57. Gifts for Future YOU

Before you start shopping for gifts to give to OTHERS, let’s talk about gifts you can give to Future You to set yourself up for success in the new year.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Create or update your reference hub today:

https://janice-s-site-3363.thinkific.com/courses/DIY-Asana-Systems-For-Teacherpreneurs

Clean up your Gmail Inbox:

https://www.cookfamilyresources.com/tame-your-gmail-inbox-course-my-honest-review/

Clean up All Things Digital:

https://lisamch.com/club/

These show notes may contain affiliate links.
I may receive commissions for purchases made through links in this description.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome back to Your Win-Win Teacher Business. Before you start shopping for gifts to give others, let's talk about gifts you might wanna consider giving to future you. It's time to set yourself up for success before the new year arrives.

 The holiday season is a whirlwind. Let's talk about some things I can't and won't be doing this holiday season. I personally don't find any joy in trying to gain marketing attention for something that isn't on a holiday gift [00:01:00] list. If I had a product-based business where something I was selling was a match for someone on their holiday gift giving list, then this would be my season and I would be doubling down on marketing content to help them choose my gift to cross off some tasks on their holiday shopping list.

But since I sell products and services that really aren't aligned to the holiday season, I don't wanna compete for marketing attention in a noisy space at a noisy time of year. This is a time of year where people are spending their money and their brain energy trying to get to the other end of their holiday gift giving list.

They're trying to make sure they show up for all the people they can, make the plans to see all the people and make it to the events, wrap the gifts, shop for the gifts, make a plan to exchange the gifts and get to the other end in one piece.

And so I personally don't want to add to that noise. It's harder and harder to stand out [00:02:00] at this time of year, so I'm just not going to. I tend to get really quiet marketing wise in November and December, but it doesn't mean I'm not working hard on my business. This is just a season where I like to do some quiet behind the scenes tasks.

And when I arrive for the new year, I hope to have recharged batteries and a squeaky clean workspace so that I can hit the ground running.

You won't find me trying to create new things at this time of year. I would put myself in that same frenzied bucket we talked about earlier where I'm trying to get through my holiday to-do list and I don't find that I have extra brain space to do my best creative work. not gonna be creating new products and new offers during this time.

I need a little bit more space in the mental load department to do my best creative work. And so rather than put a creative task on my desk in November and December and be frustrated that I can't come up with something amazing, or it's not representative of my best [00:03:00] work, or it doesn't feel easy and fun, I've just learned not to swim up the tide.

And I've learned to put those creative tasks at a time of year when my brain enjoys diving into them and can really work in the best possible creative space.

I share that real talk about how my brain works so that you can reflect on anything you might have on your I hope to get done in November and December list. Is this the time of year where you really think the marketing campaign you have planned stands a chance? Is this the time of year where you think you're about to create the next greatest hit for your brand?

Or might there be some other things you could do during this time period that still serve your business, still set you up for success in your goals, and feel a little bit more manageable and suited to the season? All right, enough talk about what I won't be doing. Let's talk about what I do place on my desk in November and December.

This [00:04:00] is a time where you'll find me turning quietly within and cleaning up things in the backend. While everyone else's attention is swimming in overwhelm and away from my business, that's the perfect time for me to make changes without bothering the experience of anyone else. So you'll see me archiving content that doesn't align with the direction I'm planning to go in in the new year.

You'll see me quietly cleaning up sales pages, freshening testimonials, swapping out freebies.

People's eyeballs are elsewhere and when you hit the ground running in January with those new goals, you wanna have all of this positioning in place. And I just think that November and December is the best time to do that quiet cleanup.

You'll also find me updating my reference hub. First of all, if you don't have a reference hub, now is the time to make one. Mine lives in Asana. I don't care where yours lives, but you definitely need one. My reference hub serves as my one source of truth where [00:05:00] everything about my business lives. If I'm looking for a password, information about professional learning I've invested in, information about team members from the past, present, or future, A list of my future ideas.

Anything like that, all lives in one reference hub, so I'm never spending time looking for things. Anytime I'm looking for something, I'm going to the reference hub first, and if I don't find it there, I'm gonna go track it down and I'm gonna add it to my reference hub so it's there the next time I look for it.

