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ORGANISING your MOBILE OFFICE set up & support your MULTI-FACETED & PASSIONATE lifestyle.
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In this video I share ways I’ve maintained an organised easy to transport mobile office and methods for collating and organising my ideas & planning notes as a single mum with diversified income streams, commitments & passions.
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Transcript
Introduction & Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
So hello and welcome to the Alive by Design podcast. I'm Marie Nicole and in today's podcast episode I'm doing things just a little bit differently. For those who are watching the video version you'll notice that I am filming this from a different angle in the Zen Den which is my little converted veranda office space that I sometimes work in and I often record my podcast episodes in.
00:00:22
Speaker
And today you'll see it's very wet and rainy outside and it's actually quite cold which is why I'm still very much rugged up even though I'm indoors. This veranda room is it is one of the colder rooms in the house and so there are times where I work in front of the fireplace and And I also work outside in my studio shed in order to create my artisanal wares and sometimes I even record my podcasts out there.
00:00:46
Speaker
Which is why I wanted to talk to you today about
Mastering Organization Skills
00:00:50
Speaker
organisation. It is a skill that I have naturally and that is not to be boastful, it really is just something that i was born with.
00:00:59
Speaker
When people look in my pantry they get shocked by how organised that pantry is. but It's just how I like to operate. But anyone can actually develop habits and practices that support them in staying organized as multi-passionate business owners or people who just live multi-passionate lives, which is why I wanted to talk to you about some of the things that I do to stay organised, that could be supportive to you.
00:01:26
Speaker
And one of the aspects that is really important right now for me to practise is being able to move from space to space and work. Because I've been in this cottage and on this property for 10 years now and we are selling the property and i will be moving out of here. I'm not exactly sure what I'm moving into,
00:01:46
Speaker
but I do know that I'll be traveling a lot more on the road and I do need to be able to continue my remote work while I'm on the road. So setting up a mobile office that is supportive to that has been critical and practicing how to make a functional mobile office work in my favor by moving from space to space and practicing that here within my own property.
00:02:12
Speaker
Sometimes I work out on the veranda over summer, I've worked out under a tree and I just do it in a way that gets me used to the fact that I have everything i may not have everything in one spot to be able to work.
00:02:26
Speaker
It may be that I'll be working in some unusual locations where not everything is available to me that I would normally have if I just had a fixed setup.
The Evolution of a Mobile Office
00:02:36
Speaker
So that's part of what I wanted to share with you today. And I also want to share with you how I organize my notes. Because I freelance for another organization, i have my own business, which is creating artisanalwares, coaching, and my content creation.
00:02:53
Speaker
There are many facets to just my income streams. And then on top of that, there is the family life commitments. And um having become a single mum in the last three years, I also balance a lot of personal commitments on top of my work commitments.
00:03:10
Speaker
And having organised notebooks has been really helpful for that. So I'm going to show you a little trick that I've been working with that has been super supportive. ah To begin with, let's look at the mobile office setup.
00:03:26
Speaker
Now, I carry everything in a backpack. I used to actually use a basket and that was very handy for things to be easily accessible. But the more I started to practice to take my mobile office, say, into town and work down by the river,
00:03:44
Speaker
or go into, I've sometimes worked out of the car for example, which has been a really good experiment. um I actually have found my backpack to be a lot more functional than the basket, especially when I've dropped my car off at the mechanics and then I walk for 20 minutes to the river with my mobile office and carrying everything in the backpack has been amazing.
00:04:05
Speaker
Even though I bought that backpack originally for hiking, I didn't intend to use it as a mobile office. I absolutely love it. It's very comfortable and it works beautifully for my my setup. And this stand is a really important aspect of my setup.
00:04:21
Speaker
My youngest son actually bought me this stand one Christmas. A year after becoming a single mum, i actually closed my commercial space, which I used to work between home and a commercial space in town.
00:04:33
Speaker
And he started to notice that working remotely, I did a lot more coaching, I was sitting at a lot more and freelance work. He noticed I was hunching over my laptop a lot. So for that Christmas, he bought me this stand, which collapses down.
00:04:48
Speaker
which is fantastic. I don't always take my eagle feathers with me, but sometimes I accidentally end up in my backpack. And then that acts as a little bit of um security for the computer too. In my backpack, I actually, I do make notebook sleeves.
00:05:06
Speaker
And so I put my notebook into a blanket and leather sleeve and that's protected and then that goes into my backpack and that creates a bit of a protection mechanism for my computer as well which I absolutely love.
