Tips for Tackling Your To-Do List

Welcome to Being Boss, a podcast for creatives, business owners and entrepreneurs who want to take control of their work and live life on their own terms. I'm your host Emily Thompson. And in this episode, I'm here to chat with you about how to overcome overwhelm, and find a system that works for you to help you tackle your to do list from big picture planning to daily tasks. You can find all the tools, books and links we reference on the show notes at www.beingboss.club. And if you liked this episode, be sure to subscribe to this show and share us with a friend.

Emily Thompson 0:38

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Emily Thompson 1:29

Hello bosses, I am back for a another solo episode where I get to sit here at my desk and talk into my microphone to myself. But to you. It's always funny starting these episodes is always really hard because I feel like I'm just sitting here talking to myself. But I know once I get into it one, my hands start flailing through the air. And two, I start really feeling like I'm talking to you. There's a couple of you in particular, especially some of you more active folks and the Being Boss Clubhouse. I always picture you as I'm talking through this. And so Hi, it's good to see you again. I'm really excited about this episode for a couple of reasons. The first one is that I'm going to take a moment to celebrate the birthday of the Being Boss book. So as of this recording going out yesterday, April 10. I think this is scheduled to go live on April 11, at least according to the current publication schedule. It's the day after the being boss book came out five years ago, that little book baby that Kathleen and I nurtured in our brain wombs. And then collaborated on and know what is still one of the most meaningful and enjoyable creative processes I have ever engaged in in my entire life to bring forth the beautiful book that is the Being Boss book, I can't believe was five years ago, five years ago that Kathleen and I went to New York City for the first leg of our book tour, followed it up a couple of days later by heading off to the west coast to San Francisco.

Emily Thompson 3:25

Both of which were fantastic events. We had a launch party in New York City that had some amazing people. One of the best nights of my life of my entire life was that night went to a speakeasy, we had a really great meal together. We shared it with a bunch of boss friends, both old ones who had been to previous vacations with us and new ones there was like this whole group of fabulous bosses in this space with us. And then a couple days later, we go to San Francisco to another space where another event was held with a whole other group of bosses and we signed books and we laughed and we took photos. And we just had the most inspiring time that like I will always remember that time in my life as being probably one of the most joyous times of my life. Kathleen and I went hiking in the Redwoods. While we were there we went and took what we joked about as engagement photos down at the beach and just had the most amazing time together as just the two of us but also with so many of you. So I just want to take a moment to, I don't know say high five to the Being Boss book for still being out there in the world doing her thing. And for all of you who, especially those of you who are here back in those days, who helped facilitate so much of that amazing time in both my life and my career and I am comfortable speaking for Kathleen too in saying that. That was an experience that we will both remember incredibly fondly for ever, or as long as our brains will hold it how about that. It was such a fantastic, fantastic time and an amazing opportunity that came because of this show.

Emily Thompson 5:18

And for you know, in essence, all of you being here, even if it is five years later, so happy birthday to the Being Boss book, five year high five to Kathleen, for birthing that baby with me. And if you haven't read the book yet, it's amazing. You can go buy it wherever you buy books, Amazon in particular, these days, it has been five years since it initially came out, it may not actually be available everywhere. But you can go snag yourself a copy. Everybody loved it. I mean, ever, there was a couple bad reviews on Amazon, somebody was like it's a workbook. It's not a workbook, y'all don't know.

Emily Thompson 5:57

But I love it, I actually still reference it often. I have two sitting right here next to me. Two, is that too many maybe. But I have an extra one in case I ever need to get one away. Anyway. So happy birthday to Being Boss book. And thank you all for continuing to be here. today. We have, I think an incredibly practical conversation to have if I'm going to call it a conversation where I want to address I want, is it address? I want to talk about something that comes up all of the time. And this is tackling your to do list, there have been pieces of this conversation, you know, across the Being Boss podcast for years for years and years. But this might be the first time I've ever just sort of dove into what this looks like. And this isn't about glorifying productivity, which is something that people still get very heated about. I'm not glorifying it, I'm just helping you do it. Because it is about getting done what needs to be done so that you can move on with your life. And so, you know, if you have a to do list and who doesn't, then you should be able to sit down and do it and move on. And that's what I want to help you with today if you are struggling with that, also generally helping you decide what to work on next. Because I know that's a really difficult one, especially for creatives or with business owners whose to do lists are way too long.

Emily Thompson 7:19

This idea of prioritization so that you can really get in there and do what you need to do. As a business owner and probably as a wily creative, you not only have a to do list, but you also have a lot of distractions. And as a business owner, your to-do's range from everything from the most bird's eye view, broad stroke decision making, like should I take this opportunity to the most miniscule tasks like paying an invoice or responding to an email. So there's a wide breadth of things that you are responsible for on a weekly and daily basis. And that's not even counting life decisions and life tasks that you need to do juggling all of this in a way that makes or that works for you is an ongoing conversation that bosses are having. Especially I think, in the Being Boss Community or whatever I'm, you know, doing things with bosses in person. There's basically always constant chatter about how to prioritize, what kind of task management software we're using, or how it is that we're prioritizing these days, or what helps you feel most productive, or how do you remove distractions, or whatever it may be, we are all, we all have things we need to do. And we all want to do them as efficiently and effectively as possible. And not again for the purpose of glorifying productivity. But just so we can get done what we want to get done. So over the course of the next little bit, who knows how long this is gonna take, I want to share what works for me, and what I know works for others, so that you can at least take away one thing that will help you tackle your to do list with more ease and satisfaction.

