Join Me to Talk Travel Lists

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Deutsch: Paris: Eiffelturm

Deutsch: Paris: Eiffelturm (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Everyone loves going on vacation.  It’s great to be able to reconnect, recharge and relax!  But all that fun takes some preparation and lots and lots of lists!

  • Pros & Cons lists for destinations
  • Research lists
  • Packing lists
  • Organizing your luggage
  • Sightseeing lists
  • Must-Eat Restaurant lists
  • Bucket lists of must-visit spots
  • etc.

I recently started a Meetup group called “Lists & Libations.”  We meet once a month to talk about lists and enjoy libations!  Our next meeting on October 24th will be all about travel lists.  I would love for you to join us if you can.  Click here for all the details.

If you don’t live in NYC or can’t make it — I’m also hosting Virtual Meetups.  The next one is on October 2nd and is all about productivity apps!

Hope to see you there!

Morning is the Most Productive Time

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Good mornig,guys! Why don't you drink with me?

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I haven’t always been a morning person but with a “regular” 9-5 schedule – I didn’t have a choice. So I’ve embraced it. Every morning before work I:

1. Read two newspapers

2. Practice yoga

3. Sip green tea

4. Eat a healthy breakfast

5. Read through and respond to several emails

6. Listen to news radio for 15 minutes

7. Check my Twitter and Facebook feeds

8. Take a shower and get ready

9. Walk for 15 minutes

Most people barely have enough time to jump in the shower, take the dog out for a walk and scarf down some breakfast before they get to work. I don’t do all of the things on that list because I HAVE to – I do them because I WANT to.

My husband thinks I’m crazy but I wake up at 6:05am every morning so I can do all of those things before work. It’s hours before I have to get to work but I love that time to be productive and do the things I want to do for myself.

I recently read an e-book called, “What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast” by Laura Vanderkam and it turns out a lot of successful people do exactly the same thing as me. They meditate, exercise, read, practice hobbies and do anything that they like way before they get to work.

As it says in the book — if you do things before work in the morning there’s a higher chance you’ll actually get those things done and out of the way to feel much more accomplished and productive before you sit down at your desk. You’ve all been there… you procrastinate, make excuses and get tired by the end of the day so you may never get to the gym. For me — I don’t like to be rushed. I like to give myself enough time to get ready and wake up.

Gretchen Rubin, author of “The Happiness Project” gets up an hour before her family to check email and headlines and start her day.  I like to do the same thing so that when I actually get to work – I can start working right away and only have a few emails to distract me.

So what do you do in the morning?

List for Cleaning Up Your DVR Recordings

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For a person who works in television — I watch relatively little of it.  There are some shows that I won’t miss like “Modern Family” or “The Office” but for the most part — my DVR is filled with fluff that I may or may not ever actually watch.  Do you have the same problem?

I’ve decided it’s almost like junk mail.  I hang on to some shows that take up precious real estate in the DVR “just in case.”  So I just went through and deleted a bunch of shows I’ll never watch and cleaned up the scheduled recordings also.  Here’s a list so you can do the same:

1.  Go through your current saved recordings and one by one decide if you care if you didn’t watch that show.  Be honest.

2.  Delete the ones you won’t watch.

3.  Now go to your schedule series recordings and scroll through all the shows you’ve set to record whenever they are on.  (Mine include The Newsroom, Giada at Home and Oprah’s Next Chapter.)  Decide if these are worth keeping or if you constantly delete these recordings when they pop up.

4.  Repeat.  (You probably weren’t honest the first time.)

5.  Feel better about having less clutter in your DVR inbox!

What I Will Never Forget

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I was a senior at Hofstra University and that morning — I was getting ready in my dorm room for my magazine-writing class.  It wasn’t my favorite class because I was a TV writer even back then…and I thought I could say more with fewer words. My professor didn’t agree.

Anyway — every morning I would eat breakfast while watching Regis and Kelly — their show was broken into by a news alert on this morning.  The anchor said a plane had gone into the World Trade Center.  I called my parents, who are also news junkies, because I knew they would be watching.

We thought it was an accident.  While finishing up college I was also working full-time as a news writer at WLNY-TV55 on Long Island for their 11pm newscast.  In the last few weeks I had done a few stories about “stunts gone wrong” — like this guy who parachuted and accidentally landed on the Statue of Liberty.  I thought this might be a similar antic…until the second plane hit. Read more

Toss or Keep Your Lists?

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It’s always so interesting for me to hear how other people manage their to-do lists.  For instance — I thought everyone kept their lists after crossing everything off — just like I do.  Apparently that’s not the case.  A lot of people toss their lists as soon as they’re done!

I Keep All My Lists!

For me — I like to keep all my work to-dos in Steno pads and keep them in my desk.  Each day before I leave work I write a new list for the following day.  I run through the next day in my head and list out every phone call, followup email, meeting and shoot I need to take care of the next day.  But even when I fill up the pad — I keep it in my desk…just in case.

Sometimes I have to refer back to a note I made on a page or remember what I was doing on a particular day.  I just like to have a record of my life — even if it’s a scratched out, doodled on version.  Apparently so does Karen Rizzo (no relation) — as she told her memoir, “Things to Bring, S#!t To Do” entirely in lists!

Many People Toss Them

But there are some people who throw out their Post-its the second they accomplish whatever goal they set for themselves.  I guess this is a way of physically getting the task out of your way so you can clear your head and move onto the next task.

So what about you —  toss or keep?