Hey course junkie, you know all those courses you bought?! You should go do them!!
#nobutreally. You bought them for a reason, right?!
But maybe you FORGOT the reason. Maybe you didn’t have or couldn’t find the time for them. Maybe you started them and then life or business got in the way. Maybe you’ve purchased so many courses out of FOMO that now you’re drowning in them. Maybe you can’t remember what courses you’ve purchased or what your login was for them. Maybe you’re just so used to buying courses you might need SOMEDAY that you don’t know how to stop.
Earning you the title of course junkie, coarse hoarder, or course collector.
Girlfriend, you’re not the only one!! 👭🏼
Purchasing a whole bunch of courses and other educational resources that then sit there collecting digital dust is actually a very common problem.
A problem I’d like to help you fix!!
Because the courses and other educational resources you bought do you and your business NO GOOD if they’re just hanging out on that dusty digital shelf.
So today, I’m sharing my course organization system, plus tips to help you prioritize, consume, and actually implement all those courses you’ve purchased!!
(This post may contain affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you if you make a purchase using these links.)
HOW TO BE A SMART COURSE BUYER AND NOT A COURSE JUNKIE
As someone who has purchased A LOT of courses and educational resources over the years (not all of them good), I’ve learned that asking yourself a series of questions BEFORE you make the purchase can save you a lot of time, money, and energy.
THESE ARE THE 6 QUESTIONS I RECOMMEND YOU ASK YOURSELF BEFORE PURCHASING YOUR NEXT COURSE:
1. What is this course about and what will it help me do? Do your due diligence and read 👏🏻 the 👏🏻 sales 👏🏻 page, from top to bottom, so you know EXACTLY what the course will help you do AND what it includes. If you’re not quite sure, or you have questions, make sure you ASK before you hit that purchase button!!
2. Am I feeling stuck in this area of my business right now? Are you? Are you really? If you are, then maybe a course will help you get unstuck. If you’re not, then it’s probably not worth your time, energy, or money right now.
3. Do I need this course to move forward or take my business to the next level? Maybe you’re not necessarily feeling stuck, but you’re not quite sure how to move forward or take your business to the next level. If this course will help you do that and you’re ready for that, then go for it!!
4. Do I have the mental capacity and/or physical capacity for this course? If learning something new or adding one more thing to your plate right now sounds overwhelming, it probably will be. (Especially if the course is being dripped out live.) If you don’t have the mental capacity or physical capacity (i.e. room in your schedule) to actively learn and implement something new right now, it’s probably better to put the credit card away for now.
5. Do I know, like, and trust the educator? Don’t ever just read (or worse, skim) a sales page and click purchase. Do 👏🏻 your 👏🏻 research!! Find out if the educator walks their talk by checking out their website, blog, YouTube, podcast, and social media channels. Make sure you like the way they talk and teach. (Generally speaking, if their free content is good, their paid content should be even better!!) There’s also nothing wrong with asking around to see what others thought of the course before you commit to it.
6. Do I have the funds for this course right now? I know sometimes you have to spend money to make money, but going into debt is never a good idea. As someone who just got out from under a mountain of debt and is planning to stay that way, I recommend you carefully look at and make an education budget. Consider whether or not the course you’re thinking of purchasing will be worth your investment and whether or not you will see an immediate or long-term return (and what you will have to do to get that).
Bonus Tip: Give yourself some thinking time BEFORE you make the purchase. If you come across a course or product in the morning, wait and see if you’re still thinking about it at the end of the day. If it’s a higher price point, I highly recommend you SLEEP on the decision if you can. If you can’t stop thinking about the course, you’re excited about it, and you feel good about spending the money AND doing the work, then do it!!
NOW IT’S TIME TO ORGANIZE ALL THOSE COURSES YOU’VE PURCHASED
First things first, I highly recommend using the same email address and password for ALL of your business education-related purchases. That way ALL of your logins will be the same and you won’t have to think too hard about what email address you used or what your password is. It just makes things easier all around.
