There’s something so powerful about a central place to store all of your ideas, thoughts and to-do items.

You don’t feel distracted and scattered because everything is in one place.

Whenever I start feeling overwhelmed, I make a master to-do list of everything I need AND want to do.

My current list contains things I have to sent out in the mail, business projects I want to work on, and documents I need to update, like some e-books and coaching tools.

So why a master to-do list?

What’s wrong with the back of an envelope and millions of post-it notes?

1. Writing it all down frees up your brain for big picture thinking so you don’t have to concern yourself with remembering details.

2. It eliminates all the bits and pieces of paper, post-it notes, backs of envelopes, etc.

3. There is something about the act of actually putting pen to paper that seals things in your mind. If you’ve ever been on one of my goal-setting workshops, you know exactly what I mean.

4. Once you see it in black and white, you can deal with reality so much better rather than imagining how bad it all is.

5. You can choose the exact number of tasks you want to tackle every day (I don’t recommend more than 6) without feeling overwhelmed. Move these 6 tasks to your daily to-do list.

My challenge to you

* Download my paper-based master to-do list from my website or use Outlook if you like the electronic version. The method doesn’t matter much; what does matter is that you have a central place to collect your tasks.

* First brain dump everything – go wild, you can sort it out later.

* Now, make categories and then start attacking that list.

Happy organising!

Over to you – do you use master to-do lists?

Marcia Francois is a time management coach and speaker who inspires busy women to break out of overwhelm, make the most of their time and take purposeful and focussed action so they have the time and freedom to live life to the full.

Visit  http://purposefultimemanagement.com  for your free Time Management Purpose Pack.

I never could understand how it was that some women didn’t take care of themselves.

Until now.

Because now I’ve had babies it is a different ball game altogether!

I didn’t notice while I was still in the hospital because they wake you so early with coffee/ tea but the day after I was discharged, I realised something is a bit off…what is it???

Oh my word! I’m not hungry.

And that’s how it started.

After a few days of being at home, I realised that I wasn’t eating breakfast until HOURS after I’d woken. When I was pregnant, I’d wake and literally have to eat something within minutes because I woke up starving.

Not so anymore.

I also realised I’d just grab the first thing available (some biscuits (cookies) or rusks with my tea) which is not good!

Good thing I had the awareness before it got even more out of hand. I decided I had to do something about it because I have to take care of me first before I can take care of the babies.

So now when I do my to-do list every day, my no. 1 item is Eat Breakfast.

What’s no. 1 on your to-do list?

Happy Monday everybody!

I work off of “To Do” lists and I prioritize all my projects ABCD… using the system from Swallow that Frog. My to do list keeps getting invaded with other projects and requests.

How do I maintain my lists so that they are effective? Everyone and everything wants to be in my A file and I can’t find my balance. Do you have any suggestions?

Marcie Rowan

Hi Marcie

Yes, I have some suggestions.

1. Get really clear on your main purpose/ focus for your life at this point
This purpose may change from time to time, or it may not, but it’s still a good idea to check in with yourself regularly to make sure you still know what that purpose is.

E.g. this year my main purpose has been to have a healthy pregnancy and birth two live babies.

2. Use only one to-do list
When you use multiple lists, it’s very easy to forget about some things on “the other list”. I understand about different categories of things so what I do is I have one list with sub-headings like Personal, Business and Household. I can still see it all but it is ordered on paper and therefore in my mind.

3. Only put things on your to-do list that support your purpose
If your purpose is to create a loving, clean, organised home for your family, then you can’t be serving on every committee in sight and never spend time taking care of your home.

4. Once things are on your list, eat your frog or, as you call it, swallow your frog
This is where your ABCD system comes in. Or what I use with my clients, the time-value matrix where you focus on urgent and important tasks only.

Do your difficult but most important tasks first. If you hate doing the laundry (like me!), just do it to get it out of the way.

I can’t tell you what should be an A priority because we’re all different. But I can tell you that tasks which don’t support any of your goals are definitely not A priorities.

5. Don’t overload your lists
Pick a maximum of 6 tasks a day. When you sign up for the Organising Success Pack, you get a pack of organising forms. My Eat the Frog form only has space for 6 daily items for two very good reasons.

And that’s because

1. Most people can’t get more than 6 important tasks done daily (including me!)
2. I want you to feel good at the end of every day so rather putfewer tasks and actually get them done

Marcie, hope this helped!

Anybody have any more tips for Marcie? How do you manage your priorities on your own to-do lists?

Whoever thought you just fall pregnant, have a lovely glow and a bump to show off and 9 months later you have babies is sadly mistaken.

that would be me, by the way

Having babies involves serious project management and LOADS of decisions.

• which pram?
• which car seats?
• do we want one cot or two?
• who will deliver them?
• at which hospital?
• what about classes to show us what to do?
• what do we buy?
• can you be a minimalist
• how do you sort out the babies’ room?
• etc
• etc

The list seriously goes on and on and I’ve been threatening to do a master to-do list although it felt a bit…I don’t know… cold when you think these are BABIES.

Nevertheless, I realised something had to be done because people would ask me things and I’d say “I don’t know” or “haven’t thought about it yet”, which gets old really quickly.

So I caved and used one of my master to-do lists in the Organising Success Pack

And do you know what? It’s not as bad as I thought.

There were only 16 items on there.

Which reinforces what I always tell my clients – write it down; it’s usually much worse in your head than on paper

Do you use master to-do lists? How do you keep tasks on big projects organised in your mind?

This ecourse will take you, step-by-step, from overwhelm to peace and order. There are short lessons and practical steps because I know you already don’t have time! You also get a quickstart 60-minute audio to jump-start your progress.

Check it out now

Okay, okay, you guys convinced me – you are interested in the bump behind the blog

I had a bit of a scare two weeks ago and was put on bed rest for that week. Fortunately I was organised and had about 18 meals in the freezer so all Dion had to do for us was defrost and we could eat.

We got in a handyman to do 7 small jobs around the house – I thoroughly recommend getting things like this done regularly. It is a huge relief to have things taken care of and off that to-do list. We actually keep an “Eric list” (his name is Eric ) and when we have a couple of items, we call him out and get him to do the work.

We’ve ordered the cots which should arrive in about two weeks’ time. We’ve also decided on the pram we want (do you call it a pram or a stroller where you live?) as well as the car seats.

And last but not least, I have a baby shower coming up on 20 June! I’m a bit freaked out by it because I usually don’t like girly things like baby showers and this one is for me. If you’re so inclined, please pray for me!

And now for the latest belly pics…

26 weeks

27 weeks