How to stay on top of your to-do lists

At any given time of the day (sometimes in the middle of the night) my head is filled with lists:

• to-do lists
• people I need to call list
• errands I need to run list
• pictures I need to take for social media posts
• blog posts ideas list
• book reviews I need to write (and let's not even mention the TBR list)

Having lists is actually the first step of realistically approaching what needs to be done.  The problem with my lists?  They were all over the place! In my laptop, in my tablet, my phone, pieces of paper I collect with ideas of yet another list...I realized it was getting out of control and adding to my stress level of feeling like I was falling into the rabbit hole of things undone.

I couldn't understand how I can be so organized at work while at the same time seem unable to keep personal tasks under control.  How did I get to this emotional "I'm failing" roller-coaster?  

It's like watching Penny Dreadful + Devil Wears Prada + Mean Girls all at the same TIME while listening to Michael Buble feeling sorry for myself !!!!  (hmmm I actually enjoy all those things, but maybe not together)

Anyway, something needed to be done, so I declared war against all my lists and decided to find a place, one single spot where I can find everything and not worry about what it was that I wrote on the back of last night's restaurant receipt.

If you google "how to tackle your to-do lists" the results will be overwhelming, so here are my best tips on how to create a to-do list that you'll actually want to stay on top of:

1. First of all, keep everything in the same place - Whatever type of to-do list you decide to use should be available to you at all times: there's no point in choosing to use a physical notebook if you keep forgetting it at home, and the same goes for using an app that's only accessible via phone.  
2. Be realistic on what you can do in 24 hrs - avoid falling into the trap of over-scheduling yourself. 
3. Categorize it in a way that makes sense to you - I'm using Evernote (more on that later) and I now have "notebooks", one personal and one for my blog, which are then divided into sections, aka "notes" that I named as hashtags, #errands, #familyfun #placestotravel, #writingprompts #readingchallenge #blogpostideas.  
4. Focus on one thing at a time (guilty as charged) - It's a rewarding experience when you cross one of the items of your list as done/completed/finished.  As a blogger I am well aware of how easy it is to get distracted with social media, so you can imagine how surprised I was when I found this app called Moment - tagline "put down your phone and get back to life"-  where you can set daily limits on yourself and be notified when you go over! Wait, there's an app for that?
5. To find the Best To-Do List Apps for IOS and Android head over to this article from Digital Trends, which will give you a summary of each app that's available out there.  Like I said before, I chose to use Evernote, mainly because the free version is sufficient for everything that I need, plus it gives me access to my notes/lists from all of my many devices by keeping everything synchronized across platforms.  Evernote even has free templates!

How about a Blog Post Worksheet? 

A Social Media Calendar? 

or a A Creative Writing Story Premise Worksheet?
Click here to browse ways to use Evernote for Personal Organization

I hope you enjoyed reading this post and is already thinking of ways to organize your lists.  Please drop me a note to let me know what you thought of it !