Subscriber issue: How do you stay on top of your sh*t?

Project managing life.

I’m about to talk to you about something very personal: my to-do lists, calendars, and other things that help me keep my personal and professional life together so I can sleep at night. I am not saying this is a good system, but it’s the one I’ve got.

At its base, my life is a house of cards predicated on two yellow things: my to-do list and my folder. Here are their main functions:

First, I like a small yellow legal pad for my daily to-do list; partially for its portable size, partially because its size means at a certain point, I can only expect to do so many things per day. Sometimes, I tackle this list by project; other days, I try to assign a certain amount of time to work on tasks. I put my house/family/personal to-do items on there mixed in with my work tasks because it all takes my time. I always put “exercise” on there because I deserve the same dopamine hit of accomplishing that as I do for sending a story to a client. I treat myself to one sheet per two-day weekend because I’m so much more relaxed then 🌴. My nuttiest “rule” is that if something gets moved to the next day or scrapped, I white it out. Crossing out is for closers.

The yellow to-do folder lives in the kitchen in a little spot by the pantry. Any time I get a bill or school reminder or request for a donation or photo I need to put away, anything hard copy that needs to get done eventually but not necessarily right now, I stick it in there. I then deal with it all on the weekend. (I do remind myself to do this on my yellow to do list so I get the reward of crossing it off #normal.)