Episode 770: Ways To Plan Ahead And Protect Your Energy (Especially in Q4) With Zoe Forestier

EBT770 – Zoe Forestier

[00:00:00]  Supercut 

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[00:00:14]  Megan Porta

What if your planner could do more than just schedule your week? What if it could protect your mindset as well? Zoe Forestier, creator of Girl Meets Fire and the Firestarter Planner, joins me to talk about using a planner as a mindset tool, not just a productivity tool. We explore how batching, color coding and time blocking can elevate joy and prevent burnout, especially during Q4 chaos. And how structure can help food bloggers stay consistent, focused and inspired. If you are tired of reinventing the wheel every single week, this episode will light a fire under your planning process.

[00:00:54]   Intro

Hi food bloggers, I’m Megan Porta and this is Eat Blog Talk. Your space for support, inspiration and strategies to grow your blog and your freedom. Whether that’s personal, professional, or financial, you are not alone on this journey. 

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[00:01:38]   

Hello, Zoe. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing down in Puerto Rico today?

[00:01:43]  Zoe Forestier 

Doing great. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:01:45]  Megan Porta 

Is the sun shining? Is it a beautiful day?

[00:01:48]  Zoe Forestier 

It is, it is. It’s nice. It’s bright, sunny and hot.

[00:01:53]  Megan Porta 

Oh, perfect. I can’t wait to be there in January. So, yeah, I will be waving to you. From where? I don’t even know where we’re going. What is the. What is like the. I’m trying to think of the main cities where tourists go.

[00:02:09]  Zoe Forestier 

Isla Verde, El Condado, San Juan.

[00:02:13]  Megan Porta 

San Juan, of course. Right, yeah. Okay. Well, I think. Yeah, I don’t know where, but I’ll let you know if we have food questions or touristy questions before we arrive.

[00:02:25]  Zoe Forestier 

Yes, definitely. Reach out.

[00:02:26]  Megan Porta 

Yes. So we’re going to talk today about using a planner as a mindset tool, also a scheduling tool, but also, you know, also to keep your mindset on track. But before we get to that, do you have a fun fact to share with us?

[00:02:39]  Zoe Forestier 

Well, I have to tell you, like, I’ve. Throughout my life, I learned a lot of skills. I am a trained chef. I started off as a, as an artist. I wanted to be an artist. I studied art and theater and I also am a trained yogi. So it wasn’t until I started food blogging that I realized that I was able to get all of those skills into one spot. So that’s the only fun fact.

[00:03:05]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, yeah, I agree. Food blogging takes care of so many things, right? Like hits all, checks all the boxes for us creative people. Love that. Okay, Girl Meets Fire is your blog. Can you just give us a little bit of a background on your blog?

[00:03:23]  Zoe Forestier 

Yes. So Girl Meets Fire is a blog niched on Puerto Rican and Caribbean cuisine. At the moment it’s 100% Puerto Rican and it is based on the need. I lived in the, in the United States for 35 years and that need of reconnecting with my culture through food. Since I was a trained chef, there’s that moment of realization of you learn to cook all sorts of cuisines, but you don’t quite know yours.

[00:03:56]   

So I wanted to tap into that and also finding other Puerto Ricans that I knew that did not know those recipes. So I decided to reach out in this way of hey, these are the recipes. This, you know, reconnect with our culture. And now that I am here in Puerto Rico, it’s even better because I get to taste it firsthand and my neighbors always are trying to feed me, so I try to feed them and there’s.Yeah, we have like a food exchange going on in our front yard. So it’s always fun.

[00:04:36]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that sounds amazing. Do you do recipes only or do you do any reviews for local places?

[00:04:44]  Zoe Forestier 

Right now I’m doing just recipes. I am, I have it in my plans to do a series called Eating Puerto Rico in which I’ll go to different towns.

[00:04:56]  Megan Porta 

Love it.

[00:04:56]  Zoe Forestier 

Because each town celebrates different things. Like Selena celebrates solmorejo, which is like a tomato based sauce for fish. San Sebastian celebrates arroz condulce which is like a, like a rice pudding dessert. So each town has separate little food based festivals. So I was thinking of doing the. Hey, these are the, the. The towns with their festivals and their times and share recipes based on that.

[00:05:28]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, yeah, that’s a great idea. Hopefully you do it before January. I can tap into some of your knowledge, some local knowledge.

[00:05:37]  Zoe Forestier 

Cool.

