benefits of list making | List Producer

How Productivity Pro Laura Vanderkam Does It All

March 17, 2015/0 Comments/in Fellow List Producers, Learning With a List, List Making/by Paula Rizzo

LauraNew

If you’re a productivity wisdom seeker like me — you’ve probably heard of Laura Vanderkam at some point. I’ve followed her for years and recently read her e-book What the Most Productive People Do Before Breakfast and wrote about it.

She’s written several other time-management and productivity books, including the forthcoming I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women Make The Most Of Their Time (Portfolio, June 9, 2015.)

She was kind enough to post a guest article I wrote for her audience on her own site LauraVanderkam.com about how to create the ultimate to-do list.

But I wanted to know more about her and highlight her as one of my featured List Producers!

Why do you call yourself a compulsive list producer?

I don’t know if I’m compulsive, but I do like my lists! I find lists to be a simple way to organize my thoughts and remember things that I would otherwise forget. That in turn makes life much smoother. With two working parents and four kids, there are a lot of moving parts around here.

What do you make lists about?

Priorities and goals, and then practical matters like what I’m supposed to get at the grocery store. Read more

Why You’re Not More Productive and How to Fix it

March 15, 2015/5 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Happiness, Home, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, People, Reduce Stress, Saving Time, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

Here’s something that might surprise you — all this productivity stuff doesn’t always come so easily to me. I’ve shared this at several of the signings for my book Listful Thinking and people have really been shocked.

The truth is I’m actually a big procrastinator.

I know that working in television under really strict deadlines, with serious time constraints has helped to pull me out of my procrastinator ways. The same rules for productivity applies for many businesses too, as well as personal goals.

I use systems all the time like list making, rewarding myself and making fake deadlines to get more accomplished.

That’s how this blog got started but I want you all to know that I work at it every single day.

Yes I do have an advantage because I like to organize shirts by color and write my to-do list on beautiful stationery. But I have to work at maintaining my lists, keeping my schedule in check and being more efficient with my free time.

I think it’s important to share our productivity struggles as well as our successes. Too often when I speak with people who are struggling they feel like they are the only one.

If this rings true with you — remember you’re not alone!

In fact, the more people I talk to, the more I realize how similar our stories are.

The same phrases always seem to come up:

“I’m too busy.”

“I don’t have time.”

“It’s too difficult.”

See How I Detox a To-Do List on TV

March 8, 2015/0 Comments/in Apps, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, Tool for Success, TV/by Paula Rizzo

Last week I shared with you the exciting news that I was going to be on The Better Show. If you didn’t have to chance to catch it when it was on TV, here are the clips from the show:

Detox Your To Do List

There’s a right way and a wrong way to make a list. Watch this clip to make sure your doing it the right way to set yourself up for success.

Make A List That Works!

In this clip I show you how to make our lists work for you, not against you. Plus there’s a round-up of gadgets that can help you. Do your best ideas come to you in the shower? Watch this!

Appy Listing

In this clip I give a rundown for the best apps to keep you organized while you shop and travel.

Checklist for Going With the Flow

February 15, 2015/0 Comments/in Learning With a List/by Paula Rizzo

Recently, I talked about the nightmare of renovating and moving into a new apartment. Everything that could have gone wrong did. I have to admit, for a short period of time I let this consume me. It took me awhile to realize that I need to be able to learn to be more flexible and stay optimistic when things don’t go as planned.

So I made “go with the flow” my New Year’s Resolution. Unfortunately, “rolling with the punches” is much easier said than done, so I put together a checklist to help:

Read more

Getting to Your Forgotten To-Dos

February 1, 2015/0 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Decision Making, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

We all have that one thing at the bottom of our list. The thing that keeps popping up over and over again and getting copied from list to list. My friend Karen Rizzo, author of “Things to Bring, S#!t to Do.” – an autobiography in lists, had ‘learn Italian’ written on the bottom of her list for years. Other people have different goals like learning a musical instrument or running a marathon.

Well now it’s crunch time.

The first thing you have to think about is – Do I actually want this? It’s fun to dream about learning a new language, but the reality is — it takes a lot of time and work. Do you have that free time? It’s okay to let it go if you don’t. We can’t do everything.

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