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071: Embracing lists
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In this episode we discuss the importance of using lists to improve productivity, save time, and reduce mental load. Lists are the secret to successful adulthood.
Mia and Dinah discuss the different types of lists: to-do lists, checklists, and reference lists. To-do lists consist of time-bound tasks that require action, while checklists help with recurring activities and ensure efficiency. Reference lists capture suggestions and recommendations and serve as a source of information.
Mia and Dinah highlight the importance of having a single source of truth for lists to avoid confusion and to easily share them with others. We recommend going digital by using apps like Notes or Reminders, which provide the convenience of accessing and sharing lists anytime and the added benefits of using voice commands through devices like Siri or Google Home Assistant.
Dina and Mia share their personal experiences with using digital lists and how it has improved their productivity. They mention the ability to set reminders, integrate lists with email, and even link tasks to specific people or locations. They recommend choosing a simple app that suits individual preferences and investing time in learning its features for automation.
The hosts also discuss the pitfall of including unnecessary items on lists. They suggest distinguishing between tasks that can be done immediately and those that require planning or execution at a later time. They mention the concept of "two-minute time killer tasks," which are better completed right away instead of adding them to a list.
Mia and Dinah stress the importance of using lists effectively to free up mental space, prioritize tasks, and streamline daily activities. They encourage listeners to embrace digital tools and develop a consistent system that works for them. By implementing these list hacks, individuals can enhance productivity, save time, and reduce stress associated with life admin tasks.
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Introduction to Life Admin Life Hacks Podcast
00:00:30
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that you do techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money and improve your household harmony.
00:00:42
Speaker
I'm Diana Roberts, an Operations Manager and lists are the number one thing that cures those 3am wake-ups for me. I'm Mia Northrop, a researcher and writer who lives with the dopamine heat of checking something off a list. In this episode, we'll take you through our top hacks for using lists to achieve peace of mind, ensure important tasks aren't forgotten, be more productive and share the mental load.
Importance of Lists in Productivity
00:01:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks.
00:01:12
Speaker
It's season eight listeners. Welcome back. We've been on quite the hiatus in the wake of publishing our book, Life Admin Hacks. And we're back with more ways to minimize, automate and share your life admin. We've got some stellar guests lined up for this season. Plus, we'll be doing some deep dives on areas we know are persistent pain points for listeners.
00:01:31
Speaker
Trying to remember all the things in your life contributes to like monkey mind. It clods up our working memory, which is best used for things that we need to do in the next 20 minutes rather than things that could be done later in the week. The answer lists.
00:01:47
Speaker
Mia actually often says that she thinks that these are the secret to successful adulthood. Absolutely. And most people probably already have a to-do list. You might have several of them, but we guarantee that mastering these lists will free your headspace for more important things like solving problems or being creative or daydreaming or having the luxury of just thinking about nothing instead of running through your to-dos in your brain all the time.
Types and Uses of Lists
00:02:15
Speaker
And look, we were both huge list lovers before we started this life admin caper, but I think there were quite a few things that we were getting wrong. So maybe let's run through some of those things, Mia. Yeah. So the first one is we didn't really recognize that different stuff belongs in specific types of lists. And when we sat down to sort of pick this apart, we recognized, all right, there are three different types of lists. You got, first of all, your to-do list.
00:02:42
Speaker
And these are actual, time-bound, measurable. These are tasks that contain verbs, like you're gonna buy something, you're gonna do something, there's some action there. And that's actually different from just a checklist, which you can pull together to help you remember how to do recurring activities efficiently and comprehensively. So for example, my to-do list at the moment, if I grab my phone and I have a look at it, I need to book a hairdresser appointment, I need to send out an invoice, I need to book tickets to Mary Poppins.
00:03:11
Speaker
And then the checklist, for example, so these are things that you do all the time or pre-regularly and they're things like if I look at my checklist, which I use in my notes app on my phone. I've got some pinned lists at the top. One of them is the changeover list. So this is the list where my kids go back and forth between my house and their dad's house. It's the things that I need to pack.
00:03:33
Speaker
so we don't forget. Another list for prepping the house before I go on holiday. That's things like organize the cat sitter, organize the dog sitter, cancel subscriptions to the things that get delivered. That's a list that I go to all the time to remember how to do something and I'm reinventing the wheel every time.