So this task for me is not creating my reference hub. This is updating my reference hub. And so I'm looking around to see if there are any things that I've purchased or invested in or dove into in my business recently that maybe didn't make it to my reference hub, and I'm just making sure it's up to date and

has captured everything that's happened this calendar year before we start to turn the page into the new year. [00:06:00] I think that updating your reference hub is a great step to do at this time of year before you sit down to do your goal setting, because you're going to see ideas that you have that you haven't acted on.

You're going to see courses you invested in that you forgot you have. You're going to see team members names who have helped you with past projects and might actually be able to help you with something that's on your desk right now. They just weren't top of mind, and you forgot about all of these solutions that you had in your toolbox

because you haven't visited your toolbox in a while. If you're looking for a click by click guide for how to build your first reference hub, and Asana is your project management tool of choice, Asana is free, and there is a module in my DIY Asana course about building a reference hub. If you're a past client of mine and I built your Asana workspace for you, then you already have a reference hub included as a project, but it might be time for it to have a refresh, and so it would be a great time to go through and bring it up to [00:07:00] date so it can continue to serve you.

Another task I love to do this time of year is lightening my digital load because when my digital life is tidy, I can move faster in my day-to-day tasks and I can ensure that I'm not carrying any expenses into the new year that aren't serving my current business goals. If you're not sure where to start with the land of digital cleanup, I would suggest your email inbox.

I bet you know just enough about your goals for next year to know who you need to unsubscribe from and what emails you wish could float to the top of your inbox. My inbox mirrors my goals and my priorities and my inbox color coding system actually mirrors how I store things in Google Drive.

Everything is in alignment with what I'm trying to achieve, and as I wrap up my annual goals for this year, and I start to make plans for my annual goals for next year, my systems will change and shift along with those goals [00:08:00] because there really shouldn't be inbound communication coming my way in my inbox for goals that I plan to accomplish in five years.

There shouldn't be things in my inbox for goals that I have already accomplished and don't wanna hear about anymore. My brain energy is finite and I only wanna be seeing the things in my inbox that truly help me move closer to the goals I'm currently working on right now.

So as you wrap up your annual goals, just remember that systems are meant to support you in your current goals that you're chasing, and that systems are meant to need maintenance and to change over time as you make space for new goals. If your inbox is a dumpster fire, it doesn't necessarily mean you did anything wrong.

It just means the systems you have in place right now don't support the season of life you're in and the goals you're trying to achieve. Before you sit down to set new shiny goals, take a moment to audit your tech stack and remove things that aren't helping you get to the destination you're on your way [00:09:00] to right now.

It is so freeing to embrace the cozy vibes of winter and clean up your digital life. You'll get new ideas as you unbury things you forgot you had. You'll feel confidence in where you're headed as you say no, thank you to tools and newsletters and files that are weighing you down,. You'll start moving more quickly through tasks.

Your brain energy will last longer each day, and you'll probably have some newfound breathing room in your business finances. There are so many wins when we lean into a digital cleanup sprint Will you finish it all? Is digital cleanup ever really finished? I don't know, but eventually the new year will arrive and anything that you got done will be a win.

We're not looking for perfect here, but taking some time to clean up our digital life in November and December is never a time that I regret. So where will you start first? Will you start by building a reference hub or updating a reference hub? My DIY Asana [00:10:00] course is always there for you to guide you through that task.

Do you think it's time to clean out your inbox instead? I have a mini course that I have taken multiple times with both my business inbox and my personal inbox, and I will be diving into my personal inbox in the months of November and December, because real talk,

it's almost at its storage capacity, and I am not paying the tech gurus another dollar when I know I just need to take a little flurry, put on some cozy music and clean out that inbox. If both your reference hub and your inbox are in good shape and you're ready for the next step, you might want to look into something called The Clean Up Club.

This is a membership that walks you through places in your digital life that you might know need to be cleaned up, but you might not understand how they work enough to know how to do it, where to start, or have that step-by-step plan. I'll link all the resources I've discussed in this episode in the show notes.

No matter what step you choose, [00:11:00] these are the best gifts you can gift to future you in this quiet season. While everyone around you is distracted by holiday demands, you're going to show up for yourself as a business owner and clean up your digital life. [00:12:00]