I recommend several things for actually implementing your shiny new business plan.

1. Mapping your marketing and revenue plan into doable yearly goals (and backtracking to get to daily tasks).

For this, I recommend a copy of the 2021 Planner for Fine Artists. It will help you identify tangible goals, prioritize projects, and increase productivity on a daily basis. It's an actual, physical, paperback book! So you can order it on Amazon and receive a real thing in the mail. I highly recommend something physical when you're doing yearly planning. There are so many puzzle pieces to move around that it's very difficult to do on a computer.

2. Sticky tabs.

These repositionable tabs are great to use with paper planners. I use them on my own copy of the yearly planner to help me quickly access quarterly goals, income tracking, and the current month's calendar.

3. To Do list.

If your planner doesn't come with a daily task list, you'll want a way to manage that. Everyone's brain works differently with the best way to manage day-to-day events and to dos so you may have to try out a few systems before finding the one that fits.

For me, it's the beautiful hardcover notebooks from Moo.

You might like to jot things down on a clean sheet of paper each morning, use a notebook with your own art on the cover, use some sort of digital system, etc.

Our cell phones all come with a simple note taking app which can work fine. If you want to get fancier, there are thousands of task apps out there to try. In the past, I've used and like Trello, Wunderlist, and Asana but ultimately kept coming back to paper. The only digital system that stuck with me for more than a month was Plan, which has hour-by-hour drag-and-drop scheduling of your tasks alongside meetings and such. It's great for time blocking and for keeping yourself in check with what you're supposed to be working on when.

4. Erasable pens.

These are absolutely indispensable in my daily life! They're so fantastic that my husband even started using them at his work and now refuses to use any other pens.

They erase, usually completely clean, but they're ink!

They come in all sorts of colors so they're great for planning. I use them in my yearly planner and in my daily notebook. The company also sells erasable markers, pencils, and highlighters, which I haven't tried yet.

5. Focus apps.

These may or may not work for you, but I do find it helpful to my productivity when I use iDoneThis and RescueTime.

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