[00:05:38]  Megan Porta 

I, I love this. And Puerto Rican food is so unique and delicious. How long have you been blogging?

[00:05:45]  Zoe Forestier 

Oh, actually for food, I’ve been blogging since 2019, just before the pandemic. But I had actually started blogging way before that. I started another like a DIY home repair blog once before. It just didn’t go anywhere. But as far as food, I’ve been blogging since 2019.

[00:06:09]  Megan Porta 

Okay, awesome. Let’s start by talking about just the. All the things that go into blogging. You mentioned being a creative individual and how you can do so many different things to kind of check the boxes in that sense. But it’s a lot, right? There’s recipe creation, recipe testing, there’s recipe writing, there’s photography, SEO, you know, managing social media.I mean, we could go on and on. We could probably keep listing things for the next hour. So talk about that challenge just being our reality. Right. Like how there’s so much to do.

[00:06:49]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah. It’s almost like you. You hear you stumble upon this video either on social media or YouTube, and it tells you how easy it is to start your food blog or whatever blog you’re starting, and you bite into it and then you’re like, all right, I’m starting this. It’s going to be my new adventure work job option.

[00:07:16]   

And you realize that, Wait, hold on. Now I need to learn photography now I need to learn about social media now I need to learn about scheduling. It’s all sorts of. And for most of us solopreneurs, that’s how I consider myself, because I have to do all of these things by myself. It’s like finding a VA.

[00:07:42]   

It’s more of a luxury in my mind sometimes, especially when your RPM is not that high, so you don’t qualify for MediaVine or Raptive, and you have to do all of these things before you can actually qualify for MediaVine or Raptive so that you can get paid, so you can pay somebody else. And so trying to.

[00:08:04]   

It is overwhelming to find yourself all of a sudden in the midst of this wind tunnel of tasks, of things to do. I find that concentrating or picking one at a time and saying, all right, I still have to do all these things and I will do these things, but I want to get better at photography and work on that.

[00:08:27]   

I want to get better on my blog post and how I write it and how can I take these tasks into smaller chunks so that it’s not like I need to write this humungous post? So I think that is the key. It’s not as much as, like, yes, there’s all these things that you have to learn, but can we take them one at a time within the storm and get better at it to a point that it doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough to get you moving along to the next task and then maybe come back and revisit that?

[00:09:11]  Megan Porta 

I think this is such a smart strategy because you can’t do all the things and get good at all the things at the same time. Yeah, it kind of aligns with this concept of. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Pat Flynn, but I just talked to him on the podcast about his book Lean Learning that he just published, and he has this concept in it called micromastery, which I love, where it’s exactly what you’re talking about, Zoe, where you focus on one thing at a time, you get really good at it. And it could be a super niche thing. Like how? I don’t know, like something specific within a blog post. I mean, it could be really, really niche. And then once you nail.

[00:09:52]   

Then you move on to the next thing instead of just like, oh, my gosh, I need to focus and. And conquer all of these things at once, because it’s not realistic with all the things that we have to do. Right.

[00:10:02]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah. It is overwhelming and it’s almost debilitating. I’ve. I found myself especially. I mean, I have been blogging since 2019, but it hasn’t been until the last few years that I have actually zeroed down on, okay, I’m going to work on this task and then this one, and then this one that I actually been able to move my blog along from 2019.

[00:10:28]   

I was so overwhelmed, so taken back by so many things that I had to learn that I. It froze me many times. I wasn’t consistent in my blogging, and it wasn’t consistent in my writing. So it was just, you know, chaotic.

[00:10:45]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, I think most of us get to that point where it’s. We’re in the whirlwind of chaos and we realize we have to figure something out or we’re just going to leave. Throw in the towel and leave the game. So I want to talk about how to kind of, like, handle this a little bit.

[00:11:00]   

But first, let’s talk about Q4, because that’s approaching. Actually, by the time this publishes, we’ll be in Q4. We’ll have our toe dipped in. So Q4 is a hard season. Not only do we have holidays and family and travel and, you know, personal things, but then it’s our biggest season as food bloggers.

[00:11:24]   

So we. We feel all this pressure to get everything right and to get it all published. And by the end of Q4, most of us feel like, what just happened? Why did we just put ourselves through that? So talk a little bit about Q4, I guess in your experience.