Emily Thompson 8:59

And I think that it might end up being more than one. So let's dive into the thing. So we just talked a little bit about how we all got a lot of stuff to do. Right not only as bosses, as business owners, as creatives as parents, as just humans in a body that has to be taken care of, in you know, social engagements where you have responsibilities or whatever it may be. We have a lot of things that we need to do. And if I can harken back to the Being Boss book for half a second. One of the things that we talk about or one of the pillars of Being Boss of how it is that you know we recognized eight plus years ago that allows us to show up and do the kinds of work that we do is in creating habits and routines that help us do the thing. Whatever the thing may be. So I will wrap this entire conversation in this idea or fact, I'll call it that all of this is much more easily done all of this meaning everything on your to do list all of the things that are there, is much more easily done. If you adopt habits and routines that help you get it done, you can otherwise think about this as processes, and all of those things are kind of similar, but they're a little different habits and routines are generally more life related, or there's just kind of how you do things. Processes tend to be incredibly defined, like you know, you have a standard operating procedure in your business as to how it is that you do things. And both of these things play into what it is that I'm going to be talking about.

Emily Thompson 10:43

I think there's like generally ways that you do things as a person. And there are things that you should be doing in your business as a business procedure that will help you better task manage or better tackle your to do list. And the reason why habits and routines are incredibly important is that both of these things facilitate and almost autopilot, or a definitely helping you, helping you be incredibly efficient and how it is that you were doing things. Because a simple truth is that you have a limited amount of executive function. Right. So your ability to make especially big but also can trickle down into little decisions is there that capacity for you to do so is your executive function, we all have different capacities. Some people have very limited capacity, they can only make a couple of decisions a day before they are just toast. Other people have larger executive function or capacity for making those sorts of decisions. And either way, it's not an infinite resource, we all have limits as to how much our brain can work, basically, in any given day. And whenever you create habits and routines that take some of the decisions off your plate every single day, you're able to utilize that executive function in the places where it matters most. This is one of the reasons why morning routines are such a trendy thing, are they still trendy, actually, I feel like morning routines used to be something people talked about all the time. And then the pandemic happened and the people were like screw it all. And I feel like we probably haven't gone back to our morning routines, or we just kind of gave up on them. I don't really know what happened. But I do feel like I don't hear people talk about morning routines quite as much as I used to.

Emily Thompson 12:35

But the purpose of a morning routine is that you get up and you have this set this set schedule of what it is that you need to accomplish in order to be ready for the day. You're not getting up every morning and thinking should I brush my teeth? Yes, it's part of your morning routine, just brush your teeth, don't think about it, just do it. Right should I go for a walk is that part of your morning routine. If it is you don't have to make the decision as to whether or not you're going to go for a walk as part of your morning routine, you do it. So you create these routines so that you are sort of batching these things that need to be done together. So that you just do them and then you are prepared for whatever it is that they're preparing you for. So a morning routine will get you ready to go do your day, whatever that looks like. It removes the need for you to make a lot of decisions around what you need to do to get ready for your day. And by batching it into a routine that you it's not that you do it mindlessly. But you don't have to use your mind so much to do it. You're not reinventing the wheel every day, you're not wasting energy on the things that need to be done every day, you have a morning routine, the same thing can happen for your tasks, or for tackling your to do list. I like to think of this on three different levels because as business owners, we have a lot to cram into our limited capacity of executive function.

Emily Thompson 14:05

And when you are trying to make all the decisions all day long, you're going to run out of capacity really quickly. But if you can relegate three levels of decision making into certain parts of the year, because yes, I'm literally going to use the entire year to help you do everything you need to do, then you are not as bombarded with as many decisions that need to be made on an ongoing basis. So I'm going to lay out all three of these levels for you. And the idea as I'm going through this is for you to get an idea of what it is that you where it is that you need to build habits and routines and or create maybe even official processes, so that you can tackle each of these three in your life and business as well. The first level well actually, here's all the levels. I'm just gonna give them to All at once, and then we're gonna dive into each one. So three levels, there's a bird's eye view of your business, there's project level, and there's task level. And I'm going to be sharing very business oriented side of this. But this is this exact same for your life as well. You may even find there's can be some overlap in here, maybe bird's eye view, you know that you have a month long vacation coming in the next couple of months, that's obviously going to be including some life stuff, there is some overlap. But for the purpose of this conversation, I'm gonna be talking mostly business because that's what we do here. And there is this like, fact that if you are only focusing on one of these levels, how do I want to, you're not being boss.

