A Helpful Trick for To-Do List Obsessives

I’m interrupting this regularly scheduled program of food and drink to talk about an easy way I changed my to-do lists to help me feel more in control of my time. Hope you enjoy!

I’m a list-making junkie. I start my day by reviewing a to-do list and end it by creating one for the next day.  I think Bullet Journaling is just brilliant. I was this way before I became an entrepreneurial mom and now I’m even more diligent.

The problem is that sometimes, I over plan; I  jam too much into a day and feel defeated when it’s not all accomplished. I realized that I wasn’t building in time for the grunt work that surrounds many fun tasks. So, guess what? I started adding them all to the list.

For example, when developing recipes for my book, I put “clean kitchen” as a to-do. Why? Because before I did this, I’d finish testing the recipes on my list but ended my day with the kitchen in chaos right before I’d have to get my daughter from her babysitter. Then the kitchen would stay dirty until after she went to bed, leaving my husband with an unfair number of dishes to do at night or leaving me with a dirty kitchen to clean before cooking in the morning.

By adding “clean the kitchen” and other similarly boring items to my list, I acknowledge that these tasks are necessary parts of my day and then budget time for them. And, of course, I get the great satisfaction and happy jolt that only checking off a “to-do” can provide. (Fellow to-do list junkies will know the feeling).