[00:11:40]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah, I felt the same. And when you don’t have. And I think this is a mistake that I. I did at the beginning because you don’t have traffic really, when you first start. And you put this pressure upon yourself to build that traffic, because we want MediaVine, we want Raptive, we want this.

[00:12:03]   

But. But at the same time, this is such a. A neat time of. Especially when you’re starting to take it slow and to test the waters and to see where it. Where your energy could be best spent. But for Q4 in last year, I. I was trying to. I actually picked my. Because we moved from Florida to Puerto Rico in September and I was in this moment of like, you know, I can’t. I could not get myself out of. Off the couch and into blogging again.

[00:12:47]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:12:48]  Zoe Forestier 

So I decided to. Let’s. Let’s take a look at my categories. Let’s just clean up the website, since I haven’t, you know, let’s just clean it up, rearrange it and into looking at categories and looking at. I’m already in Q4. What can I do now? So I started seeing that my. I have one.

[00:13:09]   

One drink. I had Coquito, which is a coconut cream and rum mixture that we drink for the holidays. And I’m like, this is the only drink. I cannot have a drinks a cocktail category. So let’s. What can I do now to build that up? So in the brainstorming, I decided it’s like, all right, maybe instead of trying to focus on providing all the meals for the holidays, all the, all the cookies, all the sides, all those entrees, let’s focus on one part of the category.

[00:13:49]   

Let’s just do the drinks. And how can I do this throughout the year so that at the end of the year I’m not crazy? So I started building it to that Each quarter I was adding another drink so that by the time that the end of the year comes, now I have five drinks and I’m not too burnout about whether I get to.

[00:14:17]   

Did I get all of the. All of the recipes that I. That needed to happen?

[00:14:22]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:14:23]  Zoe Forestier 

And that was one of the things that. Again, actually, last year was my first time that I had a massive Q4. I was able to join Journey with MediaVine and I to see the numbers climb up and to see that the new. The new post that I did, I did pistachio Coquito to go along with the original, and that one took off and it’s just like, all right, this is.

[00:14:51]   

This is very neat. But then it was just, I guess in my. What I’m trying to get at is to focus on. Instead of focusing on the whole picture, maybe focus on one certain, one characteristic of Q4 and can that be built up? And I have been building ups all throughout the year so that this Q4 I have. Experimenting on something that I’ve never done, which was actually roundups.

[00:15:24]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:15:25]  Zoe Forestier 

And it’s just like, all right, maybe now I can do. Now I can do a size roundup. Now I can do this. And.

[00:15:31]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:15:31]  Zoe Forestier 

But in order to eliminate this pressure that I have to have X amount of recipes shot and set and everything else, I put all of that effort at the beginning of the year and the middle of the year, so that now all I can do. Oh, I might have an option of. Well, let me just collect these five recipes, top five recipes for Puerto Rican sides, you know.

[00:16:00]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:16:00]  Zoe Forestier 

And go in that direction.

[00:16:03]  Megan Porta 

So instead of. Yeah. Just loading up all at once and letting that stress you out, you’re spreading it out and doing it more consistently. Is that what I’m hearing about the drinks? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s. I mean, that’s such a good strategy because we do tend to wait until right now, it’s end of September as we speak, and like, oh, gosh, Q4 is just a few days away.

[00:16:30]   

What am I gonna do? And instead, maybe at the beginning of the year, just think about that and make a plan so that you’re not. Yeah. And build it so you’re not freaking out at the end of September.

[00:16:43]  Zoe Forestier 

Especially when Q2 is practically, almost. Well, not. Not necessarily a debt, because we have Easter and we have. But there are these other quarters in which are not as busy.

[00:16:58]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:16:58]  Zoe Forestier 

It’s like, can we create the content that could be used, repurposed on Q4 and then ease some of that pressure?

[00:17:07]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, exactly. And then do you think that could apply to not just the content that you’re writing and photographing, but maybe platforms you’re focusing on? So, like, I want to get, for example, if somebody wants to really dig into Instagram and grow their followers during Q4, like to think about that ahead of time and kind of map that out in the same way.

[00:17:35]  Zoe Forestier 

Oh, yeah, I will say so. Especially if you’re. If you have a plan, a plan that is building you up to that, you could then schedule yourself for whatever post you’re going to do on Q4 and then put your energy on. On the tasks that you want to work on. I actually built a.

[00:18:01]   

What led me to make the Planner was that I was working on creating a cooking online course.

