When Those Lists Keep Adding Up

KBB_stack_of_filingAlmost everyone I know has a to-do list. Think about yours. It could be on a piece of paper, scrunched in a corner of your daily agenda, or neatly outlined on your Smartphone. Maybe it’s just in your head as you scramble to get out the door to do your errands.

No matter what form, we all have our ways of prioritizing all of the things we need to do in order to keep our businesses, homes or lives in order.

Now I want you to think about your list. If you’re like most people, your list is probably a mile long. You’re bound to forget one of those things, or worse: you might put it off.

Thought about that list? Great. Now ask yourself, what’s the one thing that’s been on here forever? What do I just keep forgetting? What to-do just seems to keep on slipping through the slats? You might have to dig a little deeper to think of that one thing but once you have it, grab onto it mentally and don’t let go.

Is this an exercise in procrastination? (No. I was going to write a post about that but I think I’ll just do it later.) It’s actually proof of something that I’ve only learned very recently.

To-do lists don’t work.

Now don’t immediately start composing that nasty email to me, because to-do lists have helped out a ton of people, myself included. But all too often we fall into the trap of using a to-do list as a brain dump. We write down every single little thing we’ve ever thought of doing ever, instead of just keeping it short, sweet and limited to a certain category of things.

People familiar with the practice of GTD (Getting Things Done) will remember how creator David Allen suggests organizing several to-do lists in order of context.

I have to admit that had been something that has helped me tremendously. My lists are shorter and I am much more selective about each of the items that go on each list.

This doesn’t mean you have to become a hardcore GTD convert in order to gain something from this practice. The next time you write down a to-do list for all of the errands you need to run on Saturday morning, limit the things you need to do to just that Saturday morning. If it’s not an errand, don’t add it to the list. If you do, you run the risk of losing your memory’s grip on that item and the task will never be completed. Not much of a to-do list, right?

It may seem like common sense, but you’d never include items to pick up at the grocery store on a list of things to do to clean your garage. So why would you do any of that to your to-do lists?

Try at least grouping your to-dos into like categories. You may even want to try separating those to-do lists by context, rooms in your house, or by home improvement projects. Whatever floats your boat!

Who knows? You might actually end up getting some of those nasty tasks crossed off.

KBwB-BFlower-50How many items do you have on your to-do list? I’d love to hear about yours as well. Drop me a line at keepingbusyb@gmail.com or comment below. Together let’s get them done! Looking for other projects to keep you busy? I’ve been sharing all of mine here.

Why Fall is the New Spring

KBB_nothing_can_stop_me_nowAlthough we still have a couple more weeks of summer left (first day of fall is the 22nd, people!) a lot of people consider the arrival of Labor Day weekend to signify the end of summer. For many, this is true: the so-called “back-to-school” season means a lot of changes in lifestyle, at the workplace, in the retail world and sometimes even in the financial sector.

I haven’t been in school for a good few years now, but something about the arrival of September makes me feel as if I’m being given an opportunity to refresh. Recharge. Renew. Although the year is already halfway through, I find September is often my busiest time as I help people take on new projects, and start on a few new ones myself.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the summer. Summer means my birthday, long walks with the dog, and seemingly endless days of sunshine. But I always enjoy the opportunity to get excited about something new, too.

For those of you disappointed about the summer ending, why not take the opportunity to try something new? Press the reset button. For me, I’ll be trying to blog a lot more (something I love, but which I don’t always make the time to do), introduce some new routines in my lifestyle (I’ll be blogging about those a little bit later) and finally, I’ll be spending some time fixing things up around my apartment so I can better enjoy my time inside when the weather gets colder.

It doesn’t have to be a big project to get you going. Today, I felt refreshed and renewed by giving my hardwood floors a good deep clean to get rid of all the dirt and grime my dog and I have tracked in from the park and the beach. All the scrubbing started to get the wheels turning as I thought of a few cleaning tasks that will give my home that extra sparkle after being neglected in favor of my patio all summer.

So I’m officially declaring that fall is the new spring! Don’t wait until 2015 to clean your apartment, start that new project, organize your life, etc. Start now! Enjoy the feeling of productivity and organization so the winter months ahead can bring time to relax, to rejoice in family and friends, and maybe even a good cup of hot chocolate. (Too soon?)

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What do you have planned for the month of September? Comment below or drop me a line at keepingbusyb@gmail.com. I’d love to hear from you!