Emily Thompson 15:47

you are going to be unkind, incapable of running a business. If you are focusing, if you aren't focusing on all three of these, you're going to end up you're going to be short sighted, you're going to be too long sighted, if something's going to get missing or become missing, something is going to be missing, something is going to get left out. If you are not making time in your schedule to focus on each of these three pieces, you're gonna end up finding yourself down a path you never wanted to be, you're going to end up finding out that you never achieve that goal that at one point was incredibly important to you, that you are missing little to-do's that are the things that keep your clients coming back to you whatever it may be, if you are not paying attention to each of these levels have that bird's eye view of the project level or the task level, and you are missing an important part of the picture. So let's dive into the thing. First, there is the bird's eye view. This is the big picture that 30,000 feet foot view whatever it is that you want to call it, this sort of like overarching one to 10 year view of what it is that you are doing in your business. This is incredibly important. And it's funny, I feel like some creatives, this is the only place they play in, right. For other people, they never think about this kind of stuff. The magic happens when you blend this into all of the things no matter what it is that you are better at, no matter which one comes more naturally to you. You need to be able to dive into all of these, and the key is at the appropriate time. So bird's eye view is probably the one that we talk about the most around here. And so much so that we created CFA kit, which helps you with that bird's eye view.

Emily Thompson 17:37

I think bird's eye view is something that you need to be visiting at least twice a year, on your beginning of the year, CEO day and then also at your mid year CEO day. If you want more information about this about what this looks like. There's a whole episode that I did about a year ago. It's episode number 309, called the mid year CEO day where I talk about the beginning of your CEO day a little bit. And then what it is that I do for the mid year CEO day and I also do break it up into quarters as well. So beginning of second and then beginning of fourth quarter, so that you are staying occasionally connected to your bird's eye view. If you are spending all of your time on bird's eye view. One you are like next level CEO and I love that for you or you need to bring it down into the project and task level a little more often. If you're like next level CEO and you don't need to worry about project or task level. I love that you're listening to this show, but I'm a little surprised feel free to let me know what value it is that you find here. Do you just find me charming. I don't do think my jokes are funny, I have no idea. But for most of us listening to this, you need to not spend too much time in bird's eye view which is why I think that twice a year is really about all you need to do for bird's eye view. I do think you can touch base on this at the other two quarters of the year as well. So four times max to really make sure you are working on or like in case of emergency right if like something big happens in your life or business and you need to take a new look at your bird's eye view you're more than welcome to do so don't just wait because Emily said not to. But this isn't something you need to be thinking about incredibly often a couple times a year is totally fine.

Emily Thompson 19:30

And as far as a routine or a procedure for this CEO day kit is a thing that exists in the world beingboss.club/ceo. It's videos and worksheets that you use every year for every CEO day that you do to help guide you through some of the big picture planning you do not have to use our CEO day tool to do that by any means but it is there for you if you do not have a process for yourself. In addition to CEO day kit, I also use I have a notebook that I keep in my, my bag that I keep my things in that my work bag that I take with me. And it's always there accessible to me. But it's the one notebook I use for this larger picture planning. Right? It's like where I'm doing brainstorming, it's where I am starting to give some broad some, like more details to broad stroke ideas. And so instead of it being in, you know, my daily notebook where, you know, there's so many things going on, and I go through those notebooks really quickly, it is just a notebook that I'm using a couple of times a year. And so I can always go back to it to see the bird's eye view, as opposed to rifling through all of my other notebooks looking for that idea, or that little piece of a plan that I started making, or whatever it may be. Having a bird's eye view notebook that is used only for this sort of planning is, can be incredibly important or effective. I think it works out really well for me. Having a notebook that is just for this sort of tackling your to-do lists tackling the big to do's in your life in business.

Emily Thompson 21:13

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Emily Thompson 22:19

And whenever it comes to planning out these things, so if you think about it as a to do list I mentioned, you know, a month long vacation, you want to launch a thing you want to buy a house, you want to you know have a kid you want to have another kid do you want to send your kid to college, whatever it may be these sort of like big things that happen in your life and work. These are the things that belong in the bird's eye view. Or maybe the you know, you want to hire a new team member, you want to hire five new team members, you want to find a contractor that's going to help you with this kind of project, you want to pivot or rebrand, or whatever it may be in your business. These are the kinds of things that belong in this bird's eye view, sort of to do list or tasking area, these aren't things that you can just do, you know, like, you can just take a month off. There's going to be a lot of planning, you're going to trickle this down into the project level. But it isn't over it is a to do. It's a collection of to dues and it is a list on a list that you want to accomplish over the next year, 5 years, 10 years, whatever it may be. So having this sort of list for yourself. And considering it often couple times a year is how you move closer to those big picture goals that you have for yourself the things that you want to accomplish in your career, in your business, things that you want your business to put into your life, and the things that you just generally want to accomplish as a person on the planet. So this bird's eye view is incredibly important and really does fuel everything that happens beyond this. So that's bird's eye view. For me, the most important tool is CEO day kit, but also just having a notebook that is the place where I go to for all of for all of this brainstorming and ideating and fleshing out and those sorts of things.

