Category: video

A friend sent me an article last week that talked about why he (the author, not the friend) didn’t use a to-do list anymore.

I’d seen the article before and others like it.

It’s actually less about not using to-do lists and more about why the way he was using a to-do list wasn’t working for him.

But more importantly, it reminded me that when I talk about to-do lists I might be thinking of something different than you are.

For you, a to-do list might be

• The list of everything that you need to or want to get done
• The place where you write everything that you need to get done for other people
• Your list of tasks, phone calls, goals, reminders, and appointments that are coming up
• The list of things you plan to get done if today is the perfect day with no interruptions or unexpected side tracks AND if you can get 12 hours of work done in 7 or less!
• Something that you avoid like the plague because it makes you feel sick to your stomach when you create it or look at it

Well then, of course, to-do lists are the spawn of Satan!

Go ahead and stop using that to-do list.

Seriously. It’s not helping you.

When I talk about my to-do list it’s the things I’ve decided I’m going to do today.

It’s based off my weekly to-do list which comes from my goals and intentions for the month and the things that I do on a regular basis to make my business and day run.

A book I recently read referred to this as a “will-do list”. It’s the list of thing you will do today.

Here are two suggestions about how to create your own will-do list for tomorrow:

• Decide 2-3 things (not projects) that you’ll complete tomorrow and write them down.
• Look at how much time you have to work tomorrow and divide it by 2. Write down the tasks that you know you can complete in that amount of time.
  Example: Let’s say you have from 9-3 with an hour for lunch to work. That’s 2.5 hours worth of tasks (9-3 is 6 hours. 6 hours minus 1 hour for lunch is 5. And 5 divided by 2 is 2.5).

Try it for a week and see what happens.

I talk about this topic in the video below.

Productivity for Solopreneurs: Insights to getting things done #97

Are you wasting time?

The places I find myself wasting time sometimes surprise me.

I LOVE listening to podcasts and last month when I slowed down quite a bit (you can read more about it here) I found myself realizing I had quite a backlog of podcast episodes to listen to.

I didn’t consider it wasting time though.

After all, listening to podcasts is something I do in my spare time.

But I found myself listening to some podcasts and regularly thinking something along the lines of “will the host please stop talking and wrap it up so I can start a different podcast.”

Hmmm, maybe there’s some information hidden in that thought that I should pay attention to.

But they were business/entrepreneur type podcasts that I felt I should be listening to.

Well, isn’t that a silly reason to keep listening to a podcast I regularly wish would be over.

Unsubscribe!

This lead to some other small, but impactful changes in both my podcast listening habits and email.

You can watch it below.

Productivity for Solopreneurs: Insights to getting things done #96

Last week I came across someone sharing about how to plan your week.

I LOVE hearing how other people do things and I had some time, so I started watching.

This person shared that she sets aside about 2 hours on Sunday to do her weekly planning.

WHAT?!

If your weekly planning is regularly taking more than 20 minutes then something needs to change!

Here are some things that might be happening if it’s taking too long to plan your week:

• You’re missing some simple and effective systems that make planning your week easy
• You don’t know how much time you actually have to do work in your week
• You don’t have a system for collecting new tasks or ideas that pop up during the week
• You haven’t set clear goals for the month

We’re going to talk about that this week on Productivity for Solopreneurs: Insights to getting things done.

You can watch it (or the recording) below on Wednesday at 1pm.

Is this a problem for you?

Schedule a session with me by clicking here. You’ll leave knowing exactly what to do to make planning your week (and to-do list) easier.

Productivity for Solopreneurs: Insights to getting things done #94

Despite taking a break from Wednesday LIVE with Evie last month and my general slow down (read about it here, here, and here), I was working on some things behind the scenes.

If you’re in my Facebook group, Productivity for Women Entrepreneurs, you might already know what that is.

I decided to rename my weekly Facebook live from Wednesday LIVE with Evie to Productivity for Solopreneurs: Insights to getting things done.

This week’s topic is about taking breaks.

And not the breaks in your workday where you get up and away from your desk for a bit. But the breaks that give you the space you need for what’s coming.

And I’ll talk about my January break.

Something amazing has happened.

Something I was sure would never happen for me. I thought I just wasn’t someone who could do it.

I’m doing my bookkeeping weekly.

And it generally takes me 15-minutes TOPS.

This is HUGE for me because three years ago at this time I had about eight months of bookkeeping to catch up on and I was dreading it.

Two years I was dreading my books only slightly less. I hadn’t updated them in about four months. It was still painful and took a lot of time.

Last year I was only a couple months behind.

This year I’m not behind!

Getting from where I was three years ago (or even last year) to now wasn’t a quick fix.

It was literally three years in the making.

The turning point was deciding it was time to ditch the budgeting software I used for my personal accounts because it was NOT a useful way to manage my business books AT ALL

But it wasn’t just finding a new program that solved the problem.

I had a lot of time put into the thought/belief that bookkeeping took A LOT of time and was painful.

It took three years, several different attempts at creating systems around doing my bookkeeping, and a lot of trying it again and tweaking.

——————–

Some things that feel super hard to us are things that we watch other people do with ease and it can feel impossible to get there.

But we don’t know the time and effort that went into that ease.

The great (and sometimes frustrating) thing is that we’re never done.

Getting to a place where my bookkeeping takes me under 15 minutes a week was a long process.

I even tried to do what I’m doing now last year, but it just didn’t work for me then. There were some steps in between that had to happen before it would work for me.

So, don’t give up.

It’s like the quote says “Don’t compare your chapter 1 to someone else’s chapter 20.”

What’s your thing that seems daunting and impossible? Comment below.