Ep 83 - To-Do Lists Suck: 5 Tools to Help You Be More Productive

How do I manage my to-do lists?

This is the most common question I get about time management. We over-emphasize the importance of juggling to-do lists. Sure - make lists of actions that need to be done but usually the actions come from very surface-level thinking.

Of course, we need to jot down reminders at times. We don’t want to forget to Call Bill or pick up pearl onions for that scrumptious recipe you want to make this weekend. In the past, when I made a lot of to-do lists, when I did have time to take action on them, I usually found they weren’t worth doing. Situations change.

Here are five strategies that are better than making to-do lists:

1. Around the World Exercise

Sit in silence for 15 seconds to clear your mind. Go one by one through all of the roles you play. We all juggle between 15-20 roles in our lives - all the hats we wear. Focus on each one and observe what comes up for where you want to go in that role. What needs to change? What’s a trend within that role. What’s a routine you could refine to make progress on that role? Your mind will tell you the big answers if you quiet down for a minute!

2. Ask Quality Questions

Instead of action lists, brainstorm excellent questions for all areas of your life.

Examples:

Who could be my mentor? What are resources I have access to that I’m not using? How can I streamline my busy life? What routines should I start? What are some streaks I want to start?

3. Use Audio

Each day, listen to a recording of yourself reading your mini-mission statements for all of the roles you play.

Example:

I’m a spiritual person & meditator. Transcendental meditation brings beautiful depth to my life. When I’m deep within silence, I catch BIG FISH ideas. I experience bliss whenever I want. Meditation helps me find my center and gets me in the zone for the rest of the day. Being a spiritual person and lifelong meditator helps me share my SOUL with a world that desperately needs it. This is my magic reset button role.

I have an attractive, lean, & strong body. I’m in the best shape of my life. I love looking great in pictures. I act with discipline and exert will power every day. I practice mindful breathing and eat reasonable portions of nutritious food. I breathe fully and drink plenty of water. I need all the vitality I can get to live my purpose and strive towards my vision every day. This is my fuel tank role.

I’m a visionary. Creativity is my greatest gift. I think big every day & constantly absorb new insights and apply them. I’m a lookout tower and lightning rod. I’m a voracious reader and unstoppable force for good. My crystal clear goals keep me on track for achieving my juiciest dreams. This role is my Willy Wonka engine role that drives everything good in my life.

I’m a wealth builder. My abundance is the spark for all of my other roles. Money brings speed and choices. Each disciplined action I take compounds over time. I’m a millionaire. My vibrant relationship with money is a model for my sons - they are learning the mindset they need to have abundance in their lives. This is my abundance role.

I’m a giver. I’m a philanthropist in training. I constantly plant seeds for the future. I give time, money, and resources to worthy causes I’m passionate about. Giving is a habit. Therefore, my sons are becoming lifelong givers. Milton Hershey and Bill Gates are my models for living a generous and wonderful life. This is my legacy role.

I’m a Dad: I’m caring, supportive, & strong for Chris & Dylan. I’m immensely thankful for them and live with gratitude. I’m in-the-moment. I’m consistent, fair, and always tell them the truth. This is my unconditional love role.

I’m a backgammon player. I love deepening my skills and appreciation for this classic game. Backgammon is a perfect fit for me. It involves skill, luck, and gambling. It’s an elegant and sophisticated game. I enjoy playing on my phone, with the kids, at the campground, or by the pool with friends. I’m a happy hobbyist. My passions, hobbies, & interests make my life colorful and keep me smiling. I also love: Ani, Ozzy, Metallica, heavy metal, B movies, horror movies, Jaws, coffee, mixology, WWII history, chess, special forces stuff, the Navy Seals, the secret service, luxury, cooking, reading, parenting, martinis, and journaling. This is my fun role.

I’m a chef. When I’m cooking a new recipe or an old tried-and-true one, I get into the zone. I experience a mix of physical and emotional well-being. I get into my flow state. Cooking is my connection with culture and sophistication. I love managing many things simmering at the same time. I enjoy a craft beer and listen to Van Halen or music whatever fits my mood. This is my flow role.

I’m a movie buff. Watching bad movies is one of my favorite things in life. Throughout the day, I consider which movie I’ll watch that night. Movies are my reward for making progress in all of my roles each day. Great movies connect me with friends and family. This is my reward role.

