The Strategic Edge

Tayla rose

I'm quickly interrupting this week's Newsletter with something exciting (and you're getting the first look)!

Notion 101: A Beginner's Guide to Life and Business

A free course breaking the barriers to starting with Notion!

In 6 short modules, we’ll be covering

1. The Blank Page
2. Basics of Blocks
3. Page Progressions
4. The Power of Databases
5. Sharing and Collaborating
6. Taking the next steps

Don’t worry, I won’t just give you the how-to and leave you empty-handed.

You’ll also walk away with your own dashboard containing

• My signature master to-do list
• A note taking system
• A habit tracker
• Resource storage sections
• A navigation bar

And the most important thing?

The knowledge required to start using more advanced features that will really change the game for your productivity and systems (it pairs well with this newsletter too 👀)

Ready to get started?

Get your free Notion guide here!

Click the link, press 'duplicate' at the top right, and start the course!

(Note: this is best done on a laptop or computer)

And now, let's dive right into creating your digital home base!

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On the first day of every new school year, I was given a school diary.

I was told to treat it as my most prized possession.

And I did - it housed everything: homework, tests, events, notes, reminders.

In the chaos of high school, it was one thing I could always rely on.

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But high school finished, and I stopped.

I went and bought diaries... that sat on my bookshelf all year.

I turned to my digital calendar for due dates.

But everything else? It sat in my head.

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I got curious and asked a client yesterday what she used before starting with Notion.

“Just a calendar” she said - a common theme.

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Our brain consumes 74 newspapers worth of information each day.

Layer this with the 70,000 thoughts it generates.

It becomes clear that our brain wasn’t meant for modern society - without help.

The key to being able to

1. Use what we consume and generate
2. Stay organised in the information overflow

Is having a place to store what’s important - a place you can access anywhere & anytime.

So, let’s dive into why a digital home base gives you a strategic edge, and how to create yours today.

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Remove The Limits of your Mental Capacity

If you’ve ever run or lifted weights, you understand that there’s only a certain amount of physical activity our body can tolerate.

Most people accept this.

What most don’t realise? Our mind has an upper limit too.

You probably just don’t realise it because you’ve been pushing that edge for so long, that now it’s all you know.

The more we can offload from our brain, the more space we create for

• Ideas to flow
• Moments of presence to occur
• Mental clarity and peace of mind

Writing things down also

• Reduces subconscious stress and anxiety
• Elevates your ability to reflect and learn
• Increases productivity and focus

Think about how much goes on in your life, in your business.

Look at what you expect yourself to remember today alone.

Imagine what storing information outside your head would do. The impact it would have on the points above.

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A digital home base kick started my use of the offload and organise method

• Offloading: a big brain dump once per week + writing down things as they come during the week
• Organising: 1-2 times per week, organising the elements into task lists, reference lists, content ideas, general notes, and calendar items
• Executing: executing on the actions required

The thing is, everyone does this every day, whether you realise it or not.

You tell yourself you:

• Can’t focus
• Are unproductive
• Never have enough time
• Are a serial procrastinator

But in reality, it’s that your brain is operating at 50% capacity because this process is currently occurring inside your head.

I know because I was there

• Lacking clarity, energy and direction.
• Working on the first thing I thought of, or whatever seemed the easiest.
• Always rushing at the last minute because I didn’t write meetings down
• Struggling to think of content, courses, or business ideas because my starting point was a blank page

I thought it was normal.

What I now know to be true:

Your brain does the best it can with what it has.

If you want it to do better, provide it with tools that support it.

The moment I stopped pushing your brain so hard, and offloaded the work.

Was the moment I found myself with the energy I’d been sourcing from caffeine, social media and short-term dopamine hits.

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Humans Crave Consistency

At our core we desire safety. It’s the second pillar in the human needs hierarchy.

If you want to reach those higher needs — maximising your potential, achieving big goals, living an autonomous life — you need to know you’re safe first.

At the start of this year I was operating entirely in a stress state.

• Always busy
• Constantly on edge
• Mind always overflowing
• Worried I was forgetting something
• Rushing to complete last minutes tasks

I was working 30+ hour weeks, studying full time, coaching netball, gymming regularly, and growing my social media.

And I had the nerve to question why I wasn’t growing like I wanted — both online and as a person.

Stress is a sign you don’t feel safe.

When you don’t feel safe, your mind is locked on gaining that safety.

• You focus less
• You’re less creative
• You lack a long-term perspective

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The first step to controlling my stress — facing it head on.

Gaining some kind of consistency.

This is when I started taking Notion seriously.

When I first created my digital home base.

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Changes started happening

• I became more organised in all areas of my life.
• I began writing things down and getting them out of my head.
• I developed a consistent place I knew housed everything at a glance.
• I started linking tasks that lacked meaning to bigger goals and projects.

I felt myself slowly gaining that safety and security I needed.

I knew what to expect, I knew where to turn to, and I knew I not longer had to store everything in my head.

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This is especially important if you are in business.

