I’m a gadget girl. I’ll admit it. I still haven’t conquered my shiny object syndrome.

But sometimes, cool new gadgets are a distraction more than a helping hand. And sometimes, conventional tools used in creative ways can get you to brilliant solutions.

When it comes to systems for instance, my mission is to help my clients to get over the chaos, create clarity, and make impact. Because of this, I like to stick to three go-to tools.

Put it on Post–its®

These little square of colorful goodness are the most versatile, handy tool to think through systems. Bonus: they often help my clients turn designing systems into a fun game!

I love using them to optimize systems.

To do that, I use a simple 3-step process:

1. Take a bunch of Post-its® and write out the steps you take to perform a single workflow (e.g. client intake/on-boarding, blogging, guest posting, etc).
2. Get a large board and arrange the noted steps in the order of when they happen right now.
3. Look at the picture objectively and see which actions are totally redundant and which will get you the best results the fastest. Can you get rid of some of the Post-its®?  Is it possible to substitute two old ones with a single new one?  Is it now easy to visualize the new course of action?

There you go!  You’ve just optimized a system in your business.

Plan an event in Evernote

Evernote is your all-in-one solution to planning. Even the free version can easily help you collect ideas, keep track of all to-dos, and even collaborate.

Planning an event, for example, can become a breeze if you follow these steps:

1. Collect ideas – Evernote makes it easy to collect ideas from various sources and in multiple formats. Just create a notebook and use Evernote to capture your thoughts, useful links or information.
2. Plan the event – Ready to plan the party? Create a new note in Evernote and list everything you can think of related to the event. For inspiration, pull out your notes with different ideas.
3. Organize your to-do’s – Now it’s time to streamline your to-dos by creating categories and moving the to-do’s into them. Use the checkbox feature to track your progress.
4. Get help – Want someone to help you with certain tasks? Share a note or notebook with them by using the Evernote Share feature (upper right corner of the note).
5. Enjoy the event – Bliss!!

Build an editorial calendar in Asana

I created my Asana Editorial Calendar last November, and it’s been amazing. It’s super easy to use, my assistant loves it. We are totally on a roll.

You can do the same in 5 easy steps:

1. Create an editorial calendar project – create a new project in Asana by hitting the “+” sign next to PROJECTS (in the left pane) and giving it a name “Editorial Calendar.”
2. Determine the moving parts – Think about different categories of items that you want in your Editorial Calendar. Don’t worry about having a comprehensive list from the get go.  Add obvious and key categories first. You can always add more stuff later.
3. Populate your project – Now that you have a rough structure, go ahead and add individual items under different categories.
4. Help your team members help you – Asana is an excellent tool for collaboration.  Even if you’re not in a position to hire someone right away, start noting the aspects of the process you’d love someone to help you with eventually. If you have a team, make sure to share the project with your team member(s) and start assigning tasks to them.
5. Take advantage of templates – I’m addicted to templates. They save my assistant and me lots of time and make quality control a breeze.