I’m a joker. My fascination with everything Joker over the years inspires me to be more playful and allow my sense of humor to come through. I’m attracted to the idea of someone who is highly intelligent yet devious. I like rooting for the villain. I’m interested in chaos and anarchy. Thinking like the Joker helps me see a new perspective to any challenge. I love the idea of a grand plan.This is my risk role.

I’m a writer. Being a lifelong journaler is the spark plug for my creativity. I consider creativity my greatest strength. Nobody can take it away from me. My creativity gives me courage to be at my most confident for my tribe and humankind. I’m passionate about improving my writing ability. Writing slows me down so I can savor good feelings. Reading strengthens my writing. This is my craftsmanship role.

I’m a professional speaker. Speaking is the perfect vehicle for me to express my authenticity. It’s a role that’s helped me find myself - then package it for others. Speaking is a challenge that feels right. I practice and expand my skills so I can speak with an engaging rhythm and use carefully selected imagery to move my audiences. This is my authenticity role.

I’m an entrepreneur. I’m the founder of Scott Snow Speaks workshops and seminars and All the Hats We Wear Coaching and have other innovative and mission-driven companies in development. I’m a business student - always refining my mechanics and strategies for running a profitable business. I rely on mentors and role models to deepen my Warren Buffet-like business mastery. This is my life’s contribution role.

I’m a sales professional with swag. I’m committed to practicing and perfecting the skills of selling. Grant Cardone has prepared me for every selling challenge. I focus first on being of service and always show prospects and customers that I’m hungry for their business. This is my role for being of service.

I’m a professional life coach and executive coach. I’m the most exclusive and sought-after productivity coach on the east coast. I’m booked solid months in advance because of word-of-mouth referrals. I coach powerful individuals who are ready to become fully expressed in their lives. My Think Like a Musician curriculum is my clients’ lifeline. I empower my clients by teaching them the time management skills they need to be joyful productive, and fulfilled in all areas of life. This is my secret weapon role.

I’m a social media contributor. I focus on being of service to my others. I am self-less. I contribute and add to conversations and give a boost to all I come in contact with. I build upon and add to what others are doing. I love being part of other people’s tribes and love leading a tribe of my own. This is my connection role.

I’m a productivity expert. I’ve dedicated my life to becoming as informed and knowledgeable as humanly possible in all areas of productivity. I have my finger on the pulse my industry and make innovative connections with industries outside my expertise as well. My authenticity shines through because I’m in complete alignment because my goals, values, actions, & mission are in sync. This is my alignment role.

I’m a music therapist. I focus my passion for music to enrich the lives of others. My private practice is proof that I can build a profitable business. I play guitar, sing, and play drums. Music connects every stage of my life. Music therapy is the launchpad to the badass productivity business I’m growing now. Music has taught me everything I know about humility, beauty, structure, and performance. This is my passion role.

4. Silence the Voices in Your Head

Have you noticed how pervasive your inner thoughts can be to being productive and getting things done? Stop it! If you have a list of actions, notice when you start to whine about doing them in your head. Your inner voices are gumming up efficiency.

Here’s an exercise to help. It’s the towel folding exercise. Grab a basket of clean towels and begin folding them. Focus on getting into a steady flow of action. If you catch yourself having an opinion about which towel to pick up next - start over! No opinions allowed - not even for a millisecond! Now apply this same attitude to tidying up your desk. Next, apply it to an hour of getting things done and keep expanding the time and breadth of the work session.

5. Embrace the Magic Spiral

All day you’re spiraling in and out between detail and bigger picture thinking. You don’t have to get a tangible result from every action! If you’re creatively blocked, you probably need to shift gears into finer detail work or pan out to a bigger picture lens. Most of us don’t utilize the awesome power of our minds. You can only access your wonderful mind’s capacity by slipping deeper into thought. We exist in complete turmoil and noise most of the day. Stop!

Here are some simply deep thinking techniques that force you to access deeper resources within your mind:

brainstorm, center, connect, consider, decide, intuition, meditation, strategize, question, plan, prioritize, and envision.

So, let’s move beyond those silly to-do lists and start thinking big. If you’d like help, give me call and I can show you how to apply these techniques to your crazy, busy life so you can become more joyful, productive, and fulfilled in all areas of life. I offer workshops and trainings in the areas of work life balance, productivity, and creativity.

Scott Snow is a productivity expert, speaker, podcaster, and life coach. He is the founder of Think Like a Musician, whose purpose is to help you learn the time management skills you need to be joyful, productive, & fulfilled in all areas of life.

