Just 3 items on your to-do list. Is that enough for an entire work day?

(First, we’re cheating: your business and your home life get separate task lists.)

‘Cause I’m sorry, writing launch emails is a totally different head space than prepping the Instapot.

But only doing 3 things is going to force you to prioritize your day. 

Because if you limit your to-do’s, you’ll finish them every single time.

You’ve got this!

Alyssa

Love your daily life again as a work-at-home mom: https://yourunbusylife.com/ 

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Transcript

This is the Unbusy Mom, and today we’re talking about having just 3 items on your to-do list. Is that enough for an entire work day?

It may sound radical to cut back to only 3 items on your to-do list every single day, especially coming from a productivity teacher. 

Shouldn’t the confidence that everything your business needs from you got done be dependent on something more tangible than “I’m allowed to cut back” mindset? 

(Like, maybe metrics or something? Or “if you hire these 8 part-time team members, I guarantee you’ll be able to cover everything”?)

Yeah, no - here’s why it’s completely realistic for you as a mom (and a biz owner!) to use an ultra-short to-do list.

First, we’re cheating: your business and your home life get separate task lists. 

I’m sorry, writing launch emails is a totally different head space than prepping the crock pot, and we’re going to treat it as such. This helps you treat your business like a business, too, not just a part of your #momlife.

Second, only doing 3 things is going to force you to prioritize day to day. 

If you’ve got 19 items on your “would be nice to get around to” list, and only 3 hours of kid-tending-plus-house-cleaning-plus-random-projects time, which of those 19 are making the cut? Very few of them.

Which of those 19 absolutely *have* to be done today? Maybe 1 of them. 

See? Prioritization complete.

And tonight, you look over your 18-item “might be nice” list, and do the same thing: pick out 1 or 2 tasks that really do *need* to get done right then. (Or in our case, the next day.)

That’s it.

(What if nothing’s that urgent, you ask? Then great! You don’t have to do anything on your to-do list!)

I kid, but if it truly doesn’t need to be done and wrapped this week, should it really be on this week’s to-do list? What about next month’s?

This is where you get to get picky about what you’re even putting on your “shoulds” list and see if you can cross a bunch of things right off. Because maybe you don’t need to be doing them in the first place.

Third, and this is a great benefit, a 3-item to-do list guarantees you’ll finish everything. (If you’re a list-crosser-off right now, you’re rejoicing!)

All you have to do is not overload your energy, and it’ll get done.

The whole list.

Every day.

It’s that easy. If you limit your to-do’s, you’ll finish them every time.

And being realistic about how much we can handle during the day is a much-needed reset in the mom space (heck, even the mom-in-business space!).

Like when I gave myself permission to rework all the mastermind homework I was doing after joining a new high level program, stressing myself out trying to catch up on #allthethings (okay, high achiever woes), and realizing that I needed a rebalance. Because I was sucking all my free time and evenings on playing catch-up to some arbitrary standard. 

When what I NEEDED to be doing was enjoying my life NOW. The business I’d built NOW.

This mastermind was for upleveling, for goodness’ sake, not taskmastering!

So do yourself a favor, and chop your to-do list till it’s only got 3 items on it. 1 for personal, 1 for business, remember? 

Put that laundry, and that crock pot prepping, and that new-pediatrician-researching on your personal list. Then drop those launch emails, planning cart open dates, and actually, launch emails part 2 (‘cause we all know it’s going to take more than 1 work session to write them) on your biz-to-do list.

You’re all sorted. Now go out there and conquer your new, hugely shortened to-do list.

You’ve got this.