Break it Down Now

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The winter months seem to be a favorite time for everyone to recharge and re-evaluate their spaces, their careers, the way they organize things. And who would blame them? With all the cold weather it’s natural to want to hibernate inside and tackle those millions of little projects that start driving you crazy after so much time spent indoors.

I say millions of projects because most of us have them. Even if you think the items on your to-do list can be easily counted on one hand, you would be surprised at how many projects each of these incomplete items comprises.

Take for example an especially sticky task such as “organizing my office”. Action words like “organize”, “clean”, or even “figure out” make me wary. What do each of these actions mean physically?

Let’s go back to organizing that office. What would it take to get your office organized? I’m betting you there’s at least more than one step involved. In fact, there could be steps involved to the steps you have to take in order for your office to become more organized.

I’d like to get mine organized too. In order for it to look organized, however (or at least to the point where it “feels” organized), I have to complete more than one task.

  1. Get my overflowing inbox to “zero”.
  2. Organize my magazine clippings.
  3. Back-up my computer’s hard drive (not exactly a step that makes my office look physically organized, but one that makes me feel as if I am!)

The task at hand (organizing my office) has suddenly become three smaller, much more manageable tasks. Automatically my to-do list has grown larger, but the things I have to do in order to complete the list have suddenly become much more well-defined. The job of organizing my office has suddenly become much more manageable.

Having vague, sweeping notions of what it is that you need to do can become intimidating, which allows us to procrastinate or even worse, grow numb to actually doing the task. If it’s broken up in smaller, more manageable chunks you no longer need to put these tasks off because you don’t have time to put an afternoon aside, or you don’t know where to start.

Try it! Take a particularly tricky item on your to-do list and write out the steps you need to take in order to follow it through to completion. It may be that your list will grow uncomfortable long but at least you’ll find that those bite-sized chunks are a little bit easier to swallow.

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Juggling a part-time job with a full-time business is pretty harrowing to say the least. This is how I break down my projects, but I’d love to hear more of your tips in the comments below. Read about other ways I manage to keep busy here, and more about how I run my business here. Whenever I feel like taking a break, you’ll probably catch me reading or forcing my baking on other people. The list of projects never ends!

A Change Will Do You Good

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Some people can be uncomfortable with change, but sometimes (as Sheryl Crow says) a change will do you good. It’s easy to fall into the same patterns and habits and sometimes these behaviors are so ingrained into our daily routines we don’t even realize it until a change comes along and mixes everything up.

Naturally our first reaction is over-reaction. Someone pushes a meeting ahead at the last minute leaving you to wait in an unfamiliar place for half an hour. Traffic forces us to take a different route to the grocery store. It could even be something as little as Starbucks running out of your favorite latté topper. End of the world, right?

Except consider this: previous scientific studies have proved that changing up our daily routine can actually be stimulating to our brains. Forcing our brain to think beyond our normal range of daily activities can foster creative thinking and improve our problem-solving skills.

Take this as an example: try writing your name with the hand opposite to the one you normally use to write. Writing our names is something that probably most of us do on a daily basis. See how much more brain power it took to write it with your other hand? If we took the same logic and apply it to other things that we do in our lives, then you can come up with other changes in your routine that force you to think creatively and lift you out of that rut.

I recently tried this when I found myself staring at a blank Microsoft Word document for almost twenty minutes, willing words to type themselves onto the screen in a way that made sense. After my clairvoyance skills failed me, I decided that the next best thing to revive me would be to head outside with my dogs for a walk. Once we had started I decided, on a whim, to do our normal circuit backwards. Even though I have lived in the neighborhood I do for upwards of 20 years and have walked those same streets at least one hundred times, it still proved to be pretty difficult to follow the same route backwards. That time to myself, the fresh air and the increased brain power made my walk that much more invigorating. After that, I was excited to get home and finish what I had been trying to start for ages.

Try it sometime. Change the location you work, the coffee you order, what to have for lunch today. You may find yourself more energized and ready to pull yourself out of the rut you find yourself in, solve a problem you’ve been stuck on, or break through that writer’s block that’s been plaguing you for weeks.

A change really can do a world of good when it comes to being productive, but it doesn’t have to stop there. Even if it doesn’t help to jump start that project you’ve been pondering, you’re doing something exciting and new for yourself too!

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Feel like changing it up? Take a break from your business and being busy by checking out what I’ve been reading lately, or try out a new recipe from my baking section. My list of recipes I want to try and books I want to read just keeps growing!

The Procrastination Problem

KBB_snail_on_sidewalkAaah, November. I remember back in the day when I was a student, I’d spend the majority of the month acting like a crazy person. I’d skip classes in order to study and took power naps at weird times of the day so I could get up early and start studying some more.

