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Today’s talking point:

How is your to do list looking right now? Is it super long? Does it feel unachievable? Is it stopping you from making more money? If the answer to all those questions is yes, you are in the right place. In this episode, I'll share some ways to turn that list from the dumping ground of tasks to the powerhouse of your day.

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Today we’re talking about to-do lists. How’s yours looking right now? Is it overflowing? Does looking at it leave you a little overwhelmed?

That messy list could cost you money – but you can change that with some simple tweaks.

There are a few reasons your to-do list might be stopping you from making money. We’re going deeper on these today…

Your list is so long that you never finish it
You don’t prioritise money-making tasks

Your to-do list is far too long

When I say this, it may sound obvious. But I want to discuss it because it feels like it’s become the norm to overload your daily to-do list completely. Doing this makes it impossible to finish, though.

Are you guilty of using your to-do list as a ‘junk drawer’ for your life and business? Do you put something on the list the second you think of it without further thought?

Here’s why that’s not working for you: it puts you in ‘react’ mode. But if we want to make more money, though, we want to operate from ‘respond’ mode.

So, what’s the difference?

When I think of ‘react’ mode, I picture someone standing in front of a baseball throwing machine without a glove or anything to catch the balls. And the machine just keeps throwing balls at them. Their best strategy is to jump out of the way every single time. They're not prepared for the balls that are flying at them. The person is hopping, left hopping, right rolling out of the way as another one flies towards them; they're not really addressing the balls that are coming at them. But instead, they are using all of their energy to get away from the balls. They're not playing strategically. They're not in charge. That is ‘react’ mode.

Now here's what I picture of someone operating in ‘respond’ mode. Someone is at the same baseball throwing machine, but they have a glove on. They are taking charge. They're ready. When things are thrown at them, they might not know what will be thrown at them, but they can catch the baseballs and toss them where they need to go because they're wearing a glove. They're not having to use energy to dodge the balls and then have to go back later and figure out where those baseballs need to go. Instead, they can catch the balls as they come and put them where they need to be.

So it's probably pretty obvious from this visual that we want to operate in ‘respond’ mode. We want to have that glove.

A lot of us have chaotic lives but it's our schedules and our routines that are going to make it easier for us to manage that chaos. Properly prioritised task lists also help us to better manage our lives. They help us respond instead of reacting.

When we do look at a to-do list that is five pages long, we are automatically overwhelmed. That stops us from doing anything, and that definitely stops us from making money.

There is such a big mental component to ‘to-do’ lists and we need to meet our minds where they’re at by chunking our task lists.

You don’t need to put everything on your to-do list. Because when your mind sees that, of course, it will go into overwhelm mode. Overwhelmed equals not doing anything equals not making the money that you really want to make.

So what’s the solution? How do we shorten that list?

It’s using a ‘catch-all’ task list to keep track of what you need to do.

This keeps your mind at ease and creates a path of least resistance for you.

When you think of something that needs to be done, or maybe someone asks you to do something, put it on your catch all task list. When you sit down to plan your week, you can take a look at that catch all task list and see what needs to be taken care of next week from that list. Not every task needs to be done today. Or next week, or even next month.

I break mine down into personal tasks and professional tasks. This keeps you from putting everything that pops into your head on your daily to do list, which we don't want.

You don’t prioritise your task list

You can’t use your time wisely if you don’t know your money-making tasks. You’ll end up randomly grabbing tasks just so you can get the satisfaction of checking something off that list.

Often this looks like tackling the ‘low-hanging fruit’ first (aka the low-energy tasks). You’ll probably be on a roll with those tasks. But what that often means is your high-energy tasks are left until last – when you probably do not have the energy to deal with them.

You used up all of your good quality mental energy on those easy low hanging fruit tasks that aren't going to make you money.

You need to prioritise your list so this doesn’t happen.

First, chunking your tasks. Second, prioritising your money making tasks.

chunk your list

So I want you to picture a pyramid. At the top, you have your monthly catch-all task list, where you put tasks with no defined due date yet or broader tasks to be done.

Next on the pyramid, you have your weekly top three tasks. These are the three most important tasks to get done for the week that lead you to make money. You can find these from your catch-all list or what deadlines you have coming up.

From there, you're going to go down to the bottom of the pyramid, the biggest part, and that's where you have your daily top three tasks or your top three daily areas of focus. These are the most specific action steps. You get those from looking at your weekly top three tasks.

Overall: you break down your weekly top three tasks into doable daily action steps, which lead to your big money-making goals and projects.

So all of these lists trickle down into each other.

You don’t have a gameplan

I see you people who wake up each day and kind of just wing it. I am here to help!

But honestly, the older I get the more flexible I become with my schedule and routines. I used to be such a rigid person with my routines and I'm definitely not that kind of person anymore. I'm much more of a grace-filled discipline kind of person.

So, if schedules and routines make you feel like you're stuck in a box, let's shift your thinking.

Our schedules and routines are tools, not chains. Having them in place allows you to get stuff done more efficiently, aka with less effort. This means you can make more money, so you have more energy to use on things that matter most to you.

You need a game plan before you head into your day because that sets you up to be a good steward of your energy. That just means that you're doing things when they make the most sense for you to do them so that you're doing them to the best of your ability.

For example, I know I am mentally the sharpest at the beginning of my work day. So it's really important and makes sense for me to prioritise my high mental energy tasks at the beginning of the day instead of pushing them off to the end of the afternoon (where my brain feels like a bowl of mashed potato).

The solution is to create a game plan using energy-aligned time blocking with your daily to do list. So, time blocking on its own is simply creating a schedule for your day assigning certain tasks to certain times during the day.

During that time block, you only work on the task that you've assigned to that block. This strategy helps us to stay focused on a single task or a group of tasks that go together with a less likely chance of giving in to work a little bit on 15 things at once, really not getting much done overall and sending ourselves into a tailspin of overwhelm.

And as you practice this, you will get better at learning how much time to allocate for each task and when to schedule which kind of tasks into which time blocks throughout the day.

Energy-aligned time blocking is creating a schedule that makes sense and works with your energy instead of against it. So you might schedule checking your emails after lunch because it doesn't require a lot of brainpower, and maybe you don't have a lot of brainpower left after lunch.

I'm my most creative and most mentally sharp in the mornings, so I scheduled tasks like writing and creating content for my morning time blocks. If I don't finish a task once my time block is up, if it's not time-sensitive, as in, if it's not due that day, I'll move it on to the next thing on my time blocked schedule. If I'm in the zone with that task I didn't finish and I'm really close to wrapping it up I'll do that.

Obviously, if there's an emergency or something crops up, we have to be flexible. Use your judgement.

So if you find yourself never finishing your to-do list, try creating a game plan but do it using energy-aligned time blocking.

let’s recap:

An overly-long to-do list is stopping you from making money
If your list is too long you’ll always feel overwhelmed. The solution is to use a catch-all task list to keep track of your activities
If you don’t prioritise your tasks, you can chunk your to-do list into catch-all, weekly and daily to-do lists.
If you don’t have a gameplan for your day, you can use energy-aligned time blocking to work through that to-do list.