(To be clear, I am NOT suggesting you use the same email address and password for EVERYTHING because of security concerns. But for business education, I think it’s a-okay!!)
I also recommend creating an education or courses email folder where you can hold onto course-related emails including login details and other important messages from the educator.
Bonus Tip: Some people even like to create an education or course specific email address like courses@theproductivityzone.com or bizeducation@theproductivityzone.com. That’s cool, too. You do you!! 👊🏻
HOW TO USE ASANA TO ORGANIZE ALL OF THOSE COURSES YOU’VE PURCHASED
Create a new project in Asana called Business Education (or similar) and create the following 3 sections:
- Courses Purchased
- Courses in Progress
- Completed Courses
In the Courses Purchased section:
This is where you’ll keep track of all of the courses you’ve purchased (and will purchase).
You can create what I like to call placeholder cards with [COURSE CREATOR] COURSES for each educator you’ve purchased courses from. In the description of these cards, include the correct login information (including the URL) for easy access. These placeholder cards will STAY in this section and act as anchors to help you organize the actual courses. These are especially helpful if you have purchased multiple courses from the same educator and/or lots of courses from different educators.
You will then create what I like to call course cards with [Course Creator]: [Course Name] for each of the courses you’ve purchased. Grab the thumbnail for that course from the course area and attach it to the card. (This gives you the cover image like you see below.)
You can then keep all of your NOTES for that course in the description of the course card. Sometimes I’ll sit at my desk and have the course pulled up on my iMac and Asana open on my MacBook Pro. Other times, I’ll split the screen of my iPad so I can have both the course and Asana pulled up at the same time side-by-side.
Bonus Tip: If you ever purchase a course bundle, I recommend you create your course creator placeholder cards in the Courses Purchased section as usual. Then, I suggest you create a new section with the name of the course bundle as the title (like I did with The Passive Bundle). You can then put all of your course cards for the bundle in that section. That way you remember they were part of the bundle!!
In the Courses in Progress section:
This is where you will keep track of the course (or courses) you are currently working on. You’ll simply move a course card from the Courses Purchased section to the Courses in Progress section when you’re ready to actively work on one. (You’ll see that I have two sitting in my queue to remind myself of the courses I want to work on next.) I really don’t recommend having more than two courses in your queue at any given time. Focusing on less will actually help you accomplish more.
In the Completed Courses section:
This is where you’ll keep the courses you’ve completed so you can see all of the hard work you’ve done and refer back to the notes you took.
I would create another set of placeholder cards here with ✔️ [COURSE CREATOR] COURSES just to keep your completed courses nice and organized. You don’t have to do this—you could just plop the courses in there when you’re finished—but I recommend the organized way so you can go back and find courses easily.
Now that you’ve got your courses organized, the next step is to outline them!!
You’ll want to open each of the course cards and create a list of subtasks based on the course modules and lessons. I would actually open a separate browser window, so that you can see that course’s outline, and then copy and paste the names of the modules and lessons into your subtasks. That way you can check those lessons off as done as you do them!! I also like to note if the lesson is read-only, a download, or includes a video and the length of the video.
Bonus Tip: I like to put the modules as sections and lessons as subtasks. To create a section in subtasks, use the keyboard shortcut TAB+N.
NOW IT’S TIME TO FIND THE TIME FOR YOUR BUSINESS EDUCATION
But you will never just “find the time” for anything. You have to MAKE THE TIME.
It really comes down to how important education is to you and your business. (It should be very important to everyone, but depending on your season of life and/or season of business, the amount of time you can dedicate to your education may vary.)
If you’re in a busy season like product shop owners during the Christmas season or wedding photographers during wedding season, business education will probably be very low priority. But they can make it a high priority during slower seasons. And so on and so forth.
