How to Organize Online Courses & Ebooks So You’ll Actually Use Them! – Perfect for Ultimate Bundles
The internet is a treasure trove of knowledge. At the click of a button, I can instantly download an ebook, an online course, or beautiful printables on just about ANY topic to make my life better!
And with course creation on the rise, this possibility doesn’t seem like it’ll slow down any time soon. To top it off, many great organizations like Ultimate Bundles, are making these online learning materials so much easier and cheaper to purchase!
Can you say Brilliant?
There’s only one problem with all this easy access to home learning… people get overwhelmed. They buy all these courses, printables, and ebooks – both free and paid – and let them sit.
Like all your family photos… trapped and lonely in your iPhone.
Online learning is really only a good thing if we use those materials and effectively apply them to our lives and/or businesses. If we let them sit on our computers, or worse yet, in our email inbox – it’s a waste of money.
Don’t allow disorganization and overwhelm keep you from improving your life, home, and/or business with your online learning investments.
You can really make a change in your life!
Here are some tips to get you conquering your goals today!
Start by Organizing your Materials First
I love purchasing online courses, ebooks, and even free downloads to help me improve my life and grow my business. So, I have a lot of materials downloaded on my computer.
Over time, however, I noticed that my files were Out. Of. Control.
I had ebooks and courses EVERYWHERE and I had a hard time finding them when I needed to refer back to them… which I do very often. And it was sucking up my time.
I also recently purchased the Ultimate Homemaking Bundle which is over 120+ downloads, books, and courses. And if you’ve purchased any of the absolutely amazing Ultimate Bundles, you know exactly what I’m talking about!
Before you can effectively use your online courses and ebooks, you need to give them all a nice place that's easy to access. Or else, you’ll just forget about them and never use them.
And that’s really just sad.
The first thing to do is create an Online Learning folder.
You can choose to make this a folder that’s uploaded to the Cloud, so you can access it when you’re away from home. Or just download them to your home server. You choose what's best for you.
Once you have the main learning folder, you can create the appropriate subfolders by each unique topic. After you have your topic folders finished, you can create more sub-folders for books, courses, and/or printable downloads. That last one is optional.
Make a List of Topics you Want to Learn first
In the case of purchasing many online products at once or even an Ultimate Bundle as I mentioned, you need to get mentally organized NOW.
This is the #1 way to defeat overwhelm and procrastination so you’ll actually use all the awesome materials you just invested in.
Start by making a list of the topics you want to focus on first. Look at the learning material topics and decide which topics will benefit you the most. Look at it this way, if you could only use one of the materials – which would make the biggest impact in your life. And start there.
Then add the next beneficial resource, and down the list until you’re done.
Make a Commitment to Start, Do, and Finish
Now that you have your action plan in place, it’s time to make a quality decision that you’re NOT interested in dabbling. You’re all about the doing!
Decide you’re going to start the program, do the work, and NOT stop until you’re done.
I saw a post in a Facebook group the other day by a blogger who was stuck trying to figure something out on her blog. It just so happened that a course creator kindly mentioned, “called her out” that she was currently enrolled in her blogging course.
The course creator followed up to mention that this blogger’s question was actually in her course! Umm… embarrassing. The blogger followed up that she was still “working slowly” through the course. Not an ideal situation.
I know she didn't set out to put that course on the shelf and go it alone. But that's what we ALL do sometimes.
Ironically, I also purchased and completed this same course. I made a decision to do exactly what I'm telling you to do now. I literally devoured this course! I did EVERYTHING the instructor said to do. And let me just tell you… it was ALL outside of my fuzzy comfort zone.
But because of my personal decision and the respect I have for my own time… I gave it a go and have reaped so many rewards and have grown so much because of it! no regrets!
It’s not that I’m trying to toot my own horn here… just trying to give you some inspiration on the power of decision.
One more thing, write on your list exactly WHY you want to complete this course or read this book. What do you want to be able to do, accomplish, and even create as a result of the knowledge you’ll receive.
Having a clear WHY will help you stay the course and defeat the temptation of procrastination and quitting.
Ummm.. because that power couple will come knocking at your front door! So be ready.
Create a Learning Schedule
After you make your quality decision to forge ahead no matter what, it’s time to make room in your day for your new-found learning priorities.
Decide how much time you can give each day or each week to learning and complete your course assignments. Then take that time and put it on your schedule.
Also, don’t forget to tell your family about your new learning time. You'll be tempted to fall into old habits once you start, so you’ll need the added accountability!
Keep this time simple and easy to implement. Sometimes it’s a lot easier to stop watching your favorite TV show in the evening than it is to suddenly start getting up at 4:00 am.
Keep a Learning Journal
As you go on this learning and transformation journey, journaling your progress and how you’re changing and growing is extremely helpful.
Journaling allows you to do a brain dump to ditch your feelings of overwhelm, allow you to track your wins and key takeaways, and develop a plan to use your newly acquired knowledge.
It also helps you to take detailed and actionable notes through the course or as you read through your ebook. You can refer to these notes as you make progress.
Don’t Quit!
Remember that decision you made and that profound WHY you wrote down? Those are important things in your life. So, no matter what tries to derail you… don’t quit.
Even if you need to scale back when life shows up knocking at your front door delivering a big box of chaos, that’s better than stopping.
When you stop, you lose momentum and you NEED momentum to move forward.
However, if you do fall behind or life gets in the way… give yourself permission to start again right away with ZERO condemnation!
No one’s judging you, so stop judging yourself.
Now it’s time to put all this to work! Go put your files in order right now, and go through the rest of the step before you talk yourself out of it.
After you start putting your materials to work, please come back and let me know how this method helped you in the comments below. I can’t wait to hear from you!