[00:18:09]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:18:10]  Zoe Forestier 

And before I started shooting the videos, I made sure that I had two to three weeks worth of posts already scheduled and ready to go so that I didn’t have to worry about, about posting, about shooting about any of that stuff. I just had. I could just concentrate on my, on my online course.

[00:18:34]   

And it is a strategy that I have been trying to use more often and it has helped me because I don’t have to think about it. It’s already going. I use Co-schedule as well. I can schedule at least my Instagram and my Facebook. So it tells me, okay, on this date, as soon as I put the date on WordPress, co schedule puts it on the, on the calendar.

[00:19:02]   

So immediately, as soon as I finalize the post, I go into Co-schedule and I create my post that’s going to go into Instagram and Facebook so I could schedule also Pinterest from there. I’m testing Tailwind. So I not, I haven’t been using co schedule for that. But I love the fact that I can do everything with before I leave WordPress, before I leave Girl Meets Fire, I have now my Instagram, my Facebook already scheduled and I don’t have to think about it. So that has been a lifesaver for me of getting ahead and some breathing room for my own sanity.

[00:19:45]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, absolutely. We, we need sanity baked into our days in weeks and months. So you mentioned your planner and okay, so I like, I like what you do with the Co-Schedule. I’ve heard of that. I’ve never used it, but it allows you to kind of get a handle on things before you even leave WordPress, which is.Yeah, great. And then so that creates kind of a separate calendar for you to remind you to post to social media or how does that work exactly?

[00:20:15]  Zoe Forestier 

So when you, when you finish your post, you scroll all the way down and you know where you say it has sections for kit, it has section for your tasty pins, it has sections for different things. Co-Schedule is one of those sections. And once you login, it opens up a calendar and it just shows you what’s going on, what’s getting posted.

[00:20:38]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:20:39]  Zoe Forestier 

And then from there you can create a post for Instagram, Facebook, whatnot. You can upload pictures, images, videos that you want to go on whatever social media you needed to go. There’s other, other tasks, but at this moment that’s all I’m using code schedule for is for Instagram and Facebook. But you can, there’s other uses for it.

[00:21:03]   

I have not used any notifications from them. I just use it immediately after I’m done writing the post and finalized it. So that way I know for sure it’s that. And it tells you it picks a date, a time. It picks a time, a best time for you to publish on Instagram or Facebook.

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[00:22:01]   

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[00:22:21]  Megan Porta

And then how does your planner incorporate into all of that?

[00:22:24]  Zoe Forestier 

So my planner has been a way of trying to eliminate the seven notebooks that I tag along. So I have in my planner, I have divided it into quarters. Actually, I do have, I can show you really quick, I have divided into quarters. So if you can see, it has different colors. So each color is a quarter.

[00:22:51]   

And I have added reminders like still content, still content tasks, ways to brainstorm for round roundups and stuff like that. I’ve added quarterly notes, as in, in this quarter. These are things to focus. These are the vegetables, the fruits, the holidays, what people are looking for. I also have it as monthly notes.

[00:23:18]   

So when you first start your month on a page for notes, so when you first start the month, you can refresh whatever that month, vegetables, fruits and whatnot are going on holidays so that you can then plan accordingly if you want to touch one of those holidays. If you wanted to do an okra extravaganza, then now you know when to do.

[00:23:44]   

But that’s pretty much is me taking all the things that whenever I am about to start writing, I was like, oh, where? Where do I have this? And it’s a different notebook. Where are my keywords? In another notebook I’m trying to keep track of my financials when Do I. What. When am I supposed to pay this person?

[00:24:07]   

Or if I’m looking at my card statement. What is this notification? Am I. Do I still need this? Says this program. What. What is it for? So I find I have found myself to have been scattered in different. Not only do I have to learn different tasks, now I have different notebooks for all these tasks. Yeah. And it’s. I needed something that was with me whenever I was ready to work.

[00:24:41]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:24:42]  Zoe Forestier 

And I could keep as many of the important notes close by.

[00:24:48]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. One place for all the things that swim in our heads. Do you have it broken down to like day planning? I mean, do you get as focused as that?

[00:25:01]  Zoe Forestier 

I have it broken down as a weekly. I mean, as weekly. Well, monthly. And the weekly is just the days of the week and you can just fill in.

[00:25:13]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, hold it up a little closer. I want to see. Okay, so you’ve just got kind of blank notes there. And then can I see your. Your quarterly planning page? What do you do for that? And if you’re listening to the podcast, come join us on YouTube so you can see Zoe’s awesome planner.