00:05:23
Speaker
So that has been a really handy, really handy piece to have in my collection. Now to support actually traveling and having everything accessible, easily accessible and together within the backpack, rather than having all the components in different pockets or pouches of the backpack or floating around, i made this kangaroo leather pouch. It's a large pouch which holds all of my components that like cables and cords. I'll take it out and show you because I think this has been a really valuable asset to my mobile office. Now I work, my desk here is an old um dresser.
00:06:05
Speaker
doesn't have its mirror but it is an old dresser. And so I actually utilize my drawer as a little table and I have an old diary in there as my table and I have my mouse had which I've created myself out of leather. And even though I have a touch pad on the notebook, I still like to have my magic mouse. It's a lot more ergonomic. So you never know where you are at a location and you know the surface might not be great for a magic mouse. So I always have my little leather um mouse pad and my magic mouse is kept in that pouch.
00:06:41
Speaker
I also have a little pouch of spare batteries for my magic mouse. Actually, let's just take everything out. This is ah phone case. Like I make, I make kangaroo leather phone cases for my iPhone and the phone that I'm recording on is actually my previous phone.
00:07:01
Speaker
So I keep that in its pouch within here. So I ah don't have to use my phone to record things. It is still available to take calls and to do whatever I need to when I'm not actually hotspotting at the same time to my phone.
00:07:16
Speaker
Then I have a little pouch, again, which I do usually make these pouches and and have them available to purchase. At the moment, I don't have any online available, but they are very functional. I have a little pouch with my hard drive and the cable related to that hard drive. I keep that in the same pouch.
00:07:35
Speaker
plus a little cleaning cloth for my screen. But I also keep a little piece of grip mat inside that pouch because that grip mat is very handy. When I actually use a hard drive, I stick the grip mat onto the stand and then I connect in I put my hard drive on that so if i end up having to move my computer with the hard drive connected it it doesn't slide off the stand.
00:08:09
Speaker
While I back things up to the cloud as well I actually still like to have a physical hard drive that I connect to. and Also because some of the apps that I use are very intensive on the hard drive on the computer hard drive so I run it off the external hard drive instead.
00:08:29
Speaker
And then in here I have my charging brick and two sets of charging bricks for my phone and airpods and iPad and then all of the cables I actually, i know you can get Velcro strips that you can use to hold these together, but I prefer to use just little pieces of leather.
00:08:53
Speaker
So I've got little pieces of leather that I tie around them so they don't unravel and they're all just easy to access and pull out when I need them.
Notebook Strategies for Life & Work
00:09:02
Speaker
And then I have my portable speaker,
00:09:07
Speaker
and charger and a little port, little hub that is for my hard drive, a ah charging brick, so I always have a ah magnetic charging brick for my phone.
00:09:20
Speaker
And then also have this little pouch that I've made It's a leather pouch that holds six pencils in it because I like to write in pencil, which I'll show you next. And this allows me to just keep spare pencils on me that don't get, you know, I used to keep a box. I used to keep a box of pencils in this pouch and I found that the box would get crushed and end up being really unsightly. So I experimented with creating this little pouch and it's working beautifully.
00:09:48
Speaker
So that's just another thing. So they're all of the little components that i keep in there and At the end of the day, I pack everything into this pouch. I mean, usually it stays in this pouch unless I'm using it.
00:10:01
Speaker
I just put it back where it's meant to go. and then I know that everything I need is together and if I have to leave the house quickly, which has happened with having house inspections, selling the house, and I've had to get out of the house within an hour, but I've also got to keep working.
00:10:19
Speaker
So I just then... grab the pouch, put anything that I've got out of the pouch into it and put it into my backpack and I'm ready to go to the next stop. So I usually keep this out of my backpack on the shelf next to me so that I've easily got that available and accessible when I need a cable or a charger.
00:10:38
Speaker
So that's just one way I stay organised. The other way is through these notebooks. I actually make and sell this three in one notebook set, which is this part here. And I've turned this one into a four in one. I've added an extra notebook in it, but the original design was for three notebooks, actually, which this one is.
00:10:58
Speaker
So this one here is three notebooks in the one cover. And I just have recently slipped in a fourth little notebook because this little notebook here has to do with the finalization of a chapter of my life and finalizing my divorce as well as the sale of this property. So any little notes that I need to keep relating to that go into this little notebook, which I will not need after that is final. so the other notebooks within this little and within this little cover are related to the work that I do. um If I do different freelance jobs, I dedicate...