If you’re selling a service, or creating content, that fills a need closer to the top of the hierarchy (which you probably are)…

You have to first fulfil that more important need of safety.

This comes from your services, brand and content, being reliable, predictable and consistent.

The best way to ensure this?

Having a central location to turn to when doing any task or completing any project.

If it’s written down, or you have a template, there’s no thinking, guessing or hoping. You only have to follow what you’ve written.

The best thing? You no longer just repeat things, you improve them each attempt

Your processes get 1% better each time.

And so your growth, results and impact follow suit.

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You Can Do Anything, But You Can't Do It All

If you’re reading this newsletter, my guess is you somewhat resonate with me and my writing.

So my guess is that you share my values of creating a freedom-based lifestyle, of creating a life of success.

True? Perfect

Most successful people outsource at least one area of their life

• Cleaners
• Gardeners
• Accountants
• Personal assistants
• Just delegating tasks within families

Some people have created entire life databases containing contacts, resources, life operating systems and more.

In business, this is even more important:

• Coaches
• Consultants
• Freelancers
• Team members
• Virtual assistants
• Brand partnerships
• Graphic or web designers

Assuming growth is desired, you have or will use at least one of these in some capacity.

It’s important to realise - people can only be as effective as you allow them to be.

If you give them clear resources, guidelines and tools - their results will reflect this.

If you given them vague instructions, quickly compiled notes and send them away with a ‘good luck’ - their results will also reflect this.

Outsourcing will make your life easier and your results better, but only if you have the systems in place to support this.

Your business home base will be your tool to do this. You’ll be able to give others:

• Access to information and resources they need
• Less need to constantly request things from you directly
• A clear understanding of your business/personal values and brand voice

One initial set up for long-term return.

And the earlier you start, the easier it will be.

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Creating Your Home Base

1. Choose your location
2. Plan the traditional way
3. Establish your foundations
4. Start creating SOPs

1. Choose your Location

Decide which software best addresses your needs. Some things to consider:

• Sharing capabilities - can you share both the entire home base and individual pages, with live editing updates?
• Flexibility - does it allow for customisation to suit your unique business operations?
• File capabilities - can you add files, text, tables, checklists, etc.?
• Aesthetics - does it have a clean interface that’s easy to look at visually?

I use and recommend Notion, due to it’s ability to meet all of these factors (get started with Notion101)

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2. Plan the Traditional Way

Your systems start with you.

A software will help streamline and organise, but it won’t make your processes for you.

The biggest mistake I see people make is diving in to creating without any idea of what they actually want to get out of their new systems.

Before you touch your digital home base, go through this list:

1. What current systems do you have? (Everyone has systems - in business and life - whether you’re aware of them or not)
2. In an ideal world, what would your processes look like?What can you improve or add? What doesn’t need to be there?
3. What do you want to get out of your home base?What would it allow you to do?

Use your answer to create an outline for your digital home base.

That’s how you know it’ll actually give you what you need.

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3. Establish your Foundations

Create a home page that will act as your first point of reference.

Everything else should be stored within this page. Some sections to consider:

• Contact lists
• Your mission, vision and values
• General operations and guidelines
• Team calendar with major project dates and deadlines
• Projects database containing all relevant details and associated tasks
• Reference lists: a place to store the things you don’t need to action, but you want to remember (recommendations, notes, birthdays, ideas, etc.)

A complete business home base may also contain your:

• Tasks database
• Strategic roadmap
• Client management system
• Content management system
• Current and in-development offers
• Personal and meeting notes database

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4. Start creating SOPs

Standard operating procedures — the key to consistency

These are what will guide your actions as you’re completing tasks. They also give clarity to anyone you’re outsourcing to from our lists above.

They’re step-by-step instructions to follow for any project or task that you do repeatedly.

If you’re starting and creating your SOPs from zero, I would recommend:

1. Identifying your repeated tasks and projects
2. Each day or week, choose one SOP to create
3. As you do the task/project, write down exactly how you’re doing it, including any files or documents to refer to
4. Repeat until all your processes are complete

Bonus: you can create these as videos using recording tools such as Loom or Zoom — explain as you go and give yourself / your team a visual to work with. You can convert these to written format later too.

Creating a digital home base is the first step to organising, outsourcing and unlocking quality, growth and freedom in your life and business.

It’s one change I made this year that has elevated my

• Focus
• Growth
• Impact
• Efficiency
• Organisation

Build it now, and you’ll set yourself up for future success.

If you want the blueprint to getting started, Notion101 is the perfect place to start.

Get your free Notion guide here!

See you next week!

Tay

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Whenever you’re ready, there’s 3 ways I can help you:

1. ​Custom Notion Builds: Have the vision but lacking the time or expertise? I build your vision to life, you receive a digital environment optimised for your success.
2. ​1:1 Coaching: Design your life and environment, master your time, energy and attention and finally make progress towards your goals with 1:1 support.
3. ​Organisational Assistant: Have a strategic partner in your back pocket to organise and systemise, upgrade your planning and accountability, and remove the subconscious stress from your life and business.

Tayla Rose

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