[00:25:29]  Zoe Forestier 

I even added an AI prompt tracker because sometimes I tell AI hey, so then if I want that replicated, it will be nice to be able to write it or to.

[00:25:41]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, that’s great.

[00:25:43]  Zoe Forestier 

All right, so the quarterly goal tracker is right here. And pretty much it’s three simple questions. What worked? What didn’t work? And what am I going to do different with option to give a few goals for that.

[00:25:57]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:25:57]  Zoe Forestier 

I also am adding. It’s not in this planner. It’s in the one that will be available in a couple of weeks. A. When you brainstorm, like I. I like to sit there and just kind of figure out what quarter one will look like. So I just go to ChatGPT and I start brainstorming and then I come up with this is what it should look like.

[00:26:25]   

And I have added a page for that so that I can write it down and keep track of the keywords and whatnot. Yeah, but the monthly. This is like the month in view.

[00:26:36]  Megan Porta 

Oh yeah, I like that. That’s clean.

[00:26:39]  Zoe Forestier 

And then the weekly that I showed you earlier, but I also added like a recipe post summary. And in the recipe post summary, I have like your keywords, your publish date, your yields, all that information that you need when you are actually writing the post and the recipe card because decided that this is the things that I am on a row and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:27:06]   

And then all of a sudden it’s like, wait, how much does. How much does this yield? And wait, what were my keywords again? I know I wanted to write about this. Are there any secondary keywords? So now I am fidgeting through all my other notebooks and Google Docs. So it’s like, it’s. It’s nice to have some in my.

[00:27:26]   

Just to have something available that you can keep track of.

[00:27:30]  Megan Porta 

One spot to go to.

[00:27:31]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then I have a section for grocery list and for your prop list, so you can keep track. And these are enough for like eight recipes in a year? Oh, in a month. In a month. Okay. So, yeah, it’s a. It gives you prompts for things to think about, like, what are you going to post for social media?

[00:27:54]   

What are you. What. What are you going to do for your emails? So it’s. It’s little prompts that help me keeping track so that now that I am actually being a little more consistent in my posts and my blogging, that I can continue doing that in a more efficient way.

[00:28:18]  Megan Porta 

How far in advance do you think about each quarter?

[00:28:22]  Zoe Forestier 

Pretty much the quarter.

[00:28:24]  Megan Porta 

The whole year.

[00:28:26]  Zoe Forestier 

Because. Because I. I started, like, right now. I’m already planning Q1. I’m. I’m already trying to at least get the. The bare bones of Q1 so I have a direction to go to. By November, I will start shooting. I will finalize what recipes will be in January, and I will start shooting January.

[00:28:51]  Megan Porta 

Okay. So it really is something you give thought to before the year starts. But then obviously things change. Right? I mean, there are things that happen in July that I don’t anticipate and I veer toward that sometimes. Sometimes I say no.

[00:29:07]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah.

[00:29:08]  Megan Porta 

But before. Well, before each quarter starts, you sit down and give it some intentional focus.

[00:29:14]  Zoe Forestier 

Yes. Yeah. I mean, the planner was something that I was not planning.

[00:29:19]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:29:20]  Zoe Forestier 

So it’s like I. It was just one of those.

[00:29:23]  Megan Porta 

It just happened.

[00:29:24]  Zoe Forestier 

It just happened. It’s just one of those things that I was in the middle of shooting a video and getting stressed out because I could not keep everything together. It’s like I. My initial intent was to grab my planner and have it next to me and start shooting, and I could not do that, so I needed to create what I needed.

[00:29:47]  Megan Porta 

Yeah, it happens.

[00:29:49]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah.

[00:29:50]  Megan Porta 

And how has this planner just improved your consistency and your focus? How has it benefited you and your business?

[00:29:59]  Zoe Forestier 

It has benefited me in the sense of I. I get a little bit more excited now. I know, like, even when I am shooting ahead, like a month or two ahead, once I sit down and start reading or writing it. It’s. It’s like I make. There’s a. There’s a building excitement of like, oh yes, I finally get to do.

[00:30:22]   

To do this one because I have added these systems even with Co-schedule. It’s almost like, wait, people are telling me they like a post, they like a video or whatever. And I’m like, wait, which one is that? Oh yes, that recipe. That is. That was a good one. It’s neat to be able to see that.

