I Can't Do it All! Or Can I?

I am drowning!

I have my work Calendar (Early Childhood Education), a personal book that everything I commit to goes in.  I have books with ideas for blogs, posts, Instagram, just everything.  I have two books I'm working on and several items for TPT in the works.  And I am still failing to meet my own expectations.

Over the holidays I thought about what was important to me and my first priority is my family.  I will drop things I need to do to spend time with them.  The second is my job, simply because to give the Littles my best, I have to put in the hours of preparation.  The third is my online presence because I am building for the future.  I still want to fit in time for volunteer work, creative outlets, social engagements, and recreation.

I know I am not alone.  We are all busy people.  I watch my families juggle all they do and they have my admiration.

Lately, I asked a friend how she was able to work full time, raise a family and still contribute a video to YouTube every week.   She told me that each day had a task and she outlined her program for me.  Part of that schedule was quality time with her family.  With this valuable information, I went searching for my own plan and the one I found online and that is working for me is The Social Media Content Calendar from HubSpot.  https://offers.hubspot.com/social-media-content-calendar

The Calendar is a programmable download and this is why it is working for me.  The first drop down is a schedule sheet.  I haven't started using that as it might be redundant with the rest of the program, for me anyway.  The second drop-down is the Monthly Planning Calendar and after tweaking it and putting in my own color chart labels, filling in numbers on the calendar and holidays, and using the Sunday spots to outline my theme for the coming week, I have been able to assign tasks to each day of the week for a cohesive weekly online sharing.  Monday is a blog post and Instagram share.  Tuesday is for Pinterest and/or creating material for my TPT store.  Wednesday is a post to my Learning Naturally with Fern Facebook page.   Thursday is a video for one of the two Facebook pages and Friday is a recap of the week for the parents.  Saturday is given to working on my books and upcoming themes.  Sunday is a breathing day.  I know that other people are able to put out a lot more content in a week but this is comfortable for me.  Often, what I am posting is also what I am doing with the children and so 'two birds'!

The rest of the drop-downs are for planning actual content for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.  Here is where I put down the title of my article, what I am going to say, the source of my pictures so I can click on the link and drop it into my project, the date and time of the post and the link back to my blog, Facebook post, Instagram or whatever it is.  It is so easy to see what I have already done and look forward to my plans a few months from now.  My ideas have a place to stay (all in one place) until I can set them free and I am not finding myself losing my creative drive.  Another plus is that this is a free download and you will get an email from HubSpot offering you a phone conversation to make sure you have the tools you need to proceed.  So whether you are taking this large or just want to organize your existing agenda, this is a great way to keep a handle on your work.

I have seen many different versions of this planning, but nothing that seemed to mesh with how I do things quite like this one.  I'm sharing it with you.  I know I will be tweaking this as I go, but I am already feeling more relaxed and on top of things.  And I'm sharing it with you because just maybe, this is what you have been looking for as well.

January is already looking really good!