up in the middle of the night remembering something that you didn’t do.
It also helps you actually get what you want. If you’re planning ahead and organized you can identify opportunities, like a new game release that would be great to stream, and put together a plan to get on the release list and fit it in to your schedule. If you’re big enough, companies will likely be reaching out to you. That means you’ll need to be organized in filtering through your opportunities to make sure you’re maximizing what will work for your community. If you’re smaller and need to do your own outreach, doing it earlier will be beneficial. Check out this article for some great advice on requesting keys. The more organized you are (and the more you’re planning ahead) the better you’ll do.
Finally, it will make your back office operations run more smoothly. By “back office” I mean everything that’s not being live on camera. It includes things like requesting keys, making a forward looking stream schedule (time and game), accounting, planning to go to conferences, doing taxes, requisitioning and monitoring artists, upgrading your stream hardware and software, and a whole host of other things.
How to be organized
First, it’s important to know that it’s different for everyone. What works for me won’t necessarily works for you. It makes sense to sample tips and tricks from a lot of different sources, try them, keep the ones that work, and discard those that don’t.
I’d highly recommend starting with reading. Reading is great! One of the best books that I’ve read on getting organized is Getting Things Done. There are all sorts of books about organization tackling all different kinds of organization. The more you know about what works for others the more like you are to be able to craft something for yourself.
The next and most important piece is to start small. You’re building habits and systems that will help you become and stay organized and those don’t fall in to place over night. Perhaps the worst thing you can do is start over ambitiously, have it fail, and then give up on future attempts because “you know it won’t work”. Start small!
Remember, you want to build systems to help you get the most organized with the least friction/pain. We’re really bad at dealing with long term friction and we generally don’t succeed if something’s painful unless we’re uniquely determined. Therefore, your systems should be “easy”. I like taking 5 minutes each day to update my expense in my accounting software and review how business is doing. Most days, there’s nothing to add and it doesn’t take 5 minutes. However, it keeps me in the loop and lets me catch problems early. Think something like that, small and easy to do but powerful when repeated over time.
Finally, you need to have a system to review your organization! It could be that something works for a while but no longer does. It could be that now that you’re more organized you have opportunities for even greater efficiency. Heck, you might just want a change. The point is to be conscientious and actually review your systems. As Shuri said in Black Panther “Just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.”
Tools
Here are some of the things that I’ve used to help with my personal and business organization. I’d love to hear about other stuff that you use!
Google suite
Google calendar and Google Tasks are my saviors. I use tasks to write down any thing that I have to do that pops in to me head. It could be “research thing for client” or “don’t forget to respond to mom” and I set a reminder for it to pop up later. That way, the passing thought it committed in a more permanent form so I don’t later wonder what I hoped to remember.
The calendar is my bread and butter. If there are long term projects I need to do, or even recurring tasks, I add it to my calendar as a time block. That gives me the excuse to focus on it during that time and actually make progress.
Notebooks/notepads
I keep a notepad on my desk that I use to take notes in client meetings. I also use it for jotting quick ideas so I can follow up later. This is similar to how I use Google Tasks.
Evernote
Evernote is awesome. It’s a free notebooking software that’s easy to organize and search. I write down tons of stuff, including article outlines, in it.
Accountability buddy
A friend and I have a recurring call each week where we set goals for the coming week. It generally lasts 15-20 minutes.
CRM/contact manager
I use my CRM to track tasks, keep contact info in one place, and to be able to quickly review notes I’ve taken on clients.
Expensify
I don’t use this but know some folks who love it. There’s a free version and a paid version but both let you develop expense reports via taking pictures of your receipts. That way, you don’t miss out on logging your expenses for tax time!
Timing apps
My wife loves the Pomodoro method of timing but there are a ton. The point is to get you to focus on one task for a set amount of time before taking a break.
Conclusion
Getting organized will help you run your business more efficiently and with less stress. There’s no one size fits all when it comes to organization style so you’re going to have to do some research on your own. A good combination of systems and tools will get you a long way towards being organized. Start today! Even if it’s a small start.
You don’t have to figure this out alone. This is what we do- help streamers and young professionals make great money decisions. That includes getting organized! If that’s something that sounds interesting to you reach out me or schedule some time for a free consult. You can check out what I do here.
