Tag Archive for: being more organized

Bad Productivity Habits You Picked Up In College

 

As graduates around the country end their academic careers I’m reminded that college is great for many different reasons. It’s a chance to expand your mind, meet lots of new people, get involved in new activities – the list goes on and on.

The one thing college is not so great for is your productivity.

The college lifestyle is structured completely differently to your typical working week. This isn’t a bad thing, it just means you might have a bit of a shock the first week of a new full time job.

Here are some bad habits you might have picked up in college that might still be sticking with you today:

Working Until the Early Morning – Everyone has a story of that one paper they left until the last second. Drinking coffee to stay up until 5am, desperately trying to write the whole thing in one night — you remember the scenario. This is fine when you have nowhere to be the next day, but highly impractical if you work.

If you get used to the idea that you can leave things until the last minute without consequence, it can be quite difficult to shake. Try to give yourself a fake deadline, a week in advance. This way even if you leave everything to the last minute you will still have some extra time to polish and refine. Read more

How To Work Through Challenges And Get Stuff Done

finishCan you imagine a day where you checked off everything on your to-do list without any problems or interruptions? Wouldn’t that be a nice change? But truthfully these days are quite rare. When we hit a roadblock it’s important to remember it happens to us all!

In fact problems are a normal part of the process. It’s all about how you deal with them.

Here are a few of the more common hang ups and how to move past them:

Denial: Do you ignore a problem when it arises?  Me too!I  I’m naturally a procrastinator, so I’m inclined tell myself “It’s nothing!” or “I’ll have time to address it down the road.” Especially if it’s a large task, or something I don’t want to do. Since I know these are my usual ways of ignoring a problem, I can recognize them and deal with them.

Make sure to pay attention to your own personal ‘tells’ so you can stop bad habits before they happen. If you are in denial, try writing a list of all the things you need to do to complete that day. You might surprise yourself and find that it’s easier than you think. Read more

3 Secrets To Skyrocketing Your Revenue

Time and money.  Those are the two things we all want more of in our lives.

I started this blog to help people get back their precious time.  Showing you how to do more in less time and get back to the stuff you really love doing – like hanging out with your family and going on vacation – has really been a privilege.

But how about making more money?

This is something I want to know about too!  I’ve become a sort of accidental entrepreneur with my book Listful Thinking being released.  I never realized that writing a book is like having a little business.  Now that I’ve gotten the entrepreneurial bug – I’m hooked and I’m excited to grow ListProducer.com into even more! Read more

How to Schedule Meetings in a Snap

Learn how to become a better schedulerSometimes it feels like there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done, and in spite of making and maintaining a list to help us streamline our lives, some things still end up causing unneeded stress.

For me, I get a bit anxious whenever I need to schedule a meeting.  It seems silly but the thought of having to look at my calendar and come up with several options stops me in my tracks.  I usually end up putting off those types of emails for a while and they take up valuable space in my in-box for too long.
There are a number of online programs and apps that can alleviate stress and streamline the process of scheduling meetings:

YouCanBook.Me— With a simple setup, you can connect your Google calendar to your YCBM profile. What’s really nice is it allows you to embed your YCBM account directly on your website. This way your clients can quickly schedule an appointment without having to waste time creating an account themselves. It can be a little inflexible, but it’s worth a try.

Calendly— Calendly  is another program that connects directly to Google calendar. Similarly to the other programs on this list, it is rather easy to use and takes the burden of scheduling (often through bothersome phone tag!) off your shoulders. Read more

4 Productivity Lessons I Learned From Life

4 Productivity Tips I Picked Up FromIt’s pretty well known that most lessons are not taught in a classroom. I think this is especially true when it comes to productivity. No one ever teaches you how to write a list or how to plan your schedule in school. (Maybe they should!) We’re just expected to know these things.

Most of what I learned about list making and time management I learned the hard way – through mistakes.

Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned over the years:

List Making is in My Blood

For as long as I can remember my Dad has always been making a list about something. For example, my dad’s garden is his pride and joy. Every March he makes a list of all the vegetables that he wants to have in his garden for the summer. He’s very systematic about it and even draws out a map of where each vegetable will be planted. It’s pretty cute that he’s so passionate about it.

Watching my Dad planning out his garden had a strong influence on me as a child because I love a good system.