Emily Thompson 24:10

And then let's go down to the project level. project level is where you take those big picture things, and you start breaking them down into individual projects. Or it may not even be big things at all. This is not stuff that's going to define your business, define your life. They're just things that need to happen. So something like you know, launching a TikTok account for your business is not something that you probably put on your bird's eye view, right? This is not some big accomplishment, your business is just the next thing you're going to do so it belongs at the project level. So it's both a trickle down of bird's eye view, but also just things that are projects in your work or life. This is really how you make your business happen. Right? Even if you aren't operating with any bird's eye view if you have a hard time envisioning what You're gonna do in a year, let alone 3, 5 or 10. Project level is an important place to be for you to move forward in your business. So even if it is something like launching a TikTok account for your business, or if it is creating a new product, creating a new offering, this is where, you know, building a team hiring can really trickle down into just becoming a project, once you've sort of mapped it out in a bird's eye view, whatever it may be, these are projects that you are going to, that you are going to be tackling. Whenever I'm planning out projects, I like to map projects out into quarters. So I have a hard time thinking, okay, January, I'm going to do this, this and this February this, this is marked this isn't this, that leaves me a lot of room for error. Because as someone who's running two businesses, who has a kid at home, who you know, likes to travel anytime says, Hey, let's go I'm like I'm there, whatever it may be, I find scheduling things in months, a little difficult.

Emily Thompson 26:02

I would rather plan things in quarters. That way, I know in quarter one, at some point, whenever it works out, I'm going to be accomplishing this project. I also like to think of projects being about the size of six weeks or less. So if something is going to take more than six weeks to complete, unless it's like an ongoing project, so And is that really even a project and yes, kind of I'm not going to start mincing words too terribly much here. But if something is an ongoing project, like let's say, you know, creating content for your blog, that's an ongoing project, that's going to obviously take more than six weeks, because it's something that happens once a week, every week forever. Apart from ongoing projects, I like to think of them as being six weeks or less. And if it's going to take six more than six weeks, then it's probably more than one project. So that's sort of guidelines that I give projects more or less, and I like to map them out in quarters. So these are my projects for quarter one. These are my projects for quarter two. And once I get into those quarters, I will go through and prioritize what is there. When it comes to mapping out projects. The tool that I love to use most is Notion. If you have not experienced the magic of Notion, check it out notion dot I think it's so I'll include links to everything in the show notes for sure. Yep, notion.so is the website for that. It's a fascinating place. I like to think of it as a brain. It is a digital brain where I'm holding all kinds of things. And for both companies, I have a projects database.

Emily Thompson 27:41

And in this we're going in and we're entering all kinds of things as they come and some of them are marked as opportunities. So they're not projects yet. They're just ideas for projects. There are projects that are you know, in queue. So we've decided we're definitely going to do them, we're just not ready to do them yet. There are some that we recognize as being the next projects, those are tagged as to be tasked, and then projects that are in progress. So the tasking has already been created for them. And they are underway are projects that are in progress. I have them all mapped out via quarters or in quarters. So I know that these are the things that are prioritized for q1, q2, q3, et cetera. And so notion is used for overarching planning. I do also want to say that I'm gonna be talking about a couple of tools here. And none of these tools are sponsoring us. These are just tools that I use for this. So that is my do I have to do a disclaimer when I'm not being sponsored? I don't think so. But just so no one gets confused.

Emily Thompson 28:42

These are all tools that I really do just use. So Notion is used for overarching planning and when it comes to actually tasking the projects, we use Asana. Asana is something that we have used for not quite 10 years. You know what? I think I've used Asana for 10 years now. That's a hoot, huh? That's kind of crazy. That's really kind of crazy to think about. Sorry, that just kind of blew my mind a little bit made me feel old. Been using Asana for a very long time. And there's lots of different options out there. There's Trello and Monday, you can still just be using an old school paper system. I'll talk about that in a second. However your brain works because they all just kind of show things in a different way. However your brain works, do it. Absolutely use what will work. I think this is often on one hand a piece of the puzzle that business owners are, you know most excited about and two missing for how excited business owners get about this. I think that having a project management system is incredibly important to whether you have a team of 10 or if you are working by yourself. I will task I will project manage prod just for myself, if I'm the only person working on them, because it's an incredibly important process to take a project, a big task a big to do, and break it down into all of the manageable chunks and set it on a timeline. So that actually happens. So even if you are a solo investing and some of these, most of these have free options that you don't even need to invest money into, you just need to invest time and to setting it up and then ongoing manage it, so that you are able to get done everything at the project level that you most want to get done.

