Pinterest Perfect: No Longer a Procrastination Passtime

Post Disclosure: This post may cause severe motivation loss in certain individuals who are susceptible to social media addictions. Symptoms may include time loss, lack of focus, motivation out the window and finger cramping due to scrolling threw endless pinned images. Yes, that's right, Pinterest. An endless sea of how-to's, organizations, fashion advice, social causes, cooking ideas and much, much more.

Why is Pinterest so cool?











According to the Pinterest website, "Pinterest is a tool for collecting and organizing the things that inspire you." The ingenuity of Pinterest lies in the pinning power. First of all, you can customize the pins that come up on your home page are all customized to the topics you linked as most related to you. This means that everything should be of interest to you. The images that come up are endless. You could literally scroll through your home feed for hours and still not run out of things to look at. However, if you do have a new, or more specific, subject that you want to look up you can use the search bar to specific topics.

Once you've found some images that you enjoy, instead of having to remember where they were or who pinned them, you can pin them to your own "boards" on your personal profile. This gives people a way personalize their experience by only pinning the pins they like. Plus, you can like your friends' boards or find other people to follow.















OK, so how can we turn this from a procrastination pass time? Pinterest is a great forum to share creativity and there are multiple boards everywhere that share how to organize life! Imagine that! A few examples of great boards all about organization are:

• Easy Peasy Living
• Get Organized with Bridges
• All Together Now Organization Services

These are usually ordinary people or business that are sharing their organization tools with everyone else. You also can just search for "organization" and individual pins will come up for you to pin to your organization board. 

Have a specific need for organization?

There are pins that are designated to "Automobile organization", "Business Organization", "Desktop Organization" and many others. Anything you could be looking for is somewhere in the Pinterest universe. 

What are you waiting for? Start pinning! 

Planning the Planner

I am terrified for when I am in a job that requires me to attend multiple events, meetings, interviews, lunches, teleconferences and returned phone calls while simultaneously finishing projects, email correspondences, research, presentations and the plans of all the events I have to attend. Worst part? I tend to be a pretty forgetful person. Not good. However, there is a silver lining to my forgetfulness. I, at least, recognize my forgetfulness, so I have had to try to figure out the best ways to keep myself organized with all the things I have to do during the week.

*Drum Roll* In walks my personal life saver: the planner! 

I will admit I am a kook about my planner, but it really does work. Plus, there are planners free online and paper planners tend to be pretty cheap. 

As society is evolving into the total-tech absorbed society it is, many people have started putting their planners online. Google Calendar has a great program for this. It allows you to share your calendar with your coworkers, create and share events and best of all it is linked with your email account, so if you set up a meeting through email you can automatically make it an event on your calendar. There's even a mobile app to take it on the go. A+ for organization!

Here's an easy step by step tutorial from Google on how to use Google Calendar. Definitely worth a read. https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/2465776?hl=en

Unfortunately, I am awful at remembering to add things to my digital calendars. I hardly ever check them, because I have to log on and wait for it to load. Although it can be really fast, I have to rely in the connection of the Internet to be able to use this and I don't always have access to Wi-Fi when I need it. Therefore, I am pro-stone age planner. Sometimes there's nothing better than good ol' pen and paper. You can even use digitally inspired organization tools to keep the paper planner just as organized. 

•  Use different colored high lighters or pens to keep events separate. I recommend the use of different colored pens, because highlighting can get a little out of hand and run together to create this murky brown color that isn't useful. 
• Buy a planner that has time separation lines within your paper planner to keep every hour of your day scheduled out. 
• Tab specific events that are important or projects you need to remember. You can buy little Sticky Notes at Wal-mart for incredibly cheap. Put the Sticky Note at the edge of your planner to draw attention to it. This also helps minimize the Sticky Notes that can end up covering your computer, desk or wall. 
• Make yourself some happy "notes" to keep your spirits high. 

It doesn't matter which planner, digital or paper, you decide to use. Either way the most important part of having a planner is that you use it regularly and religiously. You have to make sure you are always adding everything that needs to get done as soon as you can get to it, otherwise it isn't worth it. You won't believe just how much of a difference planning your day can make on your stress level. Think of it as a mini head massage every time you look at it. 

Plan Desperate

Life is a fickle non-cycle. Yes, non-cycle. Despite the patterns of getting up, going to work and eventually going to bed, life is anything but routine. We create plans, but just when things are going down the predicted path, life has to throw in some curves to keep things "exciting". Being in control is often a feeling that gets lost amongst these curves. When plan A fails, it is often followed by plan B, plan C and finally plan Desperate. We have all been to plan Desperate way to often. The trick is to find the small moments of clarity amid the chaos. 

The beautiful thing about clarity is that it is different for everyone. For me, organization is my clarity. Planning hardly ever works out. I try to make sure the rest of my life is organized enough that when the plan changes, I can still pick everything up and keep moving on. Don't get me wrong, I still lose my keys every morning, I couldn't tell you where my work schedule went after moving to a new apartment this past weekend and I hardly ever know where any of my hair ties are. Organization is not a fool proof plan. However, with a little work and a little practice, even the most inexperienced organizer can become a pro.

We can easily relate life to a new business. We have to help the business grow in order for it to be successful. Organization is one tool that can help us feel as though we are not actually floundering in the waves of change that constantly surround us. With some helpful tips and a little bit of organization, it is easy to begin your self entrepreneurship. 

Take control. Be the CEO.

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The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.Albert Ellis