Another option that I find works for most business owners is to set aside a certain amount of time every month, every week, or even every day for business education. I’ve heard of people scheduling a business education day or business education weekend once a month, or a business education week once a quarter, or a block of business education time every day. It really just depends on you, your schedule, your mental capacity for learning and implementing new things, and how quickly you want to get through a course.
But you also need to MAKE TIME for implementation!! (Which is something you should be doing as soon as you’re done consuming when the information is still fresh.) The implementation is honestly more important than the consumption because if you don’t take action on what you learned it will all have been for nothing.
THE BOTTOM LINE HERE IS THIS: IF IT’S NOT SCHEDULED, IT’S NOT GETTING DONE
You NEED to put your business education AND implementation on your calendar!!
I would first figure out which course you want to work through. Then, look at the course outline to see how much time you’ll have to spend going through the lessons. And then, refer to your schedule to see how much time you can realistically spend on that course (including implementation) and then make your plan!!
I like to schedule my business education on my digital calendar in light pink and then just check off the lessons as I do them in Asana. But you can also assign lessons to yourself in Asana along with do/due dates so that they show up in My Tasks.
IF YOU’VE PURCHASED A LIVE, DRIPPED OUT COURSE THAT INCLUDES LIVE CALLS
Things change a bit when you purchase a live, dripped out course.
Because live, dripped out courses generally include weekly content releases, solo and/or group coaching calls, and VIP access to the educator, there’s usually a higher price point AND a bigger commitment on your part than the courses that give you the content all at once and allow you to go at your own pace.
When you’re thinking about purchasing a live, dripped out course, you want to be DOUBLY sure that your schedule can accommodate the live course schedule.
A live, dripped out course is a truly unique experience, one that you should unequivocally commit to if you want to see RESULTS (and especially if you paid more for it).
For example, when I purchased Megan Martin’s Revenue Ripple course and coaching experience, I went ALL IN.
- I cleared my schedule of anything that wasn’t critical, important, or absolutely necessary.
- I put on my calendar WHEN she would release content each week, when the coaching calls were, and when I had to have things done by if I wanted them reviewed by her.
- I scheduled out time for me to go through the content BEFORE the live call each week.
- I made sure I was AVAILABLE for every single live call so I could ask questions if I had them.
- I scheduled out time for me to complete my assignments so I could hand them in on time.
- And I took advantage of the private Voxer access to ask alllllllll of my questions and share my ideas, dreams, goals, and fears.
Because of my commitment to both consuming the course content AND implementing it, I had MY MOST SUCCESSFUL digital product launch to date with Asana Assistant!! 🤩
THE MORAL OF THE COURSE JUNKIE STORY
If you’ve been around my little corner of the internet for more than a minute, you know that I am all about working smarter, not harder. Being a course junkie definitely doesn’t live up to that. But being a smart course buyer DOES!!
So, if you’re ready to ditch your course junkie ways and be a smart course buyer from this day forward, remember to follow these 3 steps:
- ask yourself questions BEFORE you hit purchase
- organize and outline every course you purchase to keep better track of WHAT you purchase
- make time for consumption AND implementation so you see RESULTS from your purchase
(You should also probably pin or bookmark this blog post so you can come back to it!! 😉)
Oh, and one more thing… (I feel like Steve Jobs 🤓)
While we’re on the subject of working smarter, not harder in relation to business education, you should know that my COMPLETE Business Education Asana template is included as a BONUS inside Asana Assistant!! This template will help you better organize and keep track of ALL your business education—not just courses, but workshops, webinars, memberships, group coaching, solo coaching, and more!!
You can get the Business Education template and 14 other templates (plus more coming soon!! 🤗) inside Asana Assistant for $10 off when you use code SMARTCOURSEBUYER today!!
Got questions about organizing your business education or ditching your course junkie ways? Leave them below, email me, or DM me!!
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Disclaimer: Some of the links in this post could be affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you make a purchase through my link at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products and services I personally use, love, and feel make a difference in my business and could do the same for you.