00:11:40
Speaker
one little notebook to the freelance job and I've got notes on the front part of the notebook, um you know, when we have team meetings and then at the back I keep the log of the hours that I'm working and then I transfer it to a spreadsheet. So I can easily keep track of that. I found that to be a lot handier than actually trying to update the spreadsheet every time because I could be part way through a project and some someone else might call relating to another assignment and I've not actually entered it into the spreadsheet yet, but it's easy to just write down quickly with a pencil the time that I stopped working on that project and then moved on to something else.
00:12:22
Speaker
So I log that in the next notebook relating to that project. And then at the end of the day, I add it to the spreadsheet and I know exactly how much time I spent on a project. The other notebook in here at the moment is actually planning for the next chapter of my life and things relating to, say, where I'm going to live, whether or not I'm going to buy land and build a series of tiny homes, pavilion style, or whether or not I will...
00:12:51
Speaker
live on the road which i don't think i'd live on the road permanently i did consider that but anyway the whole idea is any any new information or questions that i have for people who i know who have been through that process of building a tiny home looking at say zoning or even considerations around insurance i've written the questions in that notebook So that when I get that chance to sit down and talk to them, I've got that accessible.
00:13:19
Speaker
I also do a wins journal in this. And this is only in the maybe, I don't know, recently, in the last year or so, I've created this little notebook where at the end of the day, I record my wins and help with my confidence building. Because after going through the process of being married for 24 years, having a business that I established that was definitely a big part of my purpose and passion and then closing that physical space.
00:13:49
Speaker
It was has been quite a big shift back into confidence of I'm living with purpose, on purpose and so at the end of the day writing down the wins that I've had that day that align with how I'm here to serve the collective and just even little things like little wins that I've had with my children. So that's got nothing to do with organisation but it has got to do with confidence building so I thought I'd share that one with you.
00:14:13
Speaker
These just wrap around, get tucked in, and then I've created these book straps, which I haven't yet sold, but I am considering selling them. I actually made this one first and I've tested it for a couple of years. and And I recently made one for a friend for her notebook cover and asked her to give her feedback on it.
00:14:35
Speaker
And I have a little pouch here, which is for the sharpenings. and a pencil sharpener in there so when I'm out and about and I if I don't have a bin accessible I can easily sharpen my pencil and I've got my eraser on it so I like to write in pencil which is why I have the little pouch of spare pencils and so then in this notebook this is what I really wanted to show you about the notebook which I think is has been a really valuable um technique to to monitor what it is I've written in a notebook because originally before I created this cover holding the separate notebooks I used to write everything in one journal all in one a five notebook and I would just title I'd date the page and title
00:15:26
Speaker
what I was writing about and it would be business related, it could be podcast related, it could be based on personal growth or even my own personal reflections and and I just found that really hard to keep track of things that were important for the work I need to do and actually moving forward in my business.
00:15:46
Speaker
So I separated my notes out into podcast planning and my YouTube channel. That's the first notebook. And then I have my thoughts, intentions and inspirations. And that's really my personal diary.
00:16:00
Speaker
And so that is not intermingled with work anymore. It's actually separate. And then I've got my business offerings and marketing ideas. And then I have a personal growth notebook. and that's for when I do things like courses.
00:16:17
Speaker
and so I've had the Gene Keys and the Dream Arc and just other courses that I've done that have really been focused on my personal growth which is not necessarily a part of my reflection process it is it is it is a part of that personal journal but I find it different because I use it also in my coaching service to help other people connect to the essence of who they are and let that be their outer expression.
00:16:43
Speaker
So it's actually learning what is behind the gene keys, human design, Ayurveda, all of those modalities that support people in living their highest expression.
00:16:56
Speaker
I record the notes within this book and I can refer to it to help other people as well as myself. But a change that I've also made in my notebooks, other than separating them out and having dedicated notebooks to different topics, is indexing the notebook. Because I also found that even within, um these, I like to use Moleskine notebooks, which have a natural...
00:17:22
Speaker
craft cover and I write the date on the front of the notebook of when I've started using it and then the completion date and then I take that notebook out and I file it and put a new one in again with the date.
00:17:36
Speaker
But remembering what's in which notebook when can be very tricky. So I started indexing the back of the notebook just writing the index and then a date So ah anytime I've entered something, I'll put, okay, the 13th of the 5th, which was the 13th of May.