Emily Thompson 30:38

So Notion is my brain, that's where we're just like organizing a hierarchy and prioritization of projects that are you know, coming up, and then once we decide it's time to do them, these projects get task managed in Asana. So Asana is our to do list Notion is our brain, basically. And I will say, I managed projects for myself for 10 years, I'm not a project manager, there was plenty of pieces of the thing that I was missing, I just knew how to use a tool, and I was using it, right. And I did this for a team of lots of people. I mean, like for flots, not like 100, but like, up to a dozen at some points. So manage projects for all kinds of things, both ongoing projects, and one off projects. When I was doing it for myself, I would sit down weekly as my like, you know, project management time, this is when I'm managing the tasks. I'm checking in on timelines, I'm checking in on people to make sure everything's getting done. I'm updating things so that the project, project management software is up to date and being effective for everyone. So similarly to how it is that you sit down once a week, hopefully and do your money stuff. You can also sit down once a week ish, and do your project management stuff. And it will say two years ago, I hired a project manager and it changed my life absolutely changed my life. So now I'm not even responsible for creating the tasking or managing the tasking, I just have to show up and do what's on my to do list. And that is really the magic of project level task management.

Emily Thompson 32:17

Whether you are working by yourself or with other people is that you get a crap ton. That is the technical term, a crap ton of executive function back when you can just sit down every day and your task list is already there waiting for you. Because Emily three weeks ago, right sat down and did all the tasking for this project you are going to she made all the decisions then around what we did, what needed to be done and when it needed to be done. And now you don't have to make any decisions, you just have to show up and do it. That is the magic, your executive function for today is allowed to do all the other things, as opposed to like you can even think about what you want for dinner. That's kind of the magic of this is that you could actually think about what you want for dinner tonight, as opposed to thinking about what it is that you need to do today. Because three weeks ago, Emily told today Emily, what she needs to do today. So whatever it is that works best for you implement a system for yourself, because that is how you are better able to tackle your to do list. One you have a to do list you're not even making your to do list your to do list has made you just get to show up and do it. And this can look like whatever it is that you want it to look like. So about 10 years ago, we moved into Asana and have been using it everyday sense. And this is being done at Being Boss and at Almanac Supply Co. So we're using it to produce this podcast. So we're using it to manage the community. We're using it to do one off events in the community.

Emily Thompson 33:56

Likewise, we're doing product development at Almanac. We're doing HR stuff, so hiring and onboarding. We're I'm using it to task manage literally everything, everything. But before we had Asana, I was really into making paper systems. This may have even been before Asana really existed. So whether you are just silly and refuse to use it not that you're silly, but there is like a silliness to just refusing to use a technical system or you just really prefer to use a paper system. You can build systems that work for you. So back when I was doing websites before there were all these fantastic online tools. I developed a paper system that had me it was like a giant tech checklist basically, that was templated out in I don't think it was word actually it was like Illustrator because I wasn't using InDesign back in the day. So I had this illustrator template, of all the things. It was just an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper, all the things that I had to do for a new client, regardless of what it is that they had hired me to do, and then lots of blank spaces, so that once I booked a client, I could print this out. And I could go in and write all of the individual tasks that I needed to do for this project. And I had it broken out into like this, these are the things that happened in week one, these are things that happen in week two, etc, etc.

Emily Thompson 35:24

So you can absolutely create a system for yourself using paper if you want to, or there's also some really great tools out there to assist you in doing it. However your brain works, but the goal is to give your brain more space to work. So utilizing a system like this and managing your time in a way that makes use of this level of task management of tackling your to-do lists is going to help you get so much further in your business then not having it for sure. And because I plan all of my projects for quarters, what I do is on my quarterly CEO days, I review the prioritization around quarters and I adjust. So let's say I got more done in the previous quarter than I had expected. And sometimes we'll go ahead and like move into the next quarter stuff, I can reflect on that and see what I can put into the next quarter. Or what usually happens because I do get incredibly overzealous when I'm planning things is let's say there are some things that did not get done, I can readjust my next quarter to include completing the things that were not complete the previous quarter. And so I'm making quarterly adjustments for my plan that feeds up into that bird's eye view. So that I am seeing how I'm how the project level is contributing to me meeting those larger goals. So it all plays together in their own way.

Emily Thompson 37:01

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Emily Thompson 37:57

The next level I want to discuss is the task level. So this is the daily to do's, right you can think and we are literally here right? Where bird's eye view is happening a couple times a year. Project level is happening everywhere from you know, a quarter to do big adjustments to weekly for project managing in general. And then to task level, which is really your daily to dues. And if you have all of these three levels in place, your daily tasks are working you towards your big picture goals. And so if you find yourself in a place where you don't feel like anything you're doing is actually helping you get anywhere. It's because something is missing between these three levels or in these three levels. Either you're not trickling down from your big picture goals, your bird's eye view into your projects and your tasks. Or you're skipping the project level, or you're not properly tasking your project level into your daily to do like there is something missing along the way. So your task level is really just getting in there and starting to check off your list where all of these things play in really nicely is it's really nice to sit down at your to do list and know that what you're working on is going to get you somewhere. It's all connected, right?