He teaches a unique and innovative approach to managing your crazy, busy life. It's a musician's approach to time management and work-life balance. Call 774-230-3928 now to customize a training for your organization or to inquire about coaching availability.

Ep 43 - Live a More Fulfilling Life by Reaching Your Potential : An Interview with Trevor Lohrbeer, Serial Entrepreneur and Day Optimizer web app creator

Trevor Lohrbeer is a serial entrepreneur with a mission to help others live a more fulfilling life by reaching their potential. He does this by creating software and mental models that help people reason about the world and solve existing problems in new ways. His current project is Day Optimizer, a web app that helps freelancers and solopreneurs convert their task list into a daily schedule to help them focus on their priorities and live a more balanced life.

Ep 34 - A Creative Approach to Career Transition: An Interview with Chris Misterek, Web Designer

You’ll hear a moving story of renewal and reinvention that resonates with many of us during these challenging times. Chris Misterek is a highly creative musician. He shares productivity tips and offers handy insights into creating a top-notch web site for your business.

Related link:
www.selfmadewebdesigner.com

Podcast Notes:

Toggl App

12 Week Year

Cave Day

Focus Mate

8:50 Work life balance approach: self-compassion

Book: Indistractible: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life

16:00 Listening to music and productivity

Taking to Productivity Like a Trout to a Butter Worm

1. Our phrase of the day is from the awesome tv series, Blacklist, starring James Spader. The phrase is “he took to it like a trout to a butter worm” - very descriptive and concrete, hah? I scribbled down this phrase as soon as I heard it. So, what have been YOUR greatest and most consistent interests and passions through the years? What’s a natural fit for you? What’s something you can’t get enough of? It’s important to identify and honor these special interests - they can be the engine for your life’s work and well-being. 

I’m realizing the beauty of small things that give us good feelings such as confidence, strength, and rejuvenation. It can be as inconsequential as cleaning off your glasses with lens wipes! Don’t under-estimate the cumulative effect of all these good things throughout the day and evening. Make a list of the small things that make you feel positive feeling states.

2. Audio journal check-in: being home-bound most of the time, makes it harder to have privacy. In typical times, I enjoyed the routine of dictating my journal while driving home from work (hands-free, of course, to be safe). I miss that! With the pandemic, I’m speaking softly into my digital recorder at the very end of the night when I’m exhausted. This is usually around 1:30am! When I gabbed in my car, I got in state - I was loud, I spoke with excitement and had an engaging rhythm. I allowed my momentum to lead me to different areas. And I spoke for 7-10 minutes, whereas, now I speak 2-3 minutes. I need to get the old audio journaling me back. 

3. I’m frustrated with social media because I’ve gotten a taste for authentic dialogue with a select few people I’ve met online but a large majority of my interactions is B.S.! It’s to the point where I don’t even want to respond to people because I suspect they’re just sizing me up for the sales funnel. I hate that! And I keep getting drawn in! I’m easily tricked, it seems. It’s hard to determine when someone is genuinely asking what you do. I guess I need to work through that. 

4. Productivity tip: make it as easy as possible to take up where you left off each day - with everything! I love routines and systems - that’s the beauty of lists. Capture those gems quickly and move on. I use the Scrivener software program to organize my many categories of ideas. It’s a writer’s program and it’s only $49! 

Examples: 

• I use a one-subject notebook to jot down my creative snippets to dictate into my audio journal - it’s always at arm’s length

• My morning routine is: brush teeth, have a glass of water, do transcendental meditation for 20 minutes, and then hop on the treadmill

• Small stack of dvd’s pre-selected and in the batter’s box to watch - they’re next in line - everything is funneling through!

5. Social media strategy: I’m going to try to do a once a day strategy for all of my social media output: blog, Youtube video, Instagram, Facebook, and All the Hats We Wear podcast. It seems like a lot, but many social media gurus recommend doing much more. I tried creating a Monday, Wednesday, Friday routine for Youtube or Tuesday/Thursday plan for blogging but I couldn’t get into a rhythm. We’ll see! I figure if I did one thing a day on all my favorite platforms - that’s a good amount of material over the long-term. Anything more than one piece of content is gravy. I’m finding more and more than I need to do what I feel is right over doing the status quo. I’ve never gotten too excited over the 7 steps to blah, blah, blah template. 