One particular night stands out above all others- I had two essays due the next morning, and I pulled an all-nighter trying to finish them. I will always remember this night fondly because I got both essays done on time and received a pretty good grade on both. However, this was also the night I discovered my body’s caffeine-limit- two pots of coffee and four Red Bulls in a 24-hour period left me puking in the bathroom at 6 in the morning, editing my essays in between retching.

The stuff we do for that piece of paper, right?

The thing is, I probably could have avoided that night altogether had I not procrastinated. Trust me- everyone will do this at some point in time, so you’re not alone. (Even supposedly ultra-organized people like myself.) I have never heard of anyone not procrastinating on a particularly tricky or dull assignment at some point or another, so if you have heard of someone who hasn’t procrastinated ever, this person is probably a) a robot, which means they aren’t human and it doesn’t count, or b) this person has a horrible disease in which they think they are a robot. in which case they should probably seek medical attention.

For all those out there procrastinating right now, take comfort. A professor once told me that procrastination is a good thing. She often encouraged us to embrace the urge to procrastinate rather than to fight it, as studies have often showed studying (or writing essays) in short spurts is actually more productive than hitting the books for ten hours straight at the library. Your brain is sharper and retains more information that way. If you feel the urge to procrastinate, it may be your brain’s (or your body’s) way of telling you that you aren’t mentally prepared to complete the task at hand, therefore creating a sub-par result like a bad grade, or a blog post essay that makes no sense.

Of course, procrastination isn’t always good. For example, if you have one hour until your exam starts, it’s probably not a good idea to start studying right now. The adrenaline coursing through your body is not going to allow your brain to mentally focus on the task at hand until you’re actually sitting there in the exam center, pen at the ready.

But there’s no reason you still can’t take my professor’s advice. Instead, be kinder to yourself and realize that you’re not a machine- you’re a person who needs study breaks and sleep and proper food (eating an entire bag of Sour Patch Kids does not constitute as a meal, and neither is a cup of coffee). Here are some ways I’ve found that you can turn procrastinating into something productive.

1) Make a snack. And make it something healthy, please! Instead of limiting yourself to eating at the computer, which can cause you to overeat, take five minutes and make yourself a snack that has protein to help with the sleep deprivation from which you are suffering, no doubt, and a carb that will take your body longer to process so you are energized longer, such as a piece of fruit.

2) Play around. Give yourself a few minutes to mosey on over to FreeRice.com. It’s totally addictive, it makes you think, and it helps donate grains of rice to those in need. See how many grains of rice you can stockpile before you answer too many questions wrong, post your results to Facebook, then get back to work!

3) Clean your bathroom. Or your dorm room. Or your kitchen. Or whatever. You get to burn some of those calories you’ve been retaining since you’ve been stationary for so long, and you get to do something productive. I always find I do a better cleaning job when I’m using it as a way to procrastinate. Something about the thought of churning out another homework assignment makes me realize how much I care about the cleanliness of the grout in between my bathroom tiles- of which there are many.

4) Grab a coffee. Agree to meet up a similarly swamped friend and go to the coffee shop down the street. Stand in line. Bitch about all the work you’ve had to do and how little sleep you’ve gotten. Discuss the merits of the different coffee roasts and which one is more caffeinated. Tip your barista (she’s probably in the middle of midterms too!) then walk back to the library, or wherever it is you’re studying. If you’re at home, make yourself another pot of coffee and give yourself five minutes for it to brew. Pause. Enjoy your first sip. There now. Doesn’t it taste that much better?

5) Take a walk. It’s by far the best way to procrastinate. You get exercise and you blow off any steam that’s been building after working through a frustrating calculus problem. There’s something about the fresh air that seems so invigorating, especially at this time of year. Take your hot chocolate, take a friend, take your iPod- whatever works! Allow yourself at least ten minutes and enjoy the crunch of the leaves and that last little bit of fall sunshine. Some say that exercise of any kind can get the blood flowing back to your brain, which allows you to focus and study much more effectively.

Use all of these tactics, or none- whichever works for you. After awhile, you’ll figure out what works for you, your body and your lifestyle. And if all else fails, you can always revert back to my favorite procrastination technique- the crazy, late-night dance party. Stick on some J-Lo and shake it!

Or not. After all, you could always do it later!

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Need more excuses to procrastinate? Visit my books page or my baking page to see what I’ve been doing with all of the time that I’ve been wasting. Although let’s be honest with ourselves- can we really call baking a waste of time?!?