From Dream to Reality: The Creation of the Organized Chaos Planner

Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is Organized Chaos. We take a deep dive into living with intentionality, focusing on what's important in our lives so we can truly feel our best. It may feel chaotic at times, but with a little organization, the right mindset and a ton of self-love, we can still thrive. Join me as we talk to other busy moms and experts who will share tips and strategies to help you reach your goals. Hope you enjoy this episode of Organized Chaos. Now on to the show. Hey friends, welcome to this episode of Organized Chaos. So today's going to be a little bit different, because I'm actually going to be talking about the culmination of a project that I have been working on for quite some time. I am super excited to finally talk more about it and actually see it come to fruition. Now, for those of you who don't know, I have been working on creating a productivity planner, but not just a general productivity planner, more of a planner for moms, specifically mom entrepreneurs who really want to get organized and be the most efficient that they can while still nurturing their family, nurturing their self-care all of that good stuff and really finding that harmony. The planner is called Organized Chaos Planner and, yes, I had to name it Organized Chaos, even though there are actually hundreds of planners out there just generic planners that are named Organized Chaos. But of course, I had to call it Organized Chaos because it's part of my brand and because I feel like the brand is literally organizing your chaos and organizing your life and being more present in your life and being as successful as you can at whatever endeavor you're working on. So Organized Chaos just seemed to fit and I actually went through different iterations of the title and I was really getting caught up on that and also the planner cover, what it looked like, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. But I just felt like you know what, even though there's a lot of stuff out there that's called Organized Chaos and it's not this amazing title, I felt like it was staying true to who I am and the message that I talk about. So I thought, you know what, let's just stick with Organized Chaos and move on, because otherwise I was not going to launch this planner anytime soon. So that was one of the decisions that I was caught up on, that I just had to make it and move on, because done is better than perfect. So I also want to talk about why I created this planner and what it really represents and what I hope it will help do so. For one, I've always been kind of like someone who likes planners. I like to write things down, although I use a combination of a digital list, digital planning and my actual physical planner. Now, I could not find a really great planner for a very long time and it was really frustrating because I just wanted to have something that I could really stick with, because I knew how much consistency was important and I wanted to be able to write down my goals and be more productive and, like you know, help me do the things that I wanted to do with more intention. So I eventually did find a really great planner and I've actually been using this planner for probably five years and it's helped me be consistent and I do it every single day and it's something that has kept me organized, has kept me more productive and really centered and focused on my goals. However, I have been life coaching and I have been talking to many women, specifically mom entrepreneurs, and I'm finding that this is actually something that they do want to have. They want to have some type of planner, a place where they can write their thoughts and, you know, write their schedules and, just you know, be a little bit more organized. But I found that they couldn't really find a planner for them and I would recommend the one that I had, right. But then I started to think about there's little nuances and there's little things that are not in this planner that I use. That would be really helpful for especially busy moms. So I thought, well, if I can't find one, why don't I create one? Actually, I probably didn't say that. It was probably my husband, because this is the type of this is how he thinks. So I'm pretty sure that I talked about this and he's like well, why don't you create one of your own Right? So that led to this idea of creating a planner. Now I've done like workbooks that are kind of like planners and they're in digital form and everything, and it's actually been a really great way to provide this value so that people can find me and get to know me and see what I'm all about. However, digital products sometimes, or like something in digital form, isn't the best for everyone. Some people really need to write things down physically. So the idea of the planner came up again and I really decided to go for it. I thought you know what, I'm just gonna do it, and I started to come up with ideas of you know what it would help people with. You know really who it would help and then what it would help them with, and I started to ask questions. I started to ask people who I would work with and what they could tell me about what their ideal planner would look like. So this was a kind of like a long drawn out process, but I really wanted to find out if this was something that I wanted to take on. What I quickly realized was that it wasn't the design or you know what the planner was gonna look like. That was most important. The really important thing for me to understand was the unique challenges and opportunities that mom entrepreneurs really face. So I wanted to tackle those. I wanted to really understand those and see how my planner could actually help with those. I started to think about how this tool can help navigate the complexities of running a business and raising a family at the same time, and I started to think about all of the things that I've learned throughout the years on how to do this and I thought, well, why don't I pick some of the very key elements that I know can make a difference and I put them all in this planner, okay. So now I wanna talk about some of the key features that are included in this planner and why I included them in this planner. So, first of all, I wanted to include within the planner a how to. I wanted people to not just like open the book and be like, okay, I don't know how to fill this out. I wanted to give some steps on how to get started properly, but not just on how to use the actual planner, but doing some of the work beforehand, so that the planner could be something that you can use right away in the most efficient way possible. So one of the things that I included in the planner is the 80-20 rule. Now, you probably have heard me talk about the 80-20 rule, and it's just one way to manage your time, and that is by focusing on that 20% of the activities that create most of your results. So I wanted to kind of explain this in a way, in a simple way, so that way, you can jump into the planner already equipped with the most important things that you need to work on and not just throw everything into the planner and then start to feel overwhelmed. I