6. My scrapbooking is going very well. I have 8 large 3-ring binders full of clipped articles and pictures. I”m currently creating an index document so I can sort them. So, I’ll be able to troll down to all my articles on “Productivity” for a coming article I’m writing or video.  I’ve spent an enormous amount of time cataloguing them for easy reference. I’m grinding this seemingly busy work so I can have the resources I need at mu fingertips for better posts and better preparing myself for being a productivity expert. I’ve been contemplating how I’m really in the idea business! So, I should curate and tend to my idea garden, as much as possible.  

7. My next project is to create a time management boot camp-type of e-course - perhaps using Thinkific. Which time management challenges should I cover in my e-course?

5 Time Management Tips We Can Learn from "Jaws"

I attended a screening of Jaws with a theater full of other crazy aficionados of the 1975 classic. Throughout the movie, I realized there are plenty of take-aways to help us with our time management skills. Get out your popcorn, dim the lights, and board the Orca to set sail to Amity Island to learn a few nifty tips for personal productivity.

#1 - Prepare Constantly - When the town of Amity realizes it has a big problem, Quint (top shark fisherman on the island), makes a memorable sales presentation. He explains why he is most suited to the task in a very convincing way and makes a hefty offer of $10,000 plus a case of apricot brandy to catch the unwelcome visitor. His demeanor is calm and confident. If you write your battle plan the night before or have a routine each morning before work, you will find opportunities falling into your lap over time. When you prepare, you see life differently. For example, after reading all of Grant Cardone’s books on selling, I look at customer service in a new light and notice lost selling and service opportunities each day. 

#2 - Maintain Focus Through the Noise - Amity Island’s mayor chooses not to hire Quint and instead allows low skill locals to compete for the $3,000 bounty offered by a victim’s mother. Insanity ensues as dozens of hapless amateurs head out to sea. There’s a scene where Quint is sailing by the bedlam with a great big grin and tips his hat. It’s obvious he knows the lesser fishermen won’t catch the Great White. He is aware of the depth of the challenge and knows they can’t meet it. The daily, weekly, and monthly routines you develop, as a result of, refining your goals, will give you that extra proficiency.

#3 - You Can’t Stay Underwater with Three Barrels - In the final act of the movie, Quint, Mr. Hooper, and Chief Brody are in a battle with the killer shark far out to sea. Each time the shark gets near the boat, the fishermen attach another yellow barrel to it - making it increasingly difficult for the fish to remain underwater. How many barrels are you bringing with you at all times? 

One strategy to release a few of those extra barrels is to become more aware of switching life roles. You can’t do multiple tasks simultaneously nor can you be in-the-moment for more than one role. Here’s a handy exercise: jot down every moment of transition between roles in a typical day or week. For example, when I dropped my kids off at daycare, I’d transition from my Dad role to my entrepreneurial role with a touch of my mp3 player (changing from The Wiggles children’s album to an audio book on work life balance by Greg McKeown titled Essentialism. Naturally, this transition doesn’t mean I’m not a Dad anymore until I see the kids after work, but it serves as a clear moment of change in roles. 

#4 - Capture the Essence - John Williams is the master of film scoring. In a behind-the-scenes feature, he described his initial viewing of Jaws as a swashbuckling pirate movie! And some of his action music in the final act express it. Water is splashing, boats are getting yanked about, and it’s very playful. By composing mini-mission statements for your roles, you will capture the essence of each role so you can connect with it each day. 

#5 - Cultivate Quiet Intensity - For most Jaws maniacs, Quint’s speech about his experience being on the Navy’s U.S.S. Indianapolis ship that sunk and many of its sailors were claimed by the circling sharks is the most memorable speech of the film. He delivers his gripping story in a very subdued manner but the intensity of the story is quite jarring and unnerving. What are the moments of your day when you make powerful insights? Can you multiply them? Try journal writing or intention writing to amplify these moments of quiet intensity.  

#5 - You’re Gonna Need a Better Time Management System - The most memorable line of the film is actually ad libbed by Roy Scheider who says in a half-daze after seeing the beast for the first time up close, “You’re gonna need bigger boat.” Same thing goes for your time management system. You need a system that can capture your best ideas, hold you accountable, clarify your goals, cultivate your innate creativity, manage large scale projects, and provide you with a method that can be shared with teammates. What’s the biggest time management challenge that’s taking a bite out of your quality time?