[00:30:44]   

What’s happening today I didn’t have to worry about. And I can now focus on what’s coming up and still enjoy those. Those wins that I get for the day.

[00:30:58]  Megan Porta 

I love that because we can lose excitement over time. Right. If we don’t find ways to keep. Keep it active. So I love that it keeps your enjoyment. That’s super important so we don’t burn out. And then do you recommend people if they’re interested in getting your planner or something like it? Getting it now before the year starts or does it matter?Can we start this at any time?

[00:31:27]  Zoe Forestier 

Well, I will say. I will say depends on who you are. If you are ahead of your schedule and you need to plan ahead. Yeah, you will be great to buy it now. However, I am planning on creating it per quarter so that if you don’t buy it now, eventually you can buy it on quarter two to quarter one, three, two.

[00:31:56]  Megan Porta 

So it really doesn’t matter. Yeah.

[00:31:58]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah.

[00:31:59]  Megan Porta 

Okay. And then just. Yeah. Do you have any, I guess, structural. You’ve talked about systems and structure a couple of times. Do you have any more general tips like do you tap into time blocking, batching, Some of those things that just help us manage all of our tasks a little bit better.

[00:32:20]  Zoe Forestier 

So yes, I try to shoot well in advance so that I don’t. If I have to reshoot, I have plenty of time. I also like to edit. I tend to edit all of it at once, so. And then from there I will separate it to its independent individual folder. I have a system of folders of each quarter and then in that quarter I have other recipes that go for that quarter and so on.

[00:32:51]   

When I. The same thing goes with keyword researching. I will fill out a guesstimate of what it is that I want to be writing. Then I do a whole. All right, we’re going to keyword research Plantain soup. So I go into that and then whatever. Make notes of whatever comes up, maybe even place it.

[00:33:15]   

Hey, I want this recipe for garbanzo soup. I want that recipe for Q. Q3 on 2026. So I end up learning to how, how to get the most I can out of a day. I am not working a 9 to 5 right now, but I am here because I’m in Puerto Rico because my aunt is of advanced, advanced age and I’m here to be with her, to be a companion to her.

[00:33:49]   

So I really want I, I have a job at 10 o’, clock, I’m at her house and till 3pm and then I come home. So I work from 7 to 10 on my blog and then from 5 to 10 in the evenings. So I still feel like I’m cramming a lot of work in two small stance of time which is what I was doing back when I was working my good night my nine to five.

[00:34:23]   

So how that’s how I get the most it is by doing batching on the photography, sometimes on the writing I do have specific times once I get certain tasks done. I said all right, well then from, from 5 to 7 I’m going to write.

[00:34:47]  Megan Porta 

Yeah.

[00:34:47]  Zoe Forestier 

And either I will write in full or write a draft and the same thing. It’s like I just like to write the drafts and put it on my Google Drive and then once I’m. I’m ready to, to post I. That’s an. Another time slot on my schedule so that it’s, it’s all, it’s almost like systematically.

[00:35:12]  Megan Porta 

Yeah. In my mind I found that doing that pre planning, planning ahead, it gets your mind in the right place for it. Whereas if I just sat down and said okay, I’m gonna, I don’t know, like write two posts right now, it wouldn’t be the same. But if I can talk to myself beforehand in the days and week leading up to actually doing it, then it’s like okay, this is established.

[00:35:37]   

I’m sitting down for two hours on Monday from five to seven and I am going to write. That has so much power for me. And this is kind of what you’re talking about just taking the time and making the intention to sit down and make a plan for what you’re going to be doing.

[00:35:53]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah, it’s. I don’t have to think about anything else. I can think. I don’t have to worry about. I need to edit this other piece.

[00:36:02]  Megan Porta 

It’s already set.

[00:36:03]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah, it’s. I’m going to do that at a later date so I don’t have to worry about it now. And it’s almost like a little bit of freedom within the restriction of the time schedule and the time blocking because it’s like, ah, crap, I gotta write for, like two hours. Wait, hold on.

[00:36:21]   

That’s all you have to do. So even if something else comes up and another idea pops up, it’s like maybe while you’re writing, another recipe comes to mind. Write a note, set it aside, continue doing what you’re doing. So, yeah, that. That is a lot of freedom in.