Emily Thompson 39:29

These pieces all played together to help you get towards your goals. And if you've been doing your project management well, you never really have to make a task list for yourself. On any necessarily given day. Your task list has been created every time you're managing a project. So there's not like I had to sit down and figure out what I need to do today. You already figured out what you need to do today. You just need to do it which is really fantastic place to be. All too often I hear bosses, especially those who are thinking about hiring a project manager or who are just completely overwhelmed with their to do list say, very ironically, they don't say it ironically. But it is ironic that they just wish they had someone to tell them what to do. Right or what to do next, or where the most important next step is, or whatever it may be. If you're doing all those other things, well, then this task list that you show up to is past you, telling future you what to do. So you don't need someone else to tell you. You just need a better prepared version of you from a couple weeks ago, to make the plan that will tell today you what to do. So because we're using Asana, for our project management, you can obviously use whatever it is that you want. Every day I sit down, I just pull up in my asana and there's my task list for the day. It is an ongoing list of what it is that I need to do. And it's not just for you, but it's also my team.

Emily Thompson 40:56

A lot of people like to have, you know, daily stand ups with their team. I don't do that. I talk to my team. I talked to everyone once a week and I talk to key people one other time a week, and depending on little groups, there's like a whole little thing that happens. And I don't need to talk to them every day, because every day, I've already told them what to do. It is their task, and I didn't even my project manager did. They know what they need to do? Every single day they show up in the task list is already there. If Asana or a piece of software is not your stick, pulling your paper systems down into a daily or weekly to do list is really important. And I will tell you even though I have a daily to do list in Asana, I still like to put pen to paper. And this is what this looks like. I can get really anxious. On Sundays, Sunday morning, little less so. Sunday afternoon, I start getting a little fidgety. Like, there's so many things I don't have to do this week. But I can't think of what any of the morn was this we can look like and what meetings do I have, like I need to start preparing my mind for the week ahead. And so what I do is every Sunday, usually like early to mid afternoon, I will sit down and I'll open up my Asana, so my giant task list that has everything I need to do, and I use it for both businesses. So I pull them both open. And in my planner notebook, I will just simply write down all of the things that are on my Asana task lists.

Emily Thompson 42:33

That's plural, both of them onto one list in my notebook. So I write them all down. So I really get this complete picture of all the things that I'm responsible for for the week, I will also make sure that I write down there anything else that has popped into my head over the weekend, right? There's always like something else, like I need to remember to ask somebody a question or send an email or tell someone something or whatever it may be. So on this in my notebook in my planner notebook, I'm writing this really cohesive list for everything that I'm responsible for for the week ahead. And that puts me at so much ease, I can't even tell you. Just simply knowing what I have to do that week will allow me to spend the rest of my Sunday evening in a significantly more chill place than if it was not there. So that's one of the things that I do that works for me, does it make any sense to do it like, you know, technically no, not really. My to do lists are already in Asana, I don't need to do it. But compiling them all there and giving myself space to record all those little other things that are bumbling around in my mind really helps me sort of release any anxiety and enjoy the rest of my weekend, then I'm able to wake up on Monday morning, and I don't really have to make any decisions because I already know what I need to do. This is even there's also a second step to what happens on Sunday. That makes that on Monday morning even more true. And all of this on Sunday takes I don't know 20 minutes maybe this is not a huge chunk of my day being spent on this thing. So I make my huge to do list and then I time block.

Emily Thompson 44:17

I open up my calendar, I use my apple calendar and I have a special sort of calendar that is a special color that I only use for this and I take everything from my to do list and I time block it on my calendar I show you how to do all of this I created some training on this a couple of years ago being boss dot club slash time I literally show you what this looks like to do for yourself. And so I take every task on my to do list and I put it on my calendar for when I'm going to do it what this allows me to do is allows me to batch things together. So even though my to do list may just be like a you know, modge podge of like lots of things that need to be done. I'm able to see okay, over the course of those four days that are coming up whatever, I need to do. Episode agendas is actually one of those things that, that I need to batch up for myself. So any given week, I may have one to four agendas I need to create, depending on when I'm recording episodes. And on my to do list, I may have one on Monday and two on Tuesday and three on Thursday or whatever. If I'm looking at my entire list as a whole, I see that there are four agendas that I need to do this week. And instead of doing them one on one, day one on the other two on the other, I will batch them all together. Regardless of what the deadline is in Asana, I know when deadlines are like hard, and I know when they're just there to be there. So I'll batch things together, which is a great productivity hack, to take a moment to do all the things that are the same in the same moment so that you can more easily and effectively, efficiently get them done.

Emily Thompson 45:58

So I will batch as needed. I'm looking at things like, you know, do I need to be in the office? Or can I be at home with my laptop? Where am I going to be that day, those sorts of things. And so I make my plan for the week, a very holistic plan, right? What I need to do and work, what I'm responsible for, and live, where it is that I'm going to be where my meetings, et cetera, et cetera. So that literally every single day, for the rest of the week, Monday through Friday, I have to make so few decisions around what I'm doing that day that all of that executive function can be used for all the other things, all of the other things, it makes things so much easier, I'm never getting up and going what I need to do today, I just look at my calendar. And it's all there. And then I get the physical pleasure of marking it off in my notebook. And then I get double the pleasure because I get to go to Asana and mark it off there too. I also don't look at Asana very much during the week. Usually once or twice, maybe three times a week, I'll go in and just mark off everything that I've done from my to do list and my calendar. And I'm also able to do some really good prioritization with that time blocking as well, I know that the thing that I most need to do on Monday is this, this and this. So I'm making sure those are the first things that I'm doing on Monday, I can't end my week unless I do this, this and this. So I'm making sure that those things are getting done. You know, before I leave on Friday, or whatever it may be, it's really helpful to use 20 minutes on Sunday, to do all of the deciding that I need to do around how I'm going to spend my time the rest of the week. And do things flub up to fires need to be put out. Absolutely.

