how to be more organized | List Producer

How to Remember Anything

October 1, 2017/2 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Boost Memory, Learning With a List, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

Memory is a funny thing. Most people make lists to help them remember things. (Although some people can’t always remember where their lists are!) There are some useless pieces of information that we’ll remember for the rest of our lives though. But when we really need to remember something it’s like our brain is a sieve!

Sometimes in order to remember something you’ve got to get a little weird. Here are some of the more outlandish ways to help you remember something!

Chew gum – it might not be seen as the most polite thing for you to do in an important meeting or while giving a presentation, but chewing gum can help your memory recall. A study conducted at St. Lawrence University found that people who were chewing gum would perform better in tests of recall and memory tasks. Read more

How to Organize a Successful Workshop

September 10, 2017/0 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Decision Making, Fellow List Producers, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, Lights Camera Expert, List Making, People, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

I’m super pumped this week, because my friend and partner in crime Terri Trespicio and I recently hosted our first live event! It wasn’t hosted by an organization or a conference – it was hosted by us – it was our baby!

Many of you know I created an online course called Lights Camera Expert after being asked “How do I get on TV?” so many times by experts who were sick of seeing everyone else in their field snatch up the airtime.

So we took them behind the scenes of what it’s like to work at a TV show or magazine, how to get a producer or editor’s attention and continue to get asked back. And we pushed the video course out into the world about a year ago.

What happened next is not something we expected. Read more

Start UnBatching Your Tasks

August 27, 2017/0 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Decision Making, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, People, Reduce Stress, Saving Time, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

Every three months I do an accountability call with the students from my Listful Thinking Masterclass. We discuss the ways they’ve implemented the course into their day to day lives, and we also talk about their latest ventures in productivity.

Recently, one of my students explained how, after being inspired by a LinkedIn article, he has started avoiding social media on Tuesday. Why Tuesdays? He just picked it and now Tuesdays are his most productive day.

I really like this idea. I often promote the idea of batching tasks together. So the same way you wouldn’t do laundry one sock at a time you shouldn’t pay bills for instance one by one. Instead batching them together weekly is a much more effective use of your time! But I think the same principle can be applied to ‘unbatching’. Putting together tasks that you’re not going to do! Read more

So What’s the Big Deal Over Dot Journaling?

July 23, 2017/67 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Books, Fellow List Producers, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, Reduce Stress, Saving Time, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

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Thanks to listproducer.com I’ve met a lot of people in the productivity community and the more people I meet the more I find we have in common. We tend to be stationary nerds, who love Marie Kondo and are always looking out for the best way to get organized. So it’s no surprise that the latest to-do trend, that combines a to-do list with a planner and a diary, has become a big success in the productivity community. I’m talking, of course, about dot journaling.

If you don’t know what that is, dot journaling is, simply put, making a lot of bullet point lists. (You’ll quickly find with dot journaling that there’s a lot of overly complex names for simple things.) While I normally think it’s better to keep your lists separate, dot journaling allows you to put all your long and short term goals, as well as daily tasks, into one notebook. And you use a code-type system to keep everything from getting muddled together. Read more

Get Everything Done and Make It To Happy Hour

July 16, 2017/0 Comments/in Benefits of List Making, Happiness, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, People, Reduce Stress, Saving Time, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

When I was in my early 20s I loved to watch Sex and The City. I was working weekends at the time and I would sneak episodes while I was writing or producing for the news. I hoped it was an accurate picture of what my life would be like – brunches and after work, get togethers with the girls. However watching it back these days I can tell you my life is not really like that. Did those girls ever actually work?

While we can’t all live the glamorous lifestyles of Carrie and Samantha, we can still make it to happy hour. Provided of course, that we get all our work done. When we’re buried under a heavy workload the chances of leaving work on time get slimmer and slimmer. But it is possible, all it takes is a little planning.

Here are some of my secrets to help you head out the door at 5!

Make a roadmap of your day – Every day, when I’m nearly finished with work I create a “roadmap” for the following day. I’ve stolen the idea from my time as a live news producer. We always have a rundown to keep us on track during a live show. Your work day should run the same way. Having this roadmap means I can hit the ground running and everything goes so much smoother when I get in the following morning.
Don’t answer the phone – Only answer if it’s absolutely necessary. That means the person who is calling can give your information about the task you’re working on or you have an appointment for the call right then. It’s far too easy to get wrapped up in conversations that go nowhere! You’ll get back to them later – just add it to your list.
Break the day up into chunks – Got some mammoth task you’re really not looking forward to? Split it into smaller chunks and distribute it throughout the day. Giving yourself a chance to look at emails, etc in between will help to ease your frustration. Breaks are our friends. But don’t get sucked into other projects. Give yourself specific time limits.
Backtime – I’ve talked a little about backtiming before. It’s a concept I got from working as a TV news producer. You start at the end goal and work backwards. So what do you need to have done in order to get out of work on time. Make a list of all these things and how long they will take. If you incorporate this with your plan from the night before you can create a schedule for your day.
Make a meeting checklist – The biggest time suck in the office is not people checking their social media or chatting by the water cooler, it’s meetings. Who hasn’t been in a meeting that has gone on for an hour longer than it needed to? Meanwhile the mound of work on your desk just piles up. By having a meeting checklist you can make sure all the important things are covered, but it can also help to move the whole process along!

So now the only thing left to decide on is what you’re drinking when you get to happy hour!

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