How to Stay Productive When You're Overwhelmed with Guest Shelly Rees

As a teacherpreneuer there are so many things to focus on while growing your TpT business. It's easy to become overwhelmed and lose focus. Today we're talking about how to stay productive, and we’re continuing the conversation in our Mastermind group. Head over there to share what works for you and hear what others are saying: www.growwithusmastermind.com.

April and I were excited to bring Shelly Rees back as a guest on the Grow With Us Podcast. She was a guest way back in episode 10 when we were live at the 2018 TpT conference. She's a teacher seller and a productivity guru. On this episode, she shared some incredibly valuable tips on how to stay productive and beat that feeling of overwhelm that we all experience at times.

If you have been trying to figure out how to stay focused, this is the episode for you!
There's always going to be a little overwhelm
I describe my overwhelm as a sliding scale. Sometimes it's more and other times it's not as bad, but there's always a bit of it there. Remember, you may always feel a little bit of that overwhelm. It's not that you need to eliminate it all the way, but you do need to learn how to manage it and stay focused. What you don't want is to get so overwhelmed that it causes you to freeze and not do anything.

Shelly is experienced at this. She has two facets to  her business. The first is her TpT store. The second side is helping other teacher authors. She admits that it can be overwhelming, but she has found the right strategies to help her stay productive through it.  Here is what she recommends you do to stay focused:
1. Do a brain dump
Shelly suggests that you get a big piece of paper and just start writing everything down that's rolling around in your head. This includes the big and little things. Write down all the projects you're working on and tasks that you need to do. It doesn't have to be business related. It could be something like "clean the kitchen counter". Just get it all out.
2. Prioritize it
Once you have it all out of your head and down on paper, it's time to prioritize it. List them as most important to least important.

Or, if you're really feeling overwhelmed, Shelly recommends that you list them from the smallest task to the biggest task. This allows you to get some easy wins by completing and crossing off the small tasks first. This helps to build momentum and allows you to be more productive.
3. Keep a list of tiny tasks
These are tasks that will only take you 15 minutes or less to complete. It could be something like creating a new pin.

Shelly keeps this list on hand at all times. Then, when she finds that she has a small chunk of time to use, she can do something productive instead of scroll through Instagram or Facebook.

We're all guilty of wasting those little chunks of time. One of the biggest excuses that Shelly hears from TpTers that are still working in the classroom is that they don't have enough time. But if you work on focusing during those small chunks of time then you'll see that you actually have more time than you realized. Or, if you need a little motivation to help see this, look at the breakdown on your phone of your screen time. You'll most likely see that you are wasting more time than you realize on things like social media.
How to stay productive by organizing your time
While the three steps above can go a long way in helping you stay productive, it's also helpful to keep the big picture in mind when organizing your time. Here's how Shelly does it:

Choose a word of the year. For 2019, her word was "intentional". She wanted to be intentional about creating products and how she was using her time. She will choose a new word for 2020.
Plan 3 big goals. Once she has he