Emily Thompson 47:45

The cool thing about a digital calendar is I could just move them, right. I don't get everything done every single week. But I have saved myself a ton of time and energy by adopting this process for how it is that I get things done. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Ooh, I'm really going at this, I gotta wrap this up. I do want to throw out here that one of my secret weapons for kind of all levels, that was the three levels we did bird's eye view, project level and task level. One of my secret weapons is an idea notebook. I've talked about this a couple of times around, I talk about it quite a bit in the really in the C-Suite. But Being Boss Community and Clubhouse is the idea of an idea notebook, a place where you can put all of the ideas because you're an idea machine. I know it, I know it because I am one too I know you guys. We're the same, right? You get lots of sparkly things that just happen on the edge of your brain and then you find yourself down a rabbit hole and it becomes a little problematic. So I have this in both the physical form. And on Slack, it actually used to be physical now it is all just on Slack. Because so much of the team is remote now, where there is just a place for you to put ideas. And it can be anything like I want to start a TikTok account, right? Or I want to hire someone or let's look into XYZ or here's a product idea or an idea for a social media post or literally whatever it may be an idea, any idea that you have goes in a physical notebook, or we share a Slack channel, it's called the idea notebook. And so it's not just my ideas, it's everybody's ideas.

Emily Thompson 49:30

And what this does, is it allows you to capture the idea without distracting you from what it is that you're doing. Go write it down, capture it, make sure it's there. And then get back to work get back to your to do list, whatever it may be. Then when it comes to mapping out your monthly projects, or better yet, the beginning of the year, you have all of these things captured so you can go in and see what ideas need to make it into projects. You know, if you're always capturing ideas around content then whenever you sit down gonna plan out your email marketing for the next month, pull it open and see what you got in there, whatever it may be, you can go back to your idea notebook when it's time for shiny new things. That way, your ideas are not distracting, and you're actually able to implement more, because you're doing what you need to do. And your ideas are there when it's time to come up with new stuff. And there you have it, there's like my three levels and how it is that I tackle all the things, they all have their time in place, right to the task level is happening every single day, the project level is happening, well for me these days, because I'm not managing my own projects, it's probably happening actually, you know what I may not be managing main projects, but in in a weekly meeting, every week, we go through the project lists like we are looking at where we are with projects every single week, really doing planning of projects once a quarter, or like laying out of projects once a quarter prioritization of projects once a quarter.

Emily Thompson 50:59

And then bird's eye view is happening no less than two times a year. And because those top two levels are happening when they need to happen, and only really then I'm able to show up every day and much more easily get to work. So I hope sharing that has given you some ideas for how you can better manage your systems. Because really, with systems in place, you are going to end up spending specific moments on decision making, planning and tasking, which is important and you have capacity for executive function to do that. But all of your other time is left to just do the work. And otherwise make decisions on other things. So all of that trickle down, though. You know, you have your big picture, you have your projects, you look at your task list, and holy crap, holy crow, holy cow. That was crap and cow together Holy crap, holy cow was holy crow. It's big, you had a big list, what do you do? For me, I will say time blocking really works for me, it helps me map out and prioritize once a week, and batching. So, like I said, creating all agendas at once, creating all social posts at once, taking all the photos or products at once, as opposed to like couple times every week, whatever it may be. It allows you to do some batching, which is going to help you be more productive.

Emily Thompson 52:21

And it also just shows me what needs to be rolled over or what's not getting done, I think is more correct. So that's especially true for my notebook. Every week, whenever I sit down to create my new list for the week, the first thing I actually do is go back to last week's list and I see what didn't get done it needs to be carried over and doesn't need to be carried over doesn't need to be deleted or doesn't need to be delegated to someone else to do. And Asana sure or your task management, you got some red tasks in there, that's a sign that you either need to get them done, to delete them, or to delegate them. Also, in the Being Boss community slash clubhouse, we have some virtual coworking and a lot of times people will show up to those just to do what we call dangling to do's, these are the things that you're not doing that keep getting rolled over, that don't necessarily need to be deleted, they just need to be done. We all show up and do those, the dangling to do is during coworking and we get a lot of stuff done. And there are other options for you to have time blocking is not something you're interested in, there's a couple other little tactics that you can do as well.

