How to Make Lists Work For You

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One of the things on my to-do list is to write back to readers who e-mail me list-making questions.  It’s actually one of my favorite things to do.  I recently got an email from Josh and I thought his questions were ones that other people might have as well.  Here goes:

I do enjoy making lists and find them helpful. However, one thing that I get stuck with is how to set up my list and how many to make/where to keep them. Do you just use one notebook for all lists? Do you color code? I often find that I get stumped with this step. I want my lists to look presentable and not just write stuff any and everywhere. How do you set yours up? Read more

My Email Inbox Is Overwhelming

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Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot : FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I get a ridiculous amount of mail to my personal email account everyday. It’s not that I’m that popular — I just like to sign up for newsletters, deals, advertisements, alerts, etc. I think I need to scale back because it’s getting a little much to handle.

Every morning — I sort through no less than 10-15 emails that I’ve gotten early in the morning or the night before while I slept.  I delete most of them without ever opening them.  These are the coupon codes and “secret” sales for online and brick and mortar stores. I feel like I should keep subscribing to these because you “never know” when you might want a coupon. But really — it’s just crowding up my email box and slowing me down. Read more

List Maker Turns Passion Into Career

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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

Email Etiquette Checklist

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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

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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