So I have one of those brains that never shuts off. And I really think this is both a blessing and a curse. Obviously, it's a blessing in the way that I never run out of ideas, I can troubleshoot things, I can problem solve things pretty easily because my brain is just always, always firing, always going. But obviously, it's a curse because it can be hard when you have a brain like this to organize it. And it can be hard to actually do something with it.

all these ideas and all these things where you don't feel like your head is constantly just in this crazy busy fog. And so I'm excited to share with you how I have over the past few years, especially really dialed in on this strategy and I find it super helpful. Now I will say this isn't the only way that I keep my brain organized. It isn't the only way that I keep track of all the, all this stuff and all the places to go and everything I'm needed for and all those different roles and responsibilities, right?

I've got planners for that. I've got a planning system for that. Like, this is not the only thing. But I will say that this strategy that I'm going to share with you today is the one that really helps me keep all of that randomness out of my brain, but yet be able to find the things that I actually unpack from my brain when I need them. If that has that ever happened to you where you're like, oh, I know I wrote this down somewhere or I know I wrote something down about that. And you say, but where is that?

And the problem is that you don't have a strategy for actually writing down those types of things, for where those things go, so that you can find them down the road. Insert my strategy, and it's sticky notes. And no, I'm not being paid by any company who produces sticky notes to talk about them. I just love them so much. And so I have a few different sticky notes. I've got some sticky note strategies I'm going to share with you, kind of like,

why I love them, what I use them for, and how I organize them, and probably some other tips along the way. So here's why I love them. And I will say, I do have various sizes of sticky notes. I have the standard size. I think those are probably three inch by three inch. I have some that are more rectangular in size. They're more like four inch by two inch, I would say. I have the larger ones that have the lines on them. Those might be maybe four by six.

and I also have two by two size. And I will say this is my favorite size. Now that's not to say I don't use the others as well, but the two by two inch are the ones that I use the most. Just a little bit of background there. Okay, so here's why I love sticky notes, especially that two by two size. Number one, it forces me to be to the point. There is not a lot of space on this sticky note. And so again,

I have a variety of sizes. If I know I need to write a little bit more down than what will fit on that two by two size, I'll grab something bigger. But for the most part, for most of the things I use them for, I go with that two by two size and it does force me to be clear and concise. So I love that. It keeps me from overthinking. I also love them because they're easy to get rid of when I don't need them anymore. A lot of times my sticky notes are kind of just like a holding.

They're a holding place for me until I can get what's on them in the correct place. And so because that's a lot of times what they are, they're easy to get rid of when I don't need them. And it really feels kind of freeing to get rid of the sticky notes when I'm done, by the way. I also like them because they're easy to sort. With whatever you're writing on them, it's easy to sort what's on them. It's easy to categorize them. And it really is easy to put the contents where they belong. So these are some of the reasons why I love them.

But here are some of my favorite ways to use sticky notes. Number one deals with books. Now, you probably know that I love reading books. I'm forever reading more than one book at a time. But what I really love is to take notes and highlight and stuff in my books. Now, I know there's kind of two types of people in this world. I probably just horrified a whole bunch of people because.

you're of the belief that you do not write in books. You do not highlight. You do not do anything to like the books, the pages are to be respected. And I totally get that because I used to be that way as well. And I used to just take all my notes in a separate place. And sometimes I still do that to some extent, especially if it's a book that I'm taking lots and lots of notes on. And I have a lot of reflecting or a lot of step by step processes or just things that I want to apply. But for the most part,

I am taking notes right in my book and sticky notes help me do that. So if I have something on a page that I have highlighted or underlined or written something about right in the margin, but I want to highlight it even more or I want to give myself a little bit more information than what I wrote in the actual book in itself, I'll put a sticky note in there. Sometimes and write on that sticky note. Sometimes they'll be like, sometimes it'll be like summarizing.

