I was meant to be writing a blog post of the Seven Hermetic Principles to release today. Yesterday I had a couple of vaccinations that have really taken it out of me with a headache, fatigue and slight nausea so concentrating has been difficult to say the least.

I went to start about midday when I was feeling a bit better and immediately started getting side-tracked with scrolling which turned into researching Astrology for business for the last 3 hours.

Now, part of me feels guilty and is beating myself up, telling my mind to focus and get the post done so I can indulge in my research. The other part of my mind is telling me to run with it and is excited to learn all there is to know to help focus the direction of my business for greater long-term success. So, now I’m writing free flow~

My style of learning and research can be quite chaotic. I find a topic that inspires and engages me, then I spent hours learning all I can; taking notes, saving images, cross-referencing on what I already know and reading all the articles. In the process of all this, I might come across another topic that interests me and immediately follow that trail wherever it may take me. Further down the rabbit hole I go, chasing the elusive white rabbit, until I remember one of the original topics and then I begin shuffling through all the topics when I’ve only really scratched the surface of all of them.

Does anyone else do this? Lose themselves in the search of understanding new topics? Over immerse themselves in knowledge and begin losing track of it all?

It took me a long time to love my style of learning, researching, completing tasks etc. There’s still occasions where it frustrates me, particularly when there’s deadline to achieve but I have fun when I embrace my own style and follow my own flow. Everyone is different, you know? I’ve tried so hard to be a lot of things I’m simply just..not and not only does it exhaust me physically but my mental state falls to the detrimental darkness of shame (a little dramatic but I know you get it).

So now I’m embracing my style of doing things and allowing myself to jump from one thing to another. If you’re like me, there’s a couple of tools I want to share that have helped me keep track of it all, even in my chaotic style of task jumping.

The Two Tools That Keep Me Organised; (Mac based and free unless otherwise noted)

#1 Notion

I track everything here. It’s the hub of my business where I develop my brand, social media strategy, all my planning and analysis. It’s also where I gather my inspiration and start my day. The home page takes me to all my key pages; Business, Devotion (where I record my personal habits and journal), Knowledge (I create subjects, syllabus’ and gather information here) & Writing (A compilation of research and writing for the books I’m developing and writing).

#2 Goodnotes

I use this app primarily for my personal business diary at the moment. I have the file saved it to my homepage using ‘shortcuts’ so it’s super easy to get to. It allows me to write directly on it, things are easy to move plus I can duplicate pages which has helped me track personal events as well as social media/business activities. I can also save webpages here that allow me to easily highlight key information as I read it or save important documents. I’ve been using this app for years and it’s been so useful for the import/export of pdfs as well. I believe the most recent update Goodnotes 6 has a price attached but I stay on the free Goodnotes 5.

These are honestly the primary ones that I use, there’s other apps I use for different things for example Canva (I only use free but there is a paid premium available) & Procreate (which has a once off cost of about $15 and requires the apple pencil) for art and design.

Everything else I use is pretty basic; I use numbers to track my business income, expenses and the hours worked per day (I also note what I worked on) so I’m all ready for Quarterly Check-Ins and Tax time. There’s also e-mail, social media, Spotify, notes, and I have a word count app for my writing.

The Mess Journal

One thing outside of technology usage that I’ve loved adapting is what I call the Mess Journal. I start with an intention page, stating that the contents of the journal will be more about the information than the presentation and the order won’t matter. It’s ideal for anyone that has perfectionists tendencies and the option is always open to transfer the contents to another journal in order (thought I never do). Using sticky note tabs is a great way to mark the pages you refer to the most.

I used my first mess journal to brain dump my to-do list, take notes from library books, sketch, take business notes, brainstorm and anything else I desired in the moment. It helped me maintain action rather than staying stagnant to avoid imperfection and now I ensure I always have one. My favourite and highest recommendation to use is a hardcover A5 size art journal, so it’s blank with thick pages, but really any journal will work (though the prettier the more hesitant you may be to label it ‘mess journal’. I’ll make a full post on this concept soon because it really is so beneficial and fun.

Let me know if you enjoy this style of written post, if there’s anything you’re curious about or any questions you have.