also included a goals template so that you can take your bigger goal and break it down into more manageable pieces. And this is a 13-week planner so you can create goals that are on a quarterly basis, because that breaks them down even more right. So I wanted to have this so that you can like a step-by-step on how to really break down your goals so that you know exactly what it is that you need to do every day. I, of course, included a monthly calendar and I didn't realize that I was going to have to make a decision the type of monthly calendar that I was going to include because initially, when I started to get feedback from people, someone suggested to just have a one page calendar. So, like you know at a glance, and I took their feedback and then I started to ask more people and then I found that the majority of people actually appreciate a monthly spread better. So spread out between two pages so that it's bigger, so that they can write better in the planner, and it's just the way that it looks. I guess looks better for them. So I took that feedback and I thought, well, I had to make a decision right Either it was going to be one page or two pages, so I decided to go with two pages. I also included some inspirational statements that you will see every week. So this is when you're you know you're about to embark on a new week and you're starting to create your weekly plan. This is something that can give you some motivation or inspire you to take on the week. So here, I think, are some of the most important elements that I put in my planner that I haven't found in any other planner, and this is a daily work plan. So all the planners have a daily plan, and it gives you an idea of what you're going to be doing throughout the day. You can also do some time blocking, but there wasn't anything that I could use when I actually sat down to do some work. So let's say, I, you know, have a couple hours of work to do. One of the major struggles that I have found with other entrepreneurs is that they don't know what to do and they get distracted when it's time to work, or they start to do other things, or it's just a bunch of busy work that really takes them nowhere, and I wanted to have a template that they can use to really focus on the most important tasks, and this template has a place where you can actually write down your key focus, a place where you can write your goals. So that way those things are at the top of your mind. You're always kind of thinking what am I striving for? There was another suggestion that I got that I think is super valuable, and it was a place to write your power statement, your purpose statement or positive affirmation going into your work, and then there's also a tracker. So I wanted to have a place for people to write down some of the key tasks that they needed to do, but not just any actions. I wanted to make sure that it was actually things that were going to move the needle forward, so I chose specific categories, some of the things that I feel are super important when you're trying to grow and run a business. I really feel like this will be a game changer. It will help mom entrepreneurs be more efficient and productive during the day and give them a path to really grow their business. Another important element that I included was a weekly plan and a weekly review, and I made sure they were like bookends. In my other planner. They're actually side by side, but I thought it would flow better if you had a weekly plan, your daily templates and then a weekly review and then you can follow up with a new plan. One of the things I'm really proud of with a weekly review are the questions that I included. I wanted to make sure that I infused my life coaching skills within this planner, so I asked some reflection questions. This way, it's not just about starting a new week blindly. You actually get to learn from the previous week, not just about what you can do better, but learning about how you felt and focusing on your wins. So, like I mentioned before, even before I started designing the planner, I actually did some market research and not just research online. I actually asked real people, I went and I did a survey and I got a lot of feedback of you know what was important to have in this planner and what would they wish to have in this planner, but, most importantly, what would they want this tool to help them accomplish. I got a lot of great feedback and I also appreciate that there were people who took the time to share their ideas but also test out a preview of my planner and give me some of their opinions. Many of the things that I hadn't even thought of that people gave me ideas on actually made it onto the final product. These were actually some of the things that they said about the planner. I love that this has a work and life planner together. I like to be able to look at them both for the week and at a glance and then plan daily for both. This keeps it simple. Someone else said I love the format. Everything is placed in perfect order. Someone else said I loved it. I have been a big planner girl for a long time and I've tried many. This one hit many of the things that I use on a daily and weekly basis. Overall, I really enjoyed creating this planner and the process, but I would be doing you a disservice without telling you some of my failures and some of the things I really didn't enjoy. One of the things I didn't enjoy and this is a personal thing and this is just about trying to make it perfect, and I always talk about this how it's not about perfection, it's about progress but I was not taking my own advice when it came to this planner. I kept thinking about someone's gonna have this in their hands. What are they gonna think of me if they just absolutely hate it? What about the people who are gonna write reviews on this? And that was really getting in my head and I had to coach myself through it and I finally had to kind of release that and just say I did my best and this is what I'm going to put out. And once I thought I had already gone over the toughest part, I started to upload it onto Amazon. I'm doing self publishing and there are so many different things that I didn't know. But the only way I could find out is actually doing it myself. I watched so many hours of YouTube videos, but the problems that I actually ran into I didn't see in any video. So I had to work through that and it was a pain. It actually added a lot of extra time that I was not expecting and I was getting to the point where I just wanted to give up, but then I had to take a deep breath and just do my best. So I'm still not done yet. I know that I'm still going through that process and I know there's gonna be some more errors and I'm gonna have to fix them, but I'm proud to say that I actually got through what I thought I wasn't gonna be able to get through, and that is actually finish the product. So I'm super excited to have this in my hands, so then I can share it with all of you. Now I'll keep you posted on what it actually launches and is available on Amazon, so stay tuned for that. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Organized Chaos. I hope you have an amazing day and I'll see you next week. No-transcript.