all the main points in a particular paragraph or series of paragraphs that appeared on a page. Again, it kind of just gives me the Cliffs Night Notes version or more like an outline. Sometimes I use them that way. But I also use sticky tabs in books to create tabs in the books, kind of like you would have those tabs in your school binders. I create tabs so that I know the pages that contain highlighting or something written or something that

I want to be able to find later. And I often write on those sticky tabs that I'm using as tabs about what it is. So for instance, I might write, if I'm reading something that talks about clutter and they were some helpful steps, I might write clutter steps. If they are ways to save money, I might write down ways to save money, right? Depending on what I have highlighted on that page, again, I don't want to necessarily take this book that has tabs all over it.

and just kind of leaf, you know, kind of work my way through it, just page by page, tab by tab to figure out, now, where was this, right? It's kind of the same idea as I was talking about before where I know that I wrote, I know that I learned this particular thing in this book. Maybe there's a quote I want or something like that. And I know that it was from this book. Well, the last thing I want to do is go through each of the pages with the tabs to find that particular quote.

So it makes it easier for myself if in addition to using these as tabs, there's a quick word or two that I can put on that tab to help me more easily find it. So for instance, I might not write the name of the person I wrote the quote from, but I would write quote. So I might have three or four quotes underlined in the book, but I only have four tabs to look at now out of maybe 30 tabs I have in the whole book. So those are two ways that I like to use sticky notes when I am reading.

Another thing I like to use sticky notes for, and I use these a lot, I use them a lot for this purpose, and that is mantras, mindset things, little sayings that I use to motivate or inspire myself. I use them a lot for this, and I have them all over the place. Sometimes they're inside my planner, sometimes they are in my office at my desk where I sit and do all of my teaching, sometimes they're in front of me. If you could see the windows in front of me in my office where I am,

right now recording this, you would see about four sticky notes, five sticky notes on the window there. And to the right are some more sticky notes that have, they're not directly in my line of vision, but they're close. So the wall in my office is covered with sticky notes. And a lot of these are those mantras, these mindset things, just things I need to remember. We all need to be inspired. We all need to give ourselves just that little boost or just that little reminder at times. And so a lot of times I use sticky notes for this.

And a lot of times they end up in my office. Other common places that mantras and motivational things might appear for me would be sticky notes on my bathroom mirror, maybe in the car. Wherever it is that it becomes meaningful to me, where I might need this particular mantra or need this particular reminder, well, that's where it's going to go. But I love using them for that. I also love leaving kids' notes. And there's a couple of different ways I'll leave my kids' notes.

Sometimes they might be like a reminder or something like that. But I also like using them just to say, you know, give them a little piece of something encouraging, you know, like love you or hope you're having a good day or something like that. I love using them for my kids in that way. I also love using sticky notes as reminders of things I need to do. And again, where I'm putting them often depends on what it is I'm being reminded of.

For instance, if I have to remind myself to grab something to take with me in the car that I wouldn't normally take, but I write that on a sticky note as a reminder, I would probably put that on my door where I would be leaving to go get in my car. I would put, you know, remember to grab this, right? I would put that reminder there. Let's say I need to remember to put the roast in the crock pot in the morning. Well, I'd put that on a sticky note and put that maybe near the coffee pot in the morning or maybe on the refrigerator or someplace else in my kitchen where I would see it.

Maybe I need to remember to make a particular phone call in the morning. Well, in the morning, I'm going to have been in my bathroom getting ready, so maybe I'd put it on my mirror. So where I put them depends on what I need to be reminded of. Sometimes they're in my planner, that type of thing. It's very easy to figure out where it makes sense to put them when you have this in context. So when you're using these sticky notes to create reminders for yourself, it'll be pretty easy to figure out where to put them.

