🦋 💜 🌿 Hi! How is your week going?
It is fully feeling fall today, I have a cup of tea by my side and a long sleeve shirt on.
After a week of hot weather, I’m relieved to finally get an autumn treat.
I have good news…
Lately, I have been feeling so satisfied with how I have been using my time.
I feel like I’ve been making progress on all of my writing, business, and life goals and using my time efficiently.
>>>I want to share the ESSENTIAL tips on how to make progress while juggling a lot of things.
Read on for those.
And one quick note: I will be pausing enrollment in my 2 month coaching program on October 15 because I am approach my maternity leave. The program will be available later in spring 2026.
….
I know many people feel lost, overwhelmed, or confused
–especially when they have multiple projects or areas of life to juggle, or tons of ideas to go between.
Welcome to my life, basically. I have always been THAT girl juggling a million things.
And being pregnant on top of that is a lot!
But I have been using a system I’ve created over the years to juggle:
my writing, my businesses, my marketing, my clients, my LIFE…
So that I can feel sane, grounded, mentally clean and clear on what I need to do or write next,
and also clear on what I am NOT going to do next (which is sometimes even more important).
Because I’ve got a system down now,
I’m not frozen with indecision and overwhelm,
and I can actually get more things done.
So what am I doing? Here it is, focusing just on the essentials.
An Essential Guide to Juggling Things + Getting Them Done
To keep it simple, there are three major steps.
- Contain Your Ideas
- Organize and Prioritize
- Check Back and Execute
This sounds easy and simple, but there are some nuances so let’s dive into it!
- Contain Your Ideas
-Books
-Articles
-Business Ideas
When you have different things to juggle or many ideas, you need to have a place to put them all.
How you choose to do this is up to you.
Perhaps you like a notebook that you carry around with you everywhere.
Perhaps you use a notes app on your phone or computer.
Some digital tools I like are Google Keep, Notion or Obsidian (all free).
Get all your ideas in there and get in the habit of adding to it regularly so that you can clear your mind and not forget anything.
This is one of the steps people love to talk about, because it can be fun to share what our notebooks or tools look like.
I have many behind the scenes on my youtube channel of the notebooks and digital tools I use to organize my ideas.
But don’t forget to do the other steps as well!
So you can make progress bringing your book, business or other ideas into real life.
2. Organize and Prioritize
This is the most important step. It is also probably the most complex.
This is the pitfall where many people drop off.
Now that you have all your ideas written down, it is time to be STRATEGIC.
Putting your ideas in a container is a great start, but you might not do anything with them unless you do this step.
In their raw form, having a million ideas can quickly become overwhelming to such a degree that you may give up.
Or you may find that you are unable to make progress in a way that truly makes you feel fulfilled.
If you are feeling scattered and lost, then this is the step for you.
All you have to do is make some time to review your ideas and organize them.
While you do so, add anything that is missing so that you have a total picture of all the things that you are juggling and thinking about.
Then you can prioritize so you know what is important to focus on in the short term.
You may want to move your ideas to a new container just for thinking through everything strategically.
MAKE SURE YOU WRITE YOUR THOUGHTS DOWN so you remember.
I often like to do this process by doing a review of how the past week, month or season went.
That helps jog my mind to celebrate my accomplishments, and build off of them while also noticing what fell into the cracks or didn’t get done so I can prioritize it asap.
What does this look like?
Take a look at all your ideas, and then to organize them, put them into order.
You can group things :
-Are some tasks related and need to be done in a certain order?
Consider this part of one project. Maybe you make a project brainstorm list in one place so you know all the steps.
-Can some ideas be grouped into a similar or different category?
Maybe these will all end up in a related article or chapter. Group those ideas together. Now you can start to make a list of the different things you could write about, in one place.
You can prioritize things:
-What are the most important and least important things to have on your mind right now?
-What is a project or task you need to get done ASAP, versus next week, next month or later?
THIS IS A PRACTICE YOU HAVE TO DO REGULARLY.
And it can be a short process or take a while, depending on what you need.
I find that there are two different modes for organizing and prioritizing:
A. Deep Dive
B. Maintenance or Quick Cleanup
Deep Dive
A Deep Dive takes a while. It is something you do when you are really at a loss and don’t know where to start.
This could be part of a larger feeling of burnout or creative dissatisfaction.
Like if you know that something you are doing is not working and you need to do things differently, but maybe it’s drifted so far from the right path that you are having trouble finding your way back to it again.
Or it’s the start of a whole new chapter for you, a new season or year, a new endeavor and you need to find your way.
This is a great time to hire a coach (pick me! Details below!)
You might take some time off of pushing yourself to do as many things as you have been trying to do so you can think through your strategy. Seek some pause to ground and rethink everything. Block a day off.
It could look like relaxing, taking walks, talking to friends or coaches,
or it could be doing a course, going through old journals, taking a lot of time to write out your thoughts and ideas for the future.
At the end of a deep dive, you should find clarity on your biggest priorities.