[00:36:45]  Megan Porta 

My mind, taking the distraction out of it. And yeah, like you said, things are going to pop up all the time in your head because there’s so much that we’re juggling. But it’s okay to write it down and reserve it for later. You can get to it at another point. Right now you’re in your writing zone or whatever.

[00:37:01]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah.

[00:37:02]  Megan Porta 

Is there anything else, Zoe, that you feel would be helpful or important to discuss on the topic of just, you know, scheduling, managing all the things?

[00:37:15]  Zoe Forestier 

One thing that I have started and I think I have been enjoying is color coding. Color coding the tasks, especially with my aunt included, because I keep track of her appointments. So she’s purple because she likes the color purple. So all of her appointments are purple. And I will have, like, my. My personal.

[00:37:36]   

Because I like red, but I use hot pink. But anyway, hot pink for my stuff, blue for my husband. But then when it comes to the website, then all those texts will be like, orange. Cooking course will be green. So that way I. When I look at the planner itself, I already have that mindset at the moment that my eyes see the color.

[00:38:00]   

Like, oh, yeah, we’re writing today. So, yeah, it has been kind of neat, and it’s kind of hard when you’re using pens. So I am using actually erasable color pencils. Oh, I know.

[00:38:15]  Megan Porta 

Oh, interesting.

[00:38:16]  Zoe Forestier 

They. They leave a little bit of stain, but they erasable. You can still color code and move things around in your. In your planner. It’s pretty neat.

[00:38:27]  Megan Porta 

Colors are powerful. I use colors in my Google Calendar. My. Yeah, Google Calendar.

[00:38:33]  Zoe Forestier 

Yeah.

[00:38:33]  Megan Porta 

And at first glance, I know exactly what I have to do that day. I don’t even have to read it. So, yeah. The power of the color. Well, thank you. Okay. If somebody is listening and they’re like, I need this, my life, how do I get my hands on this planner? Where do they find Will be.

[00:38:49]  Zoe Forestier 

There’s a landing. Landing page at Girl Meets Fire. I’m still kind of struggling with that because, you know, you don’t want to send the wrong signals to Google, building for Puerto Rican food and all this. There’s a planner there, but there’s a landing page in Girl Beats Fire. I will share the link with you guys so that you can reach it.

[00:39:08]  Megan Porta 

Okay. And the show notes can be found at eatblogtalk.com/GirlMeetsFire. So if you want access to it, go there. And if you had a favorite quote to share or words of inspiration, now would be the time to do that.

[00:39:23]  Zoe Forestier 

You know, it’s funny because the other day, watching tv, this magnificent actor, Puerto Rican actor, is on tv and he’s mentioning a quote, and his quote is the Japanese proverb, and he goes, when the water is still, you see the bottom. When the mind is calm, clarity appears. And I thought it was kind of neat because I feel that’s almost what you get with the planner, is you able to calm the chaos that comes with wearing so many hats, because your mind can then focus on, this is what we’re doing right now, and this is what we’re doing later.And then you are able to see the big picture.

[00:40:07]  Megan Porta 

Oh, that’s so. Yeah, that’s incredible. And I love how you tie that into your planner. Focus and clarity come with Zoe’s planner. So everyone can just. Well, thank you. This gave me some inspiration for, since we’re on the cusp of Q4, just how to move forward into this season and not to be overwhelmed and to just find the calm in the chaos. So thank you, Zoe, for everything you shared today. We appreciate you so much.

[00:40:37]  Zoe Forestier 

Thank you for having me.

[00:40:38]  Megan Porta 

And just to end, can we lead people to social media? Do you have other places that you want people to check out?

[00:40:45]  Zoe Forestier 

Yes, I am under in Instagram GirlMeetsFire_PuertoRicancookn. I’ll give you that as well, because it’s cooking spelled differently.

[00:40:55]  Megan Porta 

Okay.

[00:40:56]  Zoe Forestier 

And that’s where I share all my recipes and videos and whatnot. I believe. Yes, I have. I don’t go to YouTube as much, but I do have a YouTube Girl Meets Fire as well.

[00:41:08]  Megan Porta 

Okay, great. Everyone go check out Zoe’s channels. Thank you again for being here and thank you so much for listening food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:41:18] Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. I would love your help with something special. I’m putting the finishing touches on my memoir, Take the Exit together.If you want sneak peeks, cover reveals and and a say in how it all comes together, join me on Substack through the link in the description. I can’t wait to bring you along. You can also join the email list eatblogtalk.com/taketheeexit.