Another way that I like to use sticky notes is just to keep track of all of the things that come up with that I need to remember. Maybe they're just things I need to remember to do. Maybe they're things I need to remember to take care of. Maybe they're things that I need to remember to transfer somewhere else. So maybe I need to remember to update the calendar in my planner. Well, again, I might write that on my off. I might write that on sticky note and put it on my office wall.

But eventually it's gonna get into my planner where I do my weekly planning or my daily planning and I need to remember to do that. Well, I might put that right on the relevant page. But there's all these little things that come up during the day. This is probably the category that I use sticky notes for most commonly probably in second place. I would say those mantras and mindset things. That's probably the number one use I use them for. But the second use is probably this. Just all these little things. Sometimes it'll happen while I am...

in a coaching session where someone will say, oh, can you send me a copy of those mantras and I will put it on a sticky note and stick it on my desk for myself later to remember to six to send that along. Other reminders like don't forget practice is early, so I'll need to stick that somewhere. It's things that come up that in the moment I don't have the time or the ability to go take care of that and put it in the in the correct place.

Thinking about having to pick up a kid because practice is different, well, that would eventually need to wind up in my planner because that's where I make my plan for the day. But if that came up while I was standing in my kitchen and my kid happened to mention it, well, it's gonna be easiest for me just to grab a sticky note and write it there and eventually, again, transfer it to the correct place. So that's another purpose that I love sticky notes for. And then the last way that I use them, more lately, I've done this probably only the last year and a half or so.

but I actually have discovered that I like creating my meal plan on a sticky note. And this is because I find it's easy to just swap out for a new one when life changes. And that's because really life is, I think in my life, it's changing more now than it ever has been. Meals change seemingly with a day or two advance notice, and that's about it. Because practice changes, somebody else needs this one thing. Somehow the schedule just gets shifted quite often, and so I find it's easier to have a meal plan.

that can easily shift because that's one of those things that's often getting moved around. Meals getting swapped one day for the other, or even just, I'm not gonna have time to make this meal on this day, so we need something easier. Those types of switches. So those are some of my favorite ways to use sticky notes. So now let's talk about how to organize them. Well, when it comes to using them in books, right, there's not a whole lot of organization that happens there. Sometimes if I don't get the chance to write on the tabs at the time,

If I'm just reading and I just want to put a tab there to indicate that I've underlined something on that page, a lot of times when I finish a book, I'll go through and look at any of the empty tabs I have and I'll look at what was highlighted on the page and I'll see if I can do something to categorize it in that moment. So that again, because the book is fresh on my brain at that time. So even though I couldn't come up in the moment with what should I write on this sticky tab, a lot of times when I finish the book, it's still fresh on the brain.

I can still come up with some way in one or two words to summarize what's underlined on that page, which will make it easier for me to go back and retrieve that information later. For the most part, books don't really need a whole lot of organizing those sticky notes, but I will say that. That probably does happen quite often where not every tab that is written on gets written on in the moment when it's inside a book. But after I've finished the book, I do my best to make sure that every tab has something written on it.

Again, to save me time down the road when I wanna retrieve that information. So when it comes to dealing with the meal plan, that gets posted in my kitchen. Your meal plan should always be where everybody can see it because one of the benefits of a meal plan is that you don't have to continuously answer the question of what's for dinner. When you've got a meal plan that's posted so people can see it, well, they can answer that question for themselves. When it comes to the mantras, again, I put those where I need them.

Sometimes they make a rotation. There are times where I change the view of what's directly in front of me in my office. I just like new and fresh mantras. Maybe I'm going through a particular season or a particular challenge where I need a different mantra that's going to help me with that particular season or in that particular way. So they do get swapped out in terms of where they appear, but mantras in general get posted where I need them most, dependent on what the mantra is kind of helping me overcome. So.