The priorities and values you unearth by the end of your deep dive will be things that may take months or even years to actualize,
but the clarity will give you an immediate boost of energy and make things much simpler than they seemed before.
It’s like suddenly your inner compass is calibrated so that the arrow stops swinging from side to side chaotically.
Finally, you can trust that the arrow is firmly planted north and you can follow it safely.
Maintenance or Quick Cleanup
In contrast to a deep dive, a quick cleanup can happen over the course of an afternoon, an hour, or a few days.
It’s something that needs to happen every few weeks.
Basically, this helps you to sit down, remember your BIG goals (which you may have clarified previously during a deep dive),
and break down a manageable set of objectives for the upcoming week or two.
You decide what ideas and projects are going on THE SHELF, for later.
You chose what to focus on immediately, and what will be in your sights soon after.
Anything more than that can go on the list as a LATER item.
You will review and think about all those LATER items in future Quick Cleanups.
If you get anxiety fearing that you will forget about things, even though they are not as urgent or important as the other things you need to do right now,
that’s why it is so important to get in the habit of organizing via regular quick cleanups or deep dives,
because they create a safety net that helps prevent you from forgetting about important things.
The truth is that you can’t think about everything at once, but if you have this habit of organizing and prioritizing, then you will not have to.
You can trust that future you will jump in and remember to do the things that you do not have the mental space to deal with right now.
You will remember everything you are juggling, because it is written down, contained in the right place, and
(this is ESSENTIAL!)
you have a habit of regularly reviewing, organizing and prioritizing all those ideas.
Just FYI, I love making resources to help do this quick organization process:
Watch this video here and it will guide you through a Quick Checkin from start to finish!
3. Check Back and Execute
If you have followed the previous steps, then the last one is easy.
All you have to do is check your list and execute.
For instance, let’s say you have organized a list of the most important priorities for the next two weeks.
To prepare for tomorrow, you can copy the 5 most urgent tasks to do onto a post-it.
Tomorrow you will see the post-it on your desk, and then you will get to work on one of those things. You just focus on the post-it of tasks. Just execute.
And remember, this post-it should help you JUGGLE things,
so you might have tasks from different projects or parts of life on there, including things that just make you happy like writing or creating or a hobby. It’s all important if you say so.
I find this is helpful, especially when my energy isn’t consistent.
In that case, I can lower my expectations and just hyper focus on one big item like:
-I will make pumpkin muffins first thing in the morning,
-I will not go to sleep without renting that car.
-The one thing I really want to do this afternoon is work on my taxes.
And if I have some other little things that need to be done immediately like email someone or go to the store, I just add them to the post it.
I cross things off or check them off as I go.
By breaking it into manageable chunks it helps to prevent overwhelm and being frozen.
Throwing away a complete post it feels satisfying.
But there is always the step of CHECKING BACK.
When the post it is complete or nearly done, it’s time to check back and set up a new post it.
Check back at the notes you wrote to organize so you always have a clear picture of the next thing you will be doing.
This step should feel relatively easy.
The things I am doing may be hard but I’m clear that they are the only thing I need to focus on at that moment, so at least I’m not scattered or uncertain about that.
My Quick Checkin goals list usually allows me to easily execute my ideas for about two weeks.
When I start to feel scattered or lost about what I should be doing,
it is usually a sign that I need to get to step 2,
get back into organization mode and get clear on what to do next. Then I come out of organizing with a new list of priorities for the following two weeks.
Then once I have that clarity, I make my next post it. I can go back to getting things done easily and quickly.
And I just repeat the process.
So that is the system:
- Contain Your Ideas
- Organize and Prioritize
- Check Back and Execute
Lately, I have been using this process with much success.
A month ago I was really stressed about everything I had to get done, but now it doesn’t feel so overwhelming. Things are moving, I’m making progress.
I hope this helps you as well.
Did it give you clarity on which part of the process needs your attention so you can juggle things more easily?
What step are you working on now? Feel free to email me and let me know!
If you would like help, I offer coaching for people who want to write for their book or business.
Often my clients are juggling many ideas and projects–writing for books and business and more. I help them get clear on what to do next and make faster progress at every turn.
Note: I will be pausing enrollment in my 2 month coaching program on October 15 because I am approach my maternity leave. The program will be available later in spring 2026.
Get coached by Sofia
Ready to finally stop feeling overwhelmed or confused?
Consider me the translator between you and your writing ideas for your book or business.
I help you listen to yourself and your ideas so you can know what to do next to finish your projects, and in the process, evolve into the next level of who you are meant to be.
Don’t waste a minute more–know what to do next to write for your book or business as easily as a mermaid swims.
Click here to read more about my 2 month “Rapid Progress” coaching package.
I offer both coaching services, as well as editing for nonfiction books and business marketing copy.
For questions contact me here.
Reminder: I will be going on Maternity leave later in 2025.
Note: I will be pausing enrollment in my 2 month coaching program on October 15 because I am approach my maternity leave. The program will be available later in spring 2026.
To reach out about individual coaching, or editing services right away, just reply to this email.
Thanks for reading