I use them all the time in my work as a health producer. The day before a shoot, I sit at my desk and run through the entire interview I’m going to conduct in my head. I visualize exactly how it should go. For example, I’ll interview the doctor first, then get exam video of the patient and doctor, and then interview the patient. I think about the purpose of the story and then write a list of all the questions to ask the doctor and the patient. This helps me make sure I don’t leave anything out.

Some people might see it as being over prepared – but just as my Dad’s planning would pay off with a fruitful harvest every summer – all my systems have made my life much easier.

Every List Helps

My very first TV job was at WLNY-TV 55 on Long Island. (Random fact: It’s also where I met my hubby.) One night at that station will live on in infamy—all because of a stupid and avoidable mistake.

That night the main anchor was on vacation, so one of the reporters was filling in for him on the 11:00 p.m. newscast. That fateful night, the clock struck 11, and camera one’s red light went on. We were live.

The fill-in anchor read the show’s opening perfectly. She then turned to camera three, as scripted, for the next story— except that there was no script! Eeek! An anchor’s nightmare: no teleprompter.

She scrambled to make it look as though nothing were wrong. But it was obvious to her, the viewers, and everyone involved in the production that something had gone awry.

That night, during our “postmortem” meeting—in which we discussed the good, the bad, and the ugly of the show—the substitute anchor threw the camera operator right under the bus. It wasn’t pretty. Turns out, an intern (not me!) was on camera three that night and forgot to turn on the teleprompter.

Boy—that did not go over well.

The next day there was an announcement from our news director: “Everyone must fill out a checklist before operating a studio camera!” As you can imagine, this idea was met with eye rolling and groaning. But we did it. Every one of us completed this form before every single show in the two years that I worked there.

It may seem silly to make a checklist for some simple things that you do everyday, however when our brains are running on automatic we don’t always make the best decisions. That day I learned that no list too simple.

Life Is Easier With A List

I’ve written before about my recent apartment-buying drama, but lists can really come to my rescue when searching for a new home. And the move before this last one was no different. My husband and I decided we should leave our home in Forest Hills in Queens and move to Manhattan.

We checked every area we could find in Manhattan for a rental in our price range. But as soon as I got off the F train in Forest Hills and headed back to our apartment, I had already forgotten how many closets the apartment we looked at had, if it had an air conditioner, or what floor it was on!

When you’re renting, sometimes the listings aren’t complete. They don’t have pictures, and there are rarely floor plans. Normally, I’m very good at paying attention and staying focused, but for some reason, this assignment completely overwhelmed me. I was shocked, until I realized why.

I wasn’t tackling this in a way that I knew from experience would work perfectly for me—with a list!

After several disappointing and frustrating trips, I decided to make a checklist, just as I do at work. So I made a list of all the things I needed to pay attention to when I was looking at an apartment: address, floor, view, hardwood floors or carpeting, number of closets, square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, dishwasher, laundry, doorman, etc.

This checklist became our rundown every time we stepped foot into an open house. Jay and I would refer to it as we walked through a space and ask questions accordingly. It allowed us to focus on exactly what we needed to pay attention to so that we could walk out with all the information we could possibly need to make a clear decision.

I think it was important for me to struggle through those first few months of apartment hunting. Since it lead me to the realization that whether it’s a work or a home, a list will make almost any process run smoother. Plus that list lead to the start of this blog!

Be Prepared

‘Be Prepared’ is the boy scout motto and for a good reason. Life has a way of surprising us at the most inconvenient times. Last year my parents called me in the middle of the day at work and told me that my mom had to be taken to the hospital. She got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, blacked out and fell and hit her head badly. Eeek! I talked to her and she was fine but being admitted for all kinds of tests. So I wanted to be there with her.

I left work and went home to pack an overnight bag and froze.

I couldn’t think of anything that I needed – and I should’ve known that I needed all the essentials. You know — pajamas, an outfit for the next day, toiletries, etc.

But I couldn’t think of anything. When something like this happens your mind is thinking a hundred different things. It catches you off guard and your not able to think as rationally.

I think it’s a lifesaver to have a short list of items to pack in case of emergency. These types of small lists can save you time down the line.

These are just a few of the stories that I touch on and more in my book Listful Thinking: Using Lists to be More Productive, Highly Successful and Less Stressed. If you want to hear more of my misadventures with lists — please check it out. And if you already have — I’d love it if you could leave a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

What productivity tips have you learned from the school of life?