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah, and I've got a specific checklist for when we go camping because that's one of the ones where you definitely don't want to forget, you know, the pump for the air mattress or something like that. And so having those checklists really just frees up the headspace to know that you can confidently, if you get everything on that checklist each time.
00:04:08
Speaker
You can do it again and again efficiently without forgetting anything. Yeah. And then there's the third type of list, which is a reference list. And this captures suggestions and recommendations and sources of info. And it's not time bound. Like it doesn't matter when this stuff happens, you just refer to it at some time. And it's not something that you're going to, you know, be checking off on a regular basis. So examples of a reference list might be a gift wish list for your family members, or for yourself, little listings where people say, what do you want for your birthday?
00:04:38
Speaker
this handy list I prepared.
Digital Tools for List Management
00:04:40
Speaker
Or more commonly, there's lists of books you want to read, films you want to see, podcasts you want to listen to. So anytime someone suggests, oh, you love this, you've got a little reference list where you can add that to. And they become very helpful when you've got a bit of downtime and you're like, oh, you need to go gift shopping or whatever, and you can refer back to that list.
00:05:02
Speaker
I think of the error that we had made was we had like a mishmash of, I had sort of one mega list really that had a mishmash of all these things on it with various levels of detail. And what was interesting was the contrast to kind of my task management and lists for my home life versus work, where work feels very, it's easy to get your to-do list sort of more accurate.
00:05:25
Speaker
reflecting, yes, this is actionable, this is time bound, these are things I need to do versus what the laissez-faire approach I was taking in my private life.
00:05:34
Speaker
And I think that the checklist thing was like a revelation for me, thinking about having those checklists that I could use over and over again. But also the reference list, and I guess the one that has saved the most angst in my house is the reference list for shows that we can watch by knowing what streaming platforms we've got currently versus what we might have in the future.
00:05:56
Speaker
and just having a ready go-to list. For the occasions we do get an evening at home, we want to watch something. There's nothing worse than scrolling and spending an hour trying to find something to watch. That reference list of shows to watch improved my leisure time immeasurably. Keep looking, keep looking. Switch to binge. No, go on, Stan.
00:06:20
Speaker
So in your reference list for your shows, do you have which streaming service it's available on? Yeah. So then I know like the ones we've got going at the moment, I just use those and then I think, oh, actually once those are all gone, then I'm turn that one off and go to the next one. And I also do have a separate reference list of shows to watch with my daughter, because knowing that that's like, you get different suggestions from people. And so I've got two lists, one to watch with my husband and one to watch with my daughter. I can never get my son to watch anything with
00:06:49
Speaker
more girls on that list at any stage. Oh, he has finished every single episode during COVID. Yeah, I have a similar approach where if someone makes a suggestion, I put what streaming service it's on. And then when I have a critical mass of shows that are on a streaming service that I don't currently have, switch off Netflix or Stan, and I switch over to Disney or Binge or Prime or whatever it is.
00:07:15
Speaker
Flip back and forth. Okay. So they're the different types of lists. And the key thing is understanding, all right, what am I to do lists look like? Are they actually a mishmash of things that should be on a checklist and a reference list? Or is it cleanly just stuff I need to do?
00:07:31
Speaker
And then I think that's linked to the second problem that we both had was we didn't have a single source of truth, particularly for the to-do list. And I think, you know, the temptation is to have little post-it notes on your computer, maybe some notebooks, maybe a list on the fridge, maybe something on your phone.
00:07:50
Speaker
And usually what happens then is you don't have a single place to look, so you don't know exactly where to look and how to prioritize. And even worse, and I think this is the thing that was the most frustrating for me, no easy way to share those lists with my husband and children so that other people know what needs to get done or have access to that checklist for preparing to go on holiday.
00:08:13
Speaker
So although we both loved paper, the reality is in today's day and age, going digital is the answer. It means you're never without the list. You can share it. And look, there's so many apps out there you can use and most of them are free. Yeah.
00:08:28
Speaker
So, you know, we lean heavily on just, we both have iPhones, we're using notes, we're using reminders. For me, I've got my to-do list, I've got my 10 minute time killer list in reminders, and I've got my hour of power list in reminders, and then all my sort of checklists and reference lists are in the notes app. But the beauty also of these tools is that often you can use some of the voice commands, you know, you can use Siri or Google Home Assistant depending on
00:08:54
Speaker
what kind of device you have. So I'll often be in the car and I'll remember to do something and I'll invoke Siri and hit she or he depending on the voice I'm using at the time. I change it up. It will, they'll add.
