A Voice-Over Vacation

For some reason, I especially like taking stock of my voice-over business when I’m away from it on vacation.

As someone who’s more of a big picture thinker (acccording to some Myer’s Briggs testing I did way back when and my own self-awareness), I enjoy looking at what I’ve done, where I’m going, and what I need to work on to stay focused on my goals – reviewing to-do lists, checking-in with myself about my truest objectives, and making sure I’m on track instead of working on those Not Important/Urgent tasks that come up in a regular business day.

(I love the URGENT/NOT URGENT/IMPORTANT/NOT IMPORTANT principal, credited to President Eisenhower. Find more about it here.)

Further, while traveling, there is often “off-line” time when my family may be on their gadgets playing games, and I feel the need to be productive. Games don’t do it for me. I’d much rather be brainstorming!

What I brainstorm on:

• Defining (and redefining) Goals
• Creating Action Plans
• Building lists
• Prioritizing
• Creating Schedules

Specific tasks that are manageable with airplane mode on:

• _Organize/clean up computer files: delete old, redundant documents/spreadsheets – simplify/consolidate file folders – optimize file views
• _Read through/purge handwritten notes: I carry around a notebook or two and I like to scan through for ideas and clean out old stuff
• _Clean up my Google Sheets & Docs: delete unnecessary files
• _Clean up my Contact Database: I still use Excel instead of a CRM as I prefer it visually.
• _Clean up To Do lists: ridding of low priority items
• _Prioritize for my return: honing on what’s the most important when I get back to work

If I do have WiFi, I like to do productive, but brainless, tasks. I work on cleaning out my inbox and prepare rough drafts of emails I need to send.

Not everyone would fill their time the way I do. Admittedly, getting organized is more of an obsession than a passion. However, I hope you find something useful here to do instead of, oh I don’t know, reading and relaxing…