Starting a new business means introducing a whole new set of tasks to your plate, and the crazy part is, you don’t even know what half of them are yet.

The first few days will be busy as you set things up, such as your domain and social media accounts. Maybe you’ll write a business plan. Then comes the hard part, as you settle into a routine.

Raise your hand if launching gives you the heebie jeebies. I get it, boss. There are a million and one moving pieces and it’s hard enough for you to remember all the steps - let alone have some sort of organization that helps you keep it all together. Here's our secret formula for using Trello to go from Idea to 10K launch in just 30 days. 

As much as we all want to make a fabulous living while drinking fancy cocktails poolside, as entrepreneurs we don’t always have that luxury! The weeks seem to fly by, and late nights and work overload become common. 

What if, instead of spending every waking hour of every day with your nose to the grindstone, you could instead trick yourself into making more money? Spoiler: you can! | Think Creative Collective

Abagail here. I love paper. The smell of fresh ink on a hot sheet of paper makes me feel giddy. This shouldn’t be such a surprising phenomenon considering my background in design, but I have a confession to make.

I’ve broken up with paper.

Gone are the days of endless stacks of Post-it notes, forgetting which notebook contained what set of notes from which meeting, and constantly worrying that I would forget (or even lose) my to-do list.

Figuring out how to be productive as a small business owner is a job in and of itself. If you’re like us, then you’ve tried ALLL the systems! Some are free (like post-it notes, the notes app on your phone, notebooks and notepads) and some are paid (expensive software or paid apps that you think will do the trick). For some reason, they’ve all failed — and you may feel like you’ve failed all of them. Because for a lot of us (especially us creatives), our brains only work a certain way.

Seriously — for us to be productive, organized and put together we have to have the moon in a certain phase, standing on one foot, in a finger towards the north wind kind of pose. You feel us?

Alright, friends, gather round. It's time for a story and it's one you absolutely want to hear today.

When I was a younger woman, I thought to myself, "Gee Golly. Wouldn't it be nice to turn my hobby into a business?"  Wearing rose tinted glasses, I spent many days and nights planning out what I wanted to do, eager to create this business that would leave me feeling productive and satisfied. In fact, I had this crazy vision of what working for myself would look like. You know you want to hear about it.

I totally believe in the power of a positive mental attitude, but I know that listening to a random recording is not going to cure the self-doubt and insecurity that can plague my own creative nature, or anyone else’s.

There is one thing that I’ve found to make a massive difference in how much I can do, and the quality of my work, though. It’s called confidence.

As an online business owner, it’s easy to get wrapped up in all the software, all the apps and all the things in general. But really, sometimes the simplest systems are the best to keep yourself organized. In fact, some of the most heavily relied upon systems are the ones that include the least amount of setup and have the highest return on that time invested. Today, I’m going to share with you a foolproof system for keeping content creation organized using Trello, Google Drive, and Butler for Trello, all of which can be used for little to nothing in the cost department. Perfect for the budget conscious boss, right?