00:09:09
Speaker
an item to my 10 minute time killer list. And you could also, you know, if it's digital, integrate things easily with your email, you can actually link the task reminders to a time or a place.
Task Scheduling and List Optimization
00:09:20
Speaker
So in your iPhone, you can create a little item. And then when you go into the details of it, you can get it to prompt you at a certain date or time. You can use tags. You can prompt it to pop up and remind you at a certain location if you're arriving, say at work or you're departing from school drop off.
00:09:39
Speaker
You can also have it remind you when you're talking to certain people. So you can actually link it to a contact. And then when you start messaging that contact, it'll pop up and say, don't forget to talk about XYZ, whatever your task was. So there are huge benefits of going digital.
00:09:55
Speaker
Yeah, and I even have mine also set up with a couple of recurring tasks. And so what that means is you just basically set the task up once and then when you check it off, it basically it creates a new one with the new date. So I've got a couple for flea treatments for the dog. I've got ones for making sure that I've got cash in the house to pay our cleaner and those sorts of ones. And so that really helps make sure that we remember those small tasks that happen again and again.
00:10:23
Speaker
Yeah. Other people, though, talked about, you know, there's the Todoist app. There's Asana. If you're into rainbows and unicorns appearing when you check off something, you'll appreciate Asana. There's workflow. There's a few out there. But, you know, stick with something simple that's not too complicated. You don't want to over, you know, sort of orchestrate your to-do list. It should feel pretty simple to add things and tick them off. But the key thing is just have one consistent place.
00:10:50
Speaker
Choose an app that you really like and spend a little bit of time learning about the features that can automate it. So my husband complained that he could never get Siri to add anything to the list. And it was just like watching a couple of five minute YouTube videos about exactly how to say it, those sorts of things. And that's really changed his ability to be able to easily add things to the list. So really recommend spending that little bit of investment, which makes it much easier to add to the list.
00:11:17
Speaker
That's right. Like, yeah, Siri is always going to add it to the first list in your order. So you can just move your list in the right order so that they add it to the right one. Little tips like that.
00:11:28
Speaker
And I guess the next trap that we'd fallen into was we were including things that didn't need to actually go on our list. Our lists were too long. Yeah, definitely. Had loads of things on a list that shouldn't be on a list. And I think there were two errors I made was one, including things that would just be just as fast to actually do the task then and there. We call those tasks two minutes too easy. So those are things that are just way easier. You can just get them done as soon as they land in your, usually in your email,
00:11:57
Speaker
do them straight away. If you've got all of your systems set up, your password manager ready to go, pay a bill, respond to an email, fill out a form, often those can just be the two minute, two easy tasks. And I think the other thing that I had on the list that shouldn't be on the list were things that actually just needed to be scheduled because they needed to be done by a specific date or time. I needed to make the time in my calendar. So scheduling is the other part here that
00:12:23
Speaker
If you know that you need a set amount of time that needs to be done by a certain due date, really, you should add it into your calendar so that you make sure you've got enough time to get it done. Yeah. There's also the red herrings that pop up. The things that are aspirational that you put on there because you feel like I should do it. And then it sits there and a week goes by and a month goes by and it's just falling to the bottom of the list. Or you have a list blindness where you're kind of ignoring half the list because you
00:12:52
Speaker
really have no intention of doing them. But there's been sitting there for weeks. That's the time where you just decide, you know what, I'm actually not going to do it. And you delete or you schedule it in your calendar and you commit to it or you delegate it to someone else. But having a way to sort of refresh and make sure that the list is vital, it's dynamic, it's moving in priority, it's moving in terms of what's on there and feeling free to just get rid of the stuff.
00:13:19
Speaker
Yesterday, I looked at a list. I wasn't doing a podcast and they were talking about this online course you could do to improve your eye health. It's like this screen course for people who stare at screens all day long and feel like their eyesight is deteriorating, which they definitely do. That's been on there for three months. Even though I thought this is a great idea, I am not going to do it. I'm not going to do it. They deleted it. It was so liberating.
00:13:47
Speaker
maybe will come up in the future. But it was just staring at me. It was just annoying me seeing it every day. And I think sometimes the reason that those things stare at you and you don't make progress is often because it's too big a task. So I think that's the other mistake you can easily make is you might put on your to do list, do my taxes. And like if you don't have an accountant and you don't have a system like that, the reality is that's like that's just too woolly. It's like you need to really think about one of the
00:14:15
Speaker
steps that you need to do to get that task done. You know, maybe the first step is find an account and the second step is, you know, compile your receipts, you know, those sorts of things. So think about breaking up those tasks into manageable chunks because otherwise it just feels overwhelming.
