Increase Productivity | List Producer

List Maker Turns Passion Into Career

May 1, 2012/0 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Boost Memory, Decision Making, Fellow List Producers, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, Reduce Stress, Saving Money, Saving Time, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

Imagine a place filled with lists to help you navigate through anything in your life. Moving, grocery shopping, meal planning — you name it. Well, such a place exists at ListPlanIt.com. It’s a site started by Jennifer Tankersley and you guessed it — she’s this month’s Featured List Producer:

Q: Why do you call yourself a compulsive list producer?

A: I’ve always been a list maker. I’ve used them to set goals, to help me remember important things, and to organize my thoughts. In December of 2006, I had an inspiration. It suddenly occurred to me that a template in list form would be convenient for printing and then using again in the future. Less than 6 months later, ListPlanIt.com was born. ListPlanIt is a website of my creation that contains hundreds (about 700, actually) of lists and planning pages for its members to print, download, type into, and/or save. Read more

Lists Can Tell Stories

April 27, 2012/4 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Books, Boost Memory, Decision Making, Fellow List Producers, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, Saving Money, Saving Time/by Paula Rizzo

Your lists can tell so much about you. Where you’re going, what you’re doing, how much you have left to do, if you need milk, etc.

More Than a Grocery List

An artsy guy named Bill Keaggy collected a bunch of grocery lists in his blog and book, “Milk Eggs Vodka: Grocery Lists Lost and Found.” People from all over sent in their lists or ones that they found and the results were pretty telling. There were normal grocery items like milk and eggs. But some offer strange combinations like the one that includes hair detangler and Prozac. Bill’s commentary always makes me laugh. Check it out for a chuckle. Read more

Email Etiquette Checklist

April 24, 2012/3 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Guest Posts, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

I have to stop myself sometimes when I fire off an email because I think…”will this be taken the wrong way” or “I should probably say hello first.” These are things we sometimes overlook in this digital world. But it’s important to mind your manners even when writing electronic mail. Every word matters.

For some insight I asked Sharon Troth Gaffney, the founder and creative director at MeebleMail. This is a great idea — it’s personalized email designs. So for stationary freaks like myself — it’s a guilty little pleasure to be able to dress up your emails! Read more

Keep Track of Restaurants

April 23, 2012/2 Comments/in Apps, Benefits of List Making, Decision Making, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, Reduce Stress, Saving Money, Saving Time, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

I take food very seriously. I accumulate restaurant recommendations like someone would keep a rare coin collection. For me — there is no substitute for great food. So I really enjoy giving recommendations and also receiving them.

But in all my list-making frenzy I haven’t been able to find a good way to keep track of all my restaurant recommendations til now. I used to write them down on paper, then I started putting them in my Astrid, Wunderlist or Clear apps. But I kept finding that the lists would get buried or I would forget which app I was using Read more

Remember Everything That Ever Happens

April 18, 2012/0 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Boost Memory, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, Reduce Stress, Saving Money, Saving Time, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

Sometimes a funny thing happens when you hang up the phone after an important conversation. You forget everything that just happened! Haven’t we all been there? I know I have. I have a fail proof way of dealing with this. I take notes on life.

Almost every time I’m on the phone — I take notes. Even if it’s not an “important” call — I jot down words, phrases and questions that come up. This way I pay better attention and really focus on what’s being said. And I don’t lose track of my follow up questions. It turns out you don’t even have to really take notes — you can just doodle. There was a recent study in Applied Cognitive Psychology that found people who doodle were 29 percent better at a memory test than people who didn’t doodle.

I also use the “note-taking technique” during meetings and when I read magazines. If I don’t — I move on to the next project and poof everything I learned goes out of my head. I’m constantly writing down tidbits I want to remember, websites I want to check out and ideas that I have. It helps you to think about what you’re doing and be mindful — remember multitasking is impossible!