Emily Thompson 53:26

One is a popular one, choose three things each morning that you want to do for the day that needs to get done for the day. That way, you're just making, you know, decision one time you're not sitting there every time you cross something off and go what next, what next, what next, you can sit down below, okay, just these three things, make the decision one time and do the thing. I've also heard a flip side of this, where before you leave every day, you choose six things that you will do tomorrow. And that way you're still in the flow of like what you have done, you know what is going to need to be done tomorrow. And so you can prioritize six things before you leave so that whenever you come in the next morning, you don't even have to make the decisions. You just start doing the thing. And when it comes to prioritizing tasks, or projects or sort of bird's eye view goals, there's a couple of questions that you can ask yourself to decide what takes priority. So first, what's important right now? Or what's time sensitive? You can also think about your values. So what aligns with your values or what, what needs your core genius to get done. You can also think about your biggest contribution to the business that's a big one, especially if you're in a growth phase or if you know things feel troublesome at work instead of hiding behind all those silly little to do's think about what your biggest contribution to the business can be right now.

Emily Thompson 54:59

You can also think about what only you can do. And you can also Marie Kondo a little bit and think about what brings you joy. And depending on where you are in your business, what it is that you're doing, you know, any of those questions may be more or less relevant to you. But they're all really great for helping you decide what three things you need to do today, or what six things you need to you need to do tomorrow, or helping you time block in a way that makes sense for what it is that you're actually trying to accomplish. I also do some time tracking, I've talked about this several times along the way as well. It keeps me on task, it holds me accountable. Whenever I click the timer, I'm doing the thing, and then I unclick the time when I can stop doing the thing, right? It keeps me from floating away a little less often. Some folks swear by the Pomodoro method, give it a Google, we use it in the virtual coworking in the Being Boss community and clubhouse. One of my biggest tips is that you've got to stop trying to multitask, remove distractions and do the thing, one task at a time as much as you possibly can. One of the ways that you can make this easier for yourself is to get in your zone, whatever that looks like, know how and when you are most productive. I know what this looks like for me, it's like it's a day with no meetings, I'm sitting here at my big computer, not at my laptop, I've got soft pants on because if I'm uncomfortable, I will not get anything done. My notifications are off. So email is closed, Slack is closed. I've like turned off any and all notifications. I've pulled up a YouTube ASMR of fireplace crackling in a rainstorm, which is very specific, but it just centers my brain like nothing else. And I have plenty of water to just keep my cup filled.

Emily Thompson 56:46

Basically, when I am in that situation, I'm going to get more done than most people do in a week in a single day. Because that is my zone. And all of the decisions have been made. So that all I have to do is show up and do the work. I don't need to think about what's most important today. Because I already decided, I don't think gotta think about what I need to do today. Because I already decided. I don't even think about if I'm reaching my goals, because it's in the process that everything I'm doing today is playing towards those big goals and those projects that need to get done. And that leaves you in a place where I'm never wondering if what I'm doing is working, or if I'm doing the right thing. Or if I'm doing the most next most important thing, because I've built processes that make all of those decisions for me, so that when I'm feeling weak, or tired, or like I just can't make another decision, I can still sit down and complete a task, if that is what I need to do that day. So whatever it is for you find a system that works for you from big picture to projects to daily tasks, one of my biggest tips is to use a piece of software and to utilize repeat tasks and templates as much as possible.

Emily Thompson 57:58

So when it comes to, you know, in taking new products, that Almanac, there is a template that is just copied and pasted, or, you know, yeah, copied. Duplicated. That's the word that is duplicated. And all of the tasks are just there. So I made the decision once. So what all those tasks needed to be, I don't have to, I don't even have to think about what the tasks are, I just have to make them show up on the screen. Right. So using those templates, or using repeat tasks. So I have lots of repeat tasks around you know, writing an email every week, checking data for this thing, checking in on whatever it is I need to check in on doing whatever it is I need to do, whether that's weekly, or quarterly or monthly or literally yearly. Over the holidays, I sat down and created like a annual repeat tasks for big things in our retail store. That like do they is that extra? No, that is completely necessary. And all of these things work to prepare yourself to just sit down and do the work in the little moments that you have to do the work and to save all of that executive function for the things that really matter. And if you do all of those things, you will be a total badass at tackling your to do list.

Emily Thompson 59:20

Settling yourself into the flow of your business from navigating a whole year of ebbs and flows to embracing the energy of each and every day, you're bound to have some ups and downs along the way. For me this journey of entrepreneurship is made better when my space keeps me focused and inspired. As an example, my favorite way to mark the beginning and ending of the work day is to light a candle when I sit down at my desk and then blow it out when I'm done for the day. It's a little ritual that creates boundaries and a vibe that keeps me focused and feeling cozy. And the ritual candle that we make it Almanac Supply Co is my favorite for this. In fact my whole shop is filled with items that I've curated to create the vibe hype for feeling connected and flow and inspired with candles, crystals and other goodies to help you create a dreamy workspace bedside table or bookshelf. Come gather inspiration and check out my favorite and stock items at almanacsupplyco.com/beingboss and get 15% Off with code beingboss at checkout. That's almanacsupplyco.com/beingboss. Now, until next time, do the work. Be boss