Maximizing Productivity with Timing and Focus
00:14:32
Speaker
Okay. Another pitfall, knowing when to get them done. Yeah, so we talked a little bit already about scheduling, but we also really like to embrace this idea of having a regular hour of power.
00:14:44
Speaker
to get your more chunky life admin tasks done. So thinking about scheduling it in your calendar once a week or once a fortnight, whatever the frequency that makes the most sense to you, given how much life admin you have to do. And that means that you know that you've got this time to get to those chunky life admin tasks.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah, and there's a bit of self-awareness you can bring to this as well. If it doesn't feel like something that needs to happen during your hour of power, know that you're a lot more likely to be fresh in the morning and be able to tackle some things in the morning, or you'll just be aware of when you're freshest and do that kind of boring stuff. If it's teething stuff, if it's boring stuff,
00:15:25
Speaker
know when in the day you're likely to be fresh and alert enough to actually take it on, or when you're less likely to be distracted. And we talked a little bit in the book actually about knowing what your chronotype is, which is around when you're most alert and when you get sleepy. So you might be a lark, a morning person where you can do your analytical thinking in the day, or if you're a night owl, you get a boost of focus
00:15:51
Speaker
10 o'clock at night when some of us are off to bed, you're like, no, I'm awake. So if you know that this is how you work, think about doing those tasks in that time. Yeah. When do you do it, Dawn? Yeah, so my hour of power is generally on a Sunday morning. That's really when I like to tackle those things. But the reality is for most of my life admin tasks that sit on that to-do list,
00:16:15
Speaker
Are those ten minute time killer tasks and i think one of the traps i used to fall into was backing those up and saving them for the weekend and then you have so much to do on the weekend you have the chunky life admin task but also the smaller ones so one of the things that i really embraced is really using that dead time.
00:16:34
Speaker
you know, rather than scrolling on Instagram for 10 minutes, you know, between meetings or while I'm waiting to pick up a child or there's often that dead time during the day. So most of your life admin tasks can be done in those 10 minute time killer slots. Yeah. In an upcoming episode, we have
00:16:50
Speaker
interviewed time management guru Laura VanderKam. She makes an interesting suggestion about doing some of that stuff on a Friday afternoon if you work because Friday afternoon is often a winding down time and a planning time. I thought, it's an interesting take. It's an interesting take.
00:17:09
Speaker
The other thing about thinking about when to do them is also just being disciplined around single tasking rather than multitasking and knowing that when you get in a flow state, you can knock things out very quickly. So if you're going to commit to doing something, it probably will take you half the time if you can just focus on that one thing.
00:17:29
Speaker
Awesome, so I think that probably the final thing that we were getting wrong and that I think a lot of people get wrong is thinking about having a time to actually look at your list and identify the things that need to get done, decide whether you need to schedule in some time, review the list and also remove things like Mia talked about before that you've decided you're no longer going to do.
00:17:51
Speaker
maybe delegate them to other members of your family or even think about outsourcing them. So it's really important to have regular times to be looking at the list to check what you need to do, but also to refresh it. And so one of the things I did was I have added a widget to the home screen of my phone so that when I open my home screen on my phone, my 10 minute time killer list is the first thing that kind of
00:18:14
Speaker
pops up on my phone. So rather than being tempted to, you know, scroll through and find Instagram, I'm much more likely to see number one on there being something, you know, book a hairdresser or whatever it is. And I'm much more likely to tackle that in that time when I've picked up my phone. So that's definitely a good reminder of like tackling those smaller tasks.
00:18:35
Speaker
Part of that reviewing process is dragging them up and down so that you are not keeping the priority of these tasks in your head. The order of your list actually reflects your priority for that day. It's fine for the priority to change from day to day or week to week, but prevent that idea of becoming blind.
00:18:54
Speaker
to what's on the list or keeping info in your head.
