making lists | List Producer

The Productivity Hangup You Probably Have Too

October 12, 2015/in Children, Decision Making, Happiness, Home, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, People, Reduce Stress, Saving Time, Tea/by Paula Rizzo

A few weeks ago I was invited to a dinner party to celebrate my book Listful Thinking. My friend and colleague Joya Dass runs a women’s networking group called LadyDrinks and hosted the event.

So I was thrilled when she asked me to recreate the magic with an afternoon tea theme in Princeton, NJ. (You know how much I love tea if you read this blog regularly! So I was all in on this.)

Most of the women at the tea were professional moms who juggle careers in industries ranging from technology to medicine. They all had one question – “How can you balance everything?”

It’s not easy, I struggle with this too and it’s only me and my husband at this point!

One of the pitfalls and mindset issues I noticed coming up time and time again as we went around the room chatting was the idea of setting boundaries. I think mothers who work outside of the home tend to feel guilty about not spending enough time with their families. And then they feel guilty about not working enough when they are with their families. That’s a recipe for overwhelm and disaster.

Taking time for yourself is super important for your productivity and for your sanity. Here’s the fix: boundaries. Read more

Get More Organized Now with Harvesting Happiness

September 16, 2015/in List Making, Radio, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

I was kindly invited on as a guest to the Harvesting Happiness Show. We talked about my book, Listful Thinking and how you can use lists to live a happy life.

The show also featured Daniel Levitin who talks about the science behind getting organized.

He touched on a few scientific reasons why multitasking is bad for you, which made me so happy to hear as multitasking is such a pet peeve of mine. But unfortunately it’s such a classic pitfall that so many people fall down!

The interview is embedded below, but you can also click here to listen to it. It’s 58 minutes long, so I would recommend breaking it up and listening in chunks. Or it could be good if you have a long drive. If you want to skip to my part I start around the 31 minute mark. Enjoy!

Make This List to Get More Out of Your Day

September 14, 2015/in Benefits of List Making, Books, Decision Making, Fellow List Producers, Happiness, Learning With a List, List Making, People, Reduce Stress, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

From CEOs to janitors, we all have the same problem – we don’t have enough time.

In fact, when you think about it, time is an equalizer. That’s because we all only get 24 hours.

Even the President is forced to squeeze all his tasks into that 24-hour time frame.

So how do we do it?

I recently visited the Google headquarters with my husband in Mountain View, CA. Our gracious guide Gopi Kallayil discussed this conundrum with us as he showed us around the gorgeous campus.

At one point he asked us, “If you only had one hour what would be the next one thing you would do with it that would maximize the quality of joy, presence and life?”

It’s a great question for unveiling your true priorities.

Often you’ll be surprised by how little time you dedicate to the things you would put at the top of that list. Read more

Listful Thinking Goes International

September 2, 2015/in Books, List Making/by Paula Rizzo

Guess who is going international? I’m so excited and I just had to share with all of you.

When my book Listful Thinking was published in January 2015, it was exciting to think about all the people out there who would read it. However, I had never imagined quite how far that reach could go.

I was recently excited to discover that my book has been translated into Spanish and Chinese!

Isn’t that so cool?

While I write this blog from an American perspective I do believe that lists are universal. I’m very thankful that I can share my passion even across language boundaries.

I’ve added pictures of my international covers into this post.

You’ll note that since Listful Thinking doesn’t exactly translate, the Spanish language version is called Lists, Lists and More Lists. If anyone can read the one in Chinese please fill me in and let me know what Listful Thinking translates to there.

I’m grateful to have gotten a bunch of new subscribers to this blog since Listful Thinking went international too. Welcome and thanks for joining us here at ListProducer.com. If you have any productivity or list-making topics that you’d like me to tackle shoot me an email.

The Most Productive 15 Minutes of Your Work Day

July 29, 2015/in Benefits of List Making, Increase Productivity, Learning With a List, List Making, Reduce Stress, Saving Time, Tool for Success/by Paula Rizzo

For those of you who work a typical 9 to 5 job, looking at the clock and seeing it’s 4:45pm can be quite a relief. Only a quarter of an hour and you’re out of there! Yay!

For others it can be quite stressful – only 15 minutes to get everything done!

But would you believe the way you spend those final 15 minutes could completely change what happens the next 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. Read more

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