00:17:56
Speaker
I was actually in this notebook is the notes from a conversation I had with a business content creator coach that I'm working with. on say the 20th of the 6th, which now we're going into June, I've got um the video series that I did for my artisanal living based on creating your capsule wardrobe, which is a new tutorial series. Actually, let me tell you about that. That's a really good really good segue into an offering that I've just created, which is a digital product offering, because as an as a designer and maker and artisan, I like to create things that have longevity to them. It's timelessness. It's not about...
00:18:39
Speaker
having garments for the season and then next season changing your look altogether.
Creating a Capsule Wardrobe
00:18:44
Speaker
It's actually about building a wardrobe and just knowing your style and your lifestyle and how that can be supportive to you living out your days effortlessly. So curating a wardrobe is something that i've have found to be very valuable and As a maker who used to sell on garments through my retail store, I actually saw what worked really well with other people, the the differences in physiques and the different ways of wearing some essential items that I had designed and made for myself and then saw actually work for other people too.
00:19:19
Speaker
So one of the latest products I have created the three essential items that you can make for yourself easily. They're super simple designs to make but they are also tutorials that share how I work with tricky fabrics and the ways that I have established establish methods to make it easier to work with those fabrics and even repurposing something like a wrap and creating two garments from it.
00:19:45
Speaker
that's a part of that tutorial series so i'll put a link in the description to that if you're interested in that and the other digital products that i have the empower dressing guidebook and that is really a ah guidebook that i wrote to help support you in curating a wardrobe that really supports your style your lifestyle your physique understanding how to put together a wardrobe that helps you move through your day effortlessly and not have to get up in the morning and look at your wardrobe and go, what will I wear today? Does that color actually suit me? Does that neckline actually suit me?
00:20:19
Speaker
Does that make my bum look big? that is out of the equation now because you've curated a wardrobe where you know one anything you pull out of there is actually going to suit you and also it can work with the other elements within the wardrobe so putting together an outfit will become effortless for you which it has been for me now for many years because I'm not dressing according to trends or fashions I'm dressing according to what serves my lifestyle So I'll put a link to that in the show notes as well.
00:20:50
Speaker
But the reason I really wanted to share this indexing part is it has made such a big difference to know exactly what is in a notebook and where to find it again, because I capture a lot of the ideas that come through over the course of the day.
00:21:06
Speaker
um Even after conversations with people, ideas come through for new business offerings or marketing ideas. And I carry these notebooks with me almost everywhere I go. So it's easy to record them.
00:21:18
Speaker
But finding them again is the challenge sometimes. And even the same for podcast episode ideas. And I'll have a conversation with someone and it'll spark a series of thoughts and I'll scribble down all of the thoughts around it. And at first it's just a brain dump.
00:21:34
Speaker
of all of the ideas behind it. And then two days later, i might refine it and actually go, okay, what's the essence of this? I really want to get across.
From Ideas to Structured Content
00:21:44
Speaker
And then I come to the time of actually recording that episode.
00:21:48
Speaker
And I can go back to the notebook and find, okay, what date did I actually think about creating that episode idea on the ups and downs of working for yourself? So on the 5th of the fifth I had written notes for an idea of a podcast episode, which was ups and downs of working for yourself.
00:22:06
Speaker
And so then I went back to those notes, read what my brain dump was and created a framework for me to then use to create my video.
Conclusion: Living a Life by Design
00:22:15
Speaker
So I hope that me sharing some of the ways that I stay organized as a multi-passionate person with lots of projects that I not only start, but also like to make sure I finish and living a multifaceted life, living in a rural location and also loving to travel and explore and experience new things and connect with people beyond my LGA a and still be able to work while I'm doing that, actually still keep the cash flow coming in.
00:22:48
Speaker
And as a single mom, that has been super important, but it's also been important to feel like life is magical And these beautiful items add to that magic of my everyday existence.
00:23:02
Speaker
And not only what I make, but I also acquire beautiful pieces that other people make. And it infuses my day with the magical handcrafted elements that I just really appreciate.
00:23:14
Speaker
So keeping myself organized so I can keep living ah life by design that I enjoy is really important. And I thought you might find value in that too. So until next time, be sure to curate not only your wardrobe, but your items that support you in doing what you need to to get through your days in a way that feels magical, meaningful, and allows you to live on purpose and with purpose.