Like everyone else, it always seems like I have too many balls in the air at once. I am a wife, mother, home manager, business manager for our small business, and a woman who would also like to read an occasional book or maybe take an occasional yoga class.
Around the time our second daughter was born, I found myself so overwhelmed and distracted that I missed paying the rent for our business office. I also got severely behind on some Quickbooks work for our business. Important tasks were slipping through my sleep deprived mind.
I had to refocus and basically suck-it-up. We are self-employed; no maternity leave for me.
I developed a monthly to-do list. It is broken down by my office jobs: business office, home office, and projects. It is filled with tasks that MUST be accomplished on a regular, timely basis. Tasks might be as simple as ‘reconciling’ or more complex like ‘paying the payroll taxes’. I definitely have ‘Pay Rent’ on the list.
It is a visual reminder that I keep on my desk so I am able to glance at it daily. At the end of each month, I prepare the following month’s list and make any changes for that month, but most of the tasks really don’t change much, except for the ‘Projects’ list.
This simple, yet effective, list has saved me a lot of stress and time. I find great satisfaction in crossing off the tasks when they are complete…especially the ‘pay the rent’ task.
How do prevent those regular, yet important, tasks from slipping through the cracks?
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My husband and I write a list out every week. We try and get small things done in the evenings and the rest of the list is complete over the weekend.
Recently my daughter decided to write a little commentary on my to-do list.
On things that I had done but didn’t turn out so well she wrote, ‘failure’! On another item that had been on the list for weeks and had just gotten complete she wrote next to it ‘Finally!’. Such a great supporter!
I love creating my monthly to do list. I use simply excel to do this. Once I created a list with my husband, I append it near the main door so I can see it everytime I go outside.
Really it’s very useful when you are overwhelmed with a lot of things.
I has simplified my life in an easy way. Anyway thanks for sharing this useful post.