It’s been a good year, so far.  Busy but good.  Then again it’s always busy, but that’s just life with little people running around.  It just comes with the territory.  This year I’ve been trying to focus on how to be productive with young kids.  Instead of feeling defeated and overwhelmed constantly I’ve realized I just have to be more creative with my solution.  I wouldn’t trade this time in my life for anything and I certainly don’t want to wish it away, so it’s just important for me to figure out how to embrace all this craziness so I can keep my sanity.  I’m still a work in progress (just ask Tim) but I’m determined to make my days run smoother, increase my productivity level while being more present with my kiddos and husband.  I’ve quickly realized as a mom that the quote, I believe by, Benjamin Franklin, “Failing to plan is planning to fail”, couldn’t be closer to the truth.  It’s not true for just busy moms or dads, but really for everyone.

I am the queen of having 32 to-do lists floating around.  I have one on the counter, some on my phone, one OR ten in my purse and they are all for different areas of my life.  It’s always great when one of those lists goes through the laundry.  Anyway, that system is just confusing and overwhelming.  I tried having separate notebooks for personal, business, grocery, home projects…etc but it simply wasn’t working either.  I love having a tangible list in front of me that I get to cross items off once completed but I need something more.

So my solution was to find an app that could be on all my devices and sync so that I could add items on any of them (iPad, iPhone, my computers) and have them all be up to date.  I chose to use one called Evernote.  There is a free version and a premium version.  I’m currently using the free one.  I’ve had it for awhile and haven’t fully taken advantage of it but this week I’ve been working with it a lot more and have been loving it.  I’ll be using this both for business and personal.

I can’t completely give up my paper lists,  so for my daily to-dos I’ll pull from Evernote and make a paper to-do note.  Don’t we all get that sense of accomplishment when you cross something that list?

What system works best for you?

Apparently I’m not the only one with things to do.