By Annalyse Cordon

You are master of calendars, queen of to-do lists, and president of email folders… but what about the ideas that zip into your mind at 100 mph when you lay your head on your pillow at night? What about the inspiration that strikes when you’re deep in a downward dog during your zoom yoga class? If you’re the type who’s overflowing with ideas to beautify your brand and create jaw-dropping moments for clients, you have to know how to organize amidst the chaos.

But Annalyse, I’m more of a left-brain person. I don’t really dabble in the creative aspects of my business and I’m not the artistic type.

Respectfully, hard pass on that mindset. As an entrepreneur, your creativity expresses itself in so many ways; as a simple brand expression to add personality to your biz (*looks into Shannon’s eyes as I applaud her for incorporating Multiple Beverages into The Social Bungalow), new formatting for a lesson, or even a pose for an upcoming IG photo. You have creative power, now is the time to recognize it.

If you’re anything like I used to be, you pop open your notes app, jot down something incoherent, and move on with your attempted workout only to forget that nugget of an idea. As someone who has the pleasure of wearing many hats, managing my creativity is vital to my work and personal projects. I firmly believe structure gives you more creative freedom, so let me show you how to set up the framework for your ideas so that you can capitalize on all that killer creativity.

Define How Your Creativity Takes Shape

What do your creative ideas typically look like? Go deep and figure out how your creativity takes shape. Do you get small hints of an idea that can be fleshed out into a bigger concept? Are your very best ideas always about one particular piece of your business? This will be different from person to person, so define what those “creativity nuggets” look like so that it’s easier to organize them as they come.

For me, creative ideas typically come in the form of overarching themes for writing topics and photoshoot ideas. Depending on your industry, these thoughts might look like a brand-new method for sharing a concept with clients, gorgeous formatting for your next course, or maybe your creativity is a bit more abstract and can be built out over time. Take time to define these categories for your creativity, as it makes things immensely easier down the road.

Create Spaces to Dump Your Ideas

It’s time to get your docs in a row and create a filing system for all those ideas. Whether you’re a G-Drive gal or committed to pen and paper, use those defined idea categories to make your creativity folders. I prefer getting my ideas out of my mind quickly, so typing them on a pre-made document helps keep me from feeling scattered.

My creativity folders live in a central place so they’re easy to access when I need to jot something down. My typical storage method looks something like this:

Creativity Folder > Writing Topics > Business > Blog on Networking Tips

Because you now have a beautifully organized creativity hub, the act of scribbling down that random mid-yoga, middle of the night ideas can be just that… scribble. Write those idea nuggets down as they come, don’t pressure yourself to have beautifully thought out verbiage in this phase. These folders act as a real scratchpad and a no-judgment zone for random musings that infuse creativity into your business. They are also easily accessible when you’re ready to look back in and utilize those pieces of creative gold.

Audit and Implement

Now that your ideas are safe and sound in their beautifully organized folders, plan on going through them every few weeks. Much like my Uggs and Short-Shorts phase in high school, not all ideas are good ideas. As you look back at your previous musings, filter out those creativity notes that just aren’t right for your business.

In order to implement this treasure trove of creativity, compare what you’ve got jotted down with what is coming up on your calendar. Are you about to lay out a new email sequence? Why not grab that funny phrase that you randomly thought of to describe your business’s die-hard followers and work it into a hilarious email subject. Trying to solidify a topic for your next IGTV? Deep dive into your creativity hub and use some of those musings to build out a discussion plan that hasn’t been done in your space yet.

Again, your creative notes don’t have to be big picture re-brand level material. Sometimes you just need a little bit of razzle-dazzle and personality to infuse into your projects. Your creative mind is powerful, but your true upleveling happens when you learn to organize and capitalize on all of that creative energy.

Annalyse is Executive Assistant at The Social Bungalow, with a background in marketing and modeling in the fashion industry. She’s fueled by black iced coffee and a desire to prove that beauty exists everywhere… but if not she will just show you how to photoshop it into your Instagram pics!