Ready, Set, Time Yourself

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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.

From CEOs to janitors, we all have the same problem: We think we don’t have enough time.

For many of us getting the most out of our time is crucial. Everyone knows what tasks they need to do in a day, but do you know how long each of those tasks will take? Down to the second?

After working in television and digital producing video segments for nearly 15 years I’ve learned timing is everything. You need to know exactly how long each segment takes and every last second counts. If a story runs long 15 seconds then another story needs to be cut by the same amount of time.  Read more

Talk Lists With Me This Thursday

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rp_BEA1-1024x750.jpegI’m excited to share this news with you today.  

One of my favorite things about my book, Listful Thinking being published is it’s given me the chance to meet so many of you!

It’s helped me realize there are so many different ways to apply list making to life — it’s not only about being more productive or organized. Lists can help make you less stressed and happier too.  

I’m having another book Q&A and meet and greet this week! It will be on Thursday, April 7th at 6pm at WeWork on East 42nd Street in Manhattan.  You’ll get a copy of Listful Thinking with your ticket!

It’s being hosted by the New York chapter of the National Association of Professional Organizers — NAPO.  My good friend Sandra is a member of the board and will be interviewing me during the event.   We recently went to see Marie Kondo together when she was in NYC.

I will be talking about my inspirations, tips and some of the classic list-making errors at Thursday’s event.

Trust me when you talk about lists all day you hear all the classic mistakes people make. The number one problem is putting everything on the same list!

Over and over I will see a list that goes something like:

  1. Be more confident
  2. Go to Italy
  3. Pick up dry cleaning
  4. Write a book
  5. Email Terri about outline

It might be obvious to some of you that these things don’t belong on the same list, but I see it pretty often.  

Wanting to write a book and pick up your dry cleaning doesn’t belong on the same list.

Just as you can’t lose 10 pounds overnight, you won’t magically become more confident or write a book in the next 24 hours. The truth of this classic list making mistake is that long term plans are scary!

It’s much easier and safer to put this farfetched goal on your daily list and claim you never got round to it, then it is to actually put the planning and effort into achieving something.

Having these good intentions is also a way of procrastinating achieving actual results. Something as simple as having a daily list and a long term goals list separately can help you to shift this mentality.

At my Q&A I’ll go into more details about the different lists you can use for all aspects of your life.  And I’ll talk about outsourcing and my favorite productivity apps too.

I’d love to see you there. Click here to RSVP and get your ticket.

5 List-Making Tricks

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81tRJpB37MLLists can be useful to people in lots of different ways. I use lists to help me be more organized and more productive, but that’s not their only purpose. Lists can be an investigation into your ideas or priorities. They can be a way to help you de-stress at the end of the day.

That’s how my friend author Brett Blumenthal uses her lists. She goes into detail about this in her book 52 Small Changes For The Mind.  When you’re feeling overwhelmed by a seemingly endless number of tasks, writing a list can give you a sense of control over the situation.

Here are some of Brett’s top list-making tips from her book, which I urge you to check out:

Keep It Simple – The more complicated you make lists, the less likely you are to follow it. Overstuffing lists causes stress and confusion and may even sabotage your efforts to get things done. Of course it’s important not to go the other way and be to vague about your tasks. For larger issues it’s important to to break it down into smaller tasks. For example ‘lose weight’ isn’t a task, it’s a goal that can be broken down into tasks. As you make progress with each smaller task, you will stay motivated to keep forging ahead to complete your goal. Read more

Talking Lists with MORE Magazine

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I love meeting fellow list makers wherever I go.  

Many of the journalists I’ve worked with share my affinity for the list.  Tamsen Fadal — an anchor at WPIX in NYC, where I used to work is one of those list makers!  I even featured her list making abilities here.  

When she reached out to me about sharing some insights about ways to make better lists and be more organized I jumped at the opportunity.

The interview is for her video series on MORE magazine’s website. As a side note — I LOVE MORE magazine and I’m so sorry to hear that it won’t be published anymore.  I thought it was a really quality publication and I will miss it.    

In the video Tamsen and I chat about everything we love about lists, where to write them, how to make them and when to make them!

As Tamsen says, you could write a list of everything!  Here is the video, if you enjoy watching it, check out my YouTube channel.

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Rest is the New Hustle

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Rest is the new hustle (1)

BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.

I’m back in action! Well mostly…and more slowly but I’m back.

Thank you for your patience while I disappeared from my blog and social media and basically the world to recuperate after my appendix burst.

Ever have one of those experiences where you know it’s changing your life — right as it’s happening?

But you’re just not totally clear on how it will alter you in the end?

I guess that happens with big life experiences like getting married and having kids. But turns out — it also happens when your health is on the line. Something that until this point, I’ve had no experience with.

I thought I had food poisoning at the end of January. But I’ve had food poisoning before and I’d never had such intense stomach pains with it. But I just figured it would go away.

It didn’t and I ended up in the emergency room with a ruptured appendix! Boy was that painful.

Apparently this doesn’t happen a lot anymore because people get to the hospital well before this tiny organ has a chance to explode. Read more