Family Coordination through Scheduled Reviews
00:18:58
Speaker
This whole exercise is around getting as much out of your head as possible so that the list is doing the work and not your short-term memory. And in terms of a more comprehensive review of the list on a regular basis, I've got sort of two tactics there. So I actually have another reference list in my phone, which is called Things to Discuss, which my husband and I add to during the week. And that really stops us from, you know,
00:19:21
Speaker
you have a thought come into your head like, should we go to Italy next year? Or should we consider changing the night of this child's activity from Monday to Wednesday? Or whatever it is, we add to that things to discuss list. So it kind of gives us some things to talk about. Sometimes we might add gripes on there, things that have irritated us. And on a Sunday night, we always sit down and have a quick look at the calendar of what's coming up for the next week.
00:19:47
Speaker
We look at the talk about the things on the things to discuss list and we also check out our family admin to-do list and make sure if there's anything that really needs to get done and whether it needs to get, you know, specifically scheduled in or whatever. So that gives us that quick 15 minutes once a week that really puts us in a good state for the next week. Sounds a little reading as well.
00:20:10
Speaker
So what lists have you got going on at the moment? So in my reminders, I've got my 10 minute time filters and my hour of power stuff. I've got a reference list that is bars and restaurants around Melbourne wineries that I want to visit. I've got a worries list where I dump my worries. And sometimes it's funny to come back to that, like, you know, three months later and go, oh, I was worried about that. I'm not worried about that anymore. That's quite nice to see that progress. I've actually got a home maintenance list.
00:20:39
Speaker
I've called sanctuary. Making my home a sanctuary with various tasks for various locksmiths, carpenters, electricians, et cetera. That's in my reminders. Then in my notes app, I've got my references. There's groceries, there's my meal plan, there's the change over list.
00:21:01
Speaker
I also have a school holidays wish list, which I share with my kids because they both have iPads. And so we make up a list every school holidays of things we want to do. And it might be just movies you want to see or a playground or some indoor rock climbing thing we want to do. And it just helps us remember, you know, when we get up in the morning and it's kind of like what we want to do today, we can quickly check out that list.
00:21:24
Speaker
I've got a health list about some things I'm trying to do to improve my health and the reminders about different levers I can pull. I've got my own gift wish list, a music film, TV, books one. Of course, my Christmas traditions one. We're fair back to our previous Christmas podcast episodes to understand why we're chuckling about that because it's designing my Christmas. And then I've got gift wish lists for each of the kids.
00:21:51
Speaker
I've also got a skiing packing list and a holiday packing list and I've got some menus, like some carrot dinner or a brunch or something and I'm like, I aced that menu. I write it down so I can refer to it and just repeat, press repeat.
Conclusion & Social Media Engagement
00:22:08
Speaker
What have you got? I've got what we call the family admin list, which is basically our 10-minute time killer list, which I share with my husband, so everything. What's it called? Family admin. It's called family admin. So that's got all that stuff on there. I also do have an hour of power list. And then I've got a whole bunch of reference lists. So I've got
00:22:28
Speaker
books to read, podcasts, gift wish lists. I've got what I call catch up. So that's my list of my people who I really want to spend time with. And I've also got this great list called Someday. And I've added all sorts of aspirational things on there, mostly travel things, but other bits and pieces as well.
00:22:48
Speaker
And I've got those TV and movie lists and one for my daughter. And then I've got the checklist. So the holiday liftoff list, which is how to get out of the house, as well as the packing lists, both for regular holidays and camping. And yeah, I've got my things to discuss list. And I've also got a new to-do list. So one of my sort of goals this year, we set up 23 goals for 2020.
00:23:12
Speaker
between my husband and I. It's like a Gretchen Rubin inspiration code. Yes, a Gretchen Rubin inspired list. And one of them was to have a date night every month for 2023. So I've got all of the months and we've got which ones have been booked and which ones haven't so that we're slowly checking those off. So that's actually a to-do list really, because it's making sure that those have been booked in soon.
00:23:36
Speaker
Yeah. It's the latest list that my children shared with me, which is the Yes Day list because it's not that film, Yes Day. And they put together some rules and have a whole bunch of things that they want to do on their Yes Day. That's funny. That's lurking down the bottom.
00:23:50
Speaker
It both works both ways. People could share lists with you too. Sweet. Okay. So we hope that this start to season eight has got you motivated, reinvigorated your love of optimizing life admin. Let's start with something foundational. Let's start with looking at those lists, cleaning them up, separating them out, sharing them where applicable and making sure you're really using a tool that's doing the heavy lifting for you. And that is easy to use.
00:24:18
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeagminlifehacks.com. And if you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend, or review us in your podcasting app. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
00:24:41
Speaker
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