All of the other sticky notes though. How do we deal with all of that? All of those things that come up that you need to remember to take care of, all of those little snippets of information that you get where you just need to write it down in the moment and so you write it on a sticky note, but then you've got, I mean, if you were to look at my desk at any time during the week, you would see there's probably between 20 and 10 and 25 sticky notes on my desk or surrounding area at any time. That is how many of those little things that come up, those things I need to remember to do. That's how many of those

come up. So the weekend, though, is when it's time to actually organize them. So I like to take all of those sticky notes, and I just take a regular piece of paper, like a paper that you would use in your printer. I take a paper like that, and all of those 25 sticky notes that are all over my desk, I take those pieces of paper, I usually have a couple of them, and my sticky notes just get lined up on those pieces of paper.

So now instead of having sticky notes all over my desk, I now have a series of one or two or maybe three papers double -sided with just my sticky notes all on them. So they now have become papers, pages of sticky notes. So that's the first piece of organizing them is just to collect them. And again, I use the front and back. Once I have that collection, I usually actually kind of just have to take a break from it and just kind of let the dust settle. If I jump right into this next step of organizing them,

It just kind of feels overwhelming to me most times and it just becomes something that I'm not very efficient at. I find if I just stick them on the papers, clear my area, really what I usually do is I clean up all of these sticky notes while I'm cleaning my office and my desk space. So I usually start with the sticky notes, they get put on the papers and they get set aside for later. And then I continue on with the rest of cleaning my desk in other ways. Then I come back to the sticky notes with this step.

So once you've got your papers of all of these sticky notes, then it's time to categorize them into what's actually on them. So I like to title them. So for instance, maybe it's things that go into the planner. I would write planner. Maybe they're things that have to do with schedule. I might write schedule on them. Maybe they are things to remember. I might write things to remember. And I group them on the papers because they're sticky notes. You can have.

This side of the paper is for all of those things that go in the planner. I can flip the paper over and these can be for all of the reminders. I can flip it over and these can be another category or another category. So again, because they move, you're able to continuously kind of categorize them to make them useful. It's almost like you're triaging your sticky notes. You're starting super general, they're all over my desk. Now they're contained onto these pages. Now it's time to look at these pages and say, how can I break them down into categories?

And then you take maybe one last step through and say, how can I break these down into categories even more to again, make it easier and more efficient to get them in the right places. These are things I need to have that are school reminders for my kids. These are things that pertain to the schedule. These are things that pertain to the planner. These are phone calls I need to make. These are emails I need to send, whatever it might be. If you have to contact certain people. So for instance, as I go throughout my week, a lot of times, again, I will be coaching people, I'll be teaching a class.

and something will come up where I will need my designer to create something. So one of the categories that I would have, one of the things that I often every week have at least something categorized on my sticky notes would have the designer's name on it because these are things I need to talk to her about. There might be other people I need to reach out to. So I might put their names on the sticky notes, but it's a matter of categorizing them right on the sticky notes and then creating these categories on the papers that will make it easier for you to take care of these things.

as you take care of them, and then again, once you do that, you throw the sticky note away. So I find sticky notes to be so helpful in terms of getting things out of my brain and actually on paper. It's a way of making sure that you know, you know what, I have that written down. I don't have to remember that anymore. And so it frees up that brain space, but you're also not left with this panicky state of where was that, where was that? I know I have it written down somewhere. That is one of the most frustrating things.

So sticky notes really step in and really kind of save the day in terms of, I know that all those random things are on sticky notes somewhere. They typically, all of those remembering things, like I said, those will be in my office. And I know to collect them from my office onto the papers. I know I'll be able to categorize them. And then once you have them broken down into all those categories, it becomes so easy to take care of them in whatever way they need to be taken care of. So it's a way of freeing up that brain space, but also helping you get things that you need to remember, things that need to be taken care of.

helping you get them to the correct place in a stressful way. So that is where I have found sticky notes to be so, so helpful. So if you've got a busy brain, I hope that you have found this episode to be helpful. In the next episode, we've got our Friday Ask a Life Coach episode. So that's what we'll tune in for next time. We'll talk then.