Cross These Tasks Off Your To-Do List

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I love outsourcing. I mean who wouldn’t? You get to take your to-do list and hand it off to someone else!

What’s not to love?

However it’s one of the few productivity suggestions that when I mention to people, the response I get tends to be dubious.

The answer I always get is, “Well, I dunno, I like to do things myself.”

Sound familiar?

I’m a control freak, so I get it. Letting someone else be responsible for a part of my business (even if it is only a very small one) can feel scary. But if I can get past the control freak fear, then why can’t other people.

I think that most people actually aren’t afraid to outsource – they just don’t know where to start!

For example, if you asked a child if they wanted to give up their chores, of course they’d be happy. But when you tell them they have to pick just one — the choice becomes a bit more difficult. Read more

My Suitcase is Smarter Than Yours

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I headed to Boston a few weeks ago to present at the Massachusetts Conference for Women. It was a very impressive conference. There were about 11,000 attendees and keynote speeches included Gayle King, Kevin O’Leary and Sarah Blakely.

I hosted a session called, (what else?) “Listful Thinking: Using Lists to Be More Productive, Highly Successful and Less Stressed.” There were lots and lots of amazing list makers in the crowd. I even signed my very first to-do list! I also signed a lot of books and I got to meet one of the long time readers of this blog – Eileen Wyner! She was also a member of my VIP Launch Team when Listful Thinking was published. Grateful to meet her and share list stories!

I also moderated a session called, “Work Life Integration: Lessons From the Trenches” where I got to use my skills as a producer and interview two executives from Boston Scientific. We all shared stories of when we realized there had to be a better way to be successful in our careers and also happy at home. My lesson came when my appendix ruptured earlier this year.

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3 Ways to Have an Effective Lunch Meeting

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I always look forward to a good lunch meeting, but it can be tricky to get it right because there are so many distractions. If the purpose of the meeting is to talk business you may have to plan ahead. There’s nothing worse than getting to the best part of your pitch when suddenly the waiter interrupts to take your order. Or when the food takes to long and makes you late to work.

The best way to ensure a successful lunch meeting is to put in a little planning beforehand. Here are some of my top tips.

Choose the location wisely – When I meet with my mastermind group for meals we have got them down to an exact science! When booking a place to meet we always ensure that we meet at a restaurant where you can go up and get your food and then sit down. This saves you getting distracted looking at the menu and dealing with the waiter. Plus once you’ve got your food you can sit down and get started quickly on whatever topics you’ve got on the agenda. Read more

Put Yourself First This Year

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When did more become better? Longer hours, bigger sacrifices, fewer hours of sleep. This is becoming the new norm for many people and even I get excited when I see an article that claims to have the secret schedule of the most successful people. But the truth is you don’t need to be getting up early to go to yoga, work a 10 hour day then get home and make a freshly-prepared home cooked meal, before you rush of to your child’s clarinet recital. I’m not the only one who has noticed this growing trend, it was a big topic of discussion at the Listful Thinking afternoon tea event and it was raised in my friend Cass McCrory’’s recent podcast interview.

Buying into the “more is more” philosophy can set you up for failure. It can lead to blaming yourself that if you just push a little more then you’ll be able to achieve all your goals. That’s not always necessarily true.

Truthfully, however, working harder can only help you up to a certain point. Beyond that it you may only get diminishing returns. This is the point  when the benefits gained is less than the amount of money or energy invested.

After my appendix burst, I started taking a ‘just enough’ approach. I learned this when I interviewed Heidi Hanna, a stress expert, in my book Listful Thinking but didn’t really apply it til now. She told me to make a “just enough” list instead of bogging it down with lots and lots of to-dos. The list contains only the minimum requirements that I would feel like just enough after completing them.

The free time I have left over can be spent doing things I enjoy or that I want to work on. I find that in the long run prioritizing  my mental and physical well being, instead of just working hard all the time, has been a key part of my success. When you have more room to breath you have to more time to:

  • Think creatively
  • Be inspired with new idea
  • Concentrate on the task at hand

I’m challenging you to put yourself first this week! Make a ‘just enough list’ for today and share it with me on social media. (@ListProducer on Twitter, @ListProducer on Instagram, or here on Facebook) I’d also love to hear about the other ways you prioritize your well being.

Stop Making Lists & Go With The Flow

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I love making lists as you know. I make them for anything that comes up in my day or in my life. Sometimes though, I feel that with all this planning, I’m missing out on stuff. I’m so busy making sure that I follow my roadmap and then I’m no longer living in the moment.

I was probably drawn to Cass, my website designer and marketing strategist, because she experiences this same feeling! She is an efficient worker with a bit of a type A personality like me. Just like me she feels most comfortable when every second of her day is planned.

In a recent podcast interview on The Lively Show, Cass explained how her obsession with planning was stopping her from enjoying her own life. So she set about changing her ways to give herself more time to just go with the flow! I was totally inspired by this idea and I had to share it with you. Read more