Episode 01: The Power of a Simple To-Do List to Lessen Your Mental Load
Do you ever feel like your brain is about to explode from holding onto too much? All those reminders, dates, errands, messages you need to send, and things you need to order run like a ticker in the background of your mind. Well, before you can even think about how and when you're going to get all those things done, you need to ease the overwhelm and create some mental space. And the easiest way to do that is so simple that most people skip over it in favor of more complicated processes. It's a to-do list.
In this episode, I explain why the first exercise I do with all my coaching clients is an audit of their to-do list. When you're feeling overwhelmed by your mental load, the best thing you can do is get everything out of your head and onto a list so you can make sense of it and make a plan. I walk you through how to get started today, even if it's just by grabbing a piece of paper. I also share some of my favorite to-do list tools and how to choose the one that's right for you. Pop in those earbuds and get ready to lessen your mental load.
In this episode, you’ll learn…
When you're feeling overwhelmed by your mental load, the best thing you can do is get everything out of your head and onto a list.
When your to-dos are scattered in different places (notebooks, email inbox, messages app, post-its, etc.), it takes so much more time and effort to create a plan for how and when you're going to get everything done. Creating a central home for your to-do list makes the work of actually getting things done so much easier.
There are so many different tools you can use for capturing to-dos - paper, software, apps, and planners. I've tried dozens over the years and the secret is that they ALL work. Think about your natural tendencies and choose one that feels easy to implement and maintain.
You don't have to choose your forever to-do list tool. Just pick something that you can get started with today. You're practicing the skill of capturing to-dos and that skill can transfer to whatever tool you use. You can always change it later.
links & resources mentioned in this episode:
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You are listening to the Life Coach for Working Moms podcast, the show where we are talking about what it actually takes to make life work as a working mom. I'm your host, Katelyn Denning, a full time working mom of three and a certified life and executive coach. I'm so glad you're here and I hope you enjoy this week's episode.
Hey, welcome back to another episode of the podcast, we just had one of those perfect summer showers that pops up in the middle of the afternoon and just has me thinking, Oh, thank God. I don't have to water all of my plants tonight. That's taken care of. So good. Check that off the list.
If you know me in real life, you know that in real life, what does that even mean? I don't even know. I don't even know how to come back from that. Okay. I'm a gardener. How about we go there? I'm a gardener. I always tend to overdo it a little bit. We've got some raised beds in the back. We're growing mostly just tomatoes this year, some basil, some rosemary, I think pepper plant.
My husband loves to pickle jalapenos. But mostly tomatoes because we make spaghetti sauce and things like that that we can freeze and keep and use throughout the year. And then I do, oh, I don't know, maybe eight or so pots of flowers around my patio, which are of course so beautiful, but I always forget how much that adds up when you go to the nursery and buy enough plants to fill all of those pots, plus fresh potting soil.
So I'll probably do a future podcast episode about this, but I am taking some notes. I love to take notes for my future self after every season, every holiday. I don't know any activity or event that we do that I, that we might repeat in the future. I love to jot down like. How did it go?
What do I want to remember? And so I'm definitely taking notes because next spring come planting season, I want to reevaluate like, is it too much? Did I do too much? All that to say, normally I spend most evenings out watering everything because it's super hot here in the middle of July in Cincinnati, Ohio, where I am, but thankfully.
That shower just crossed off an item on my to do list, which brings me to today's topic. Look at that. I didn't even plan that. We're going to talk about to do lists. All right. So, love them or hate them. I think it's just a throwaway concept. Super easy. Kind of like, what One of those things that you hear about or someone talks to you about as a tool or a strategy and you're like, duh.
But you would be amazed at how many women I talk to who are not jotting things down. Or maybe only sporadically. And then when I say, wow, you sound really overwhelmed or you've got a lot on your plate right now. Have you gotten that out of your head somewhere where you can look at it and analyze it and figure out how you're going to do what you are telling yourself you have to do?
They look at me like I've just, I don't know, solved some huge crisis or major problem. I'm like, it's just a list. But anyway. Wherever you are on your sort of list journey, whether you are an avid to do list maker, maintainer, you're a sporadic one, or you think that you are the exception to the rule and can hold everything in your head, we're going to talk today about this critical, but And yes, basic, but very critical foundational tool and why this is the place that I start all of my clients.
So anyone who comes to work with me, one of the first questions I am going to ask you is talk to me, tell me about what you do. When you think of something or you're reminded of something that you either need or want to do at some point, maybe before the end of the day, this week, this month, before the deadline, or just at some, I don't know, abstract time in the future.
What do you do with that thing? Where do you go? Where do you put it? So I've seen all sorts of examples, of course, and, and experienced most of them in my own life, too, let's be honest. Maybe you're jotting them down on a post it note. Maybe you're leaving them in your inbox or, like, in your messages app on your phone.
Somebody texts you, , my husband will do this sometime, Hey, we gotta remember to do such and such. And I'll leave it there. Or you leave it in your inbox, or, like I said, you jot it down somewhere, or you put it into a digital notebook. Maybe you use, like, Evernote or OneNote, or you're using, like, a task app.
The options are endless. But where do you put that thing, right? I have a whole process, of course, for what to do beyond just having the to do list. But at the very least, getting it out of your head, putting it somewhere, is so freeing. Even if you do nothing else with it, like decide when you're going to do it or how you're going to do it, or put it into some sort of regular process or system where you're checking your list regularly and creating an actual plan for your day or for your week, just the act of writing something down is like an exhale.
It takes so much mental energy to keep track of things mentally, right? Think about it. Every time you are thinking about let me, let me use an example from my own life, right? What has been on my list for the last few weeks is to get the kids registered for fall soccer. All three of my kids want to play soccer again and registration opens up in the summer.
There's usually an early bird discount. And if I don't write that down somewhere and put it on a list that then I'm going to reference and use and actually have a plan for how to get it done, it's an open loop in my brain. So what my brain does in order to ensure that it doesn't get forgotten is it continues to present it.
Right? I'm gesturing like a silver platter. Your brain's like, oh, hey, soccer registrations. Don't forget about those, right? It keeps coming up again and again, or it just sort of plays like a running ticker in your brain. Glennon Doyle. If you're familiar with Glennon and her work, right? She always talks about the tickers.
Like the, the news tickers that you see across the screen, right. That are always giving you, what the stock market is doing or whatever's happening, the headlines. There are these tickers that run through our brains because. It's worried. Our brain is worried. We won't remember. Maybe we have proof of that, maybe we have a track record or history of forgetting things, letting things fall through the cracks, and so it is doing its job.
Thank you. Right? That takes up mental bandwidth, capacity. It's an energy leak. And so going back to this idea of even if you don't do anything with the list, even if you write it down somewhere and set it aside and you don't come back to it with a plan for how to get those things done, there is value in getting it out of sort of the forefront of your mind.
So it's one of the first things that I will do or tell anyone to do if you are feeling overwhelmed. If you are feeling paralyzed by how much you have to do. You absolutely must take five minutes to get everything out of your head. It's the only way forward. It's the only way forward. So one of the ways that I teach to do lists.
is to create a central home. All right. So yes, if you, if you only have capacity or you really only want to just experience sort of the catharsis that comes with writing things down, getting them out of your head, the freedom that you have from that. Great. But if you want to set the foundation for being able to intentionally get things done, to be able to plan for when you're going to do things at the optimal time, or so that you don't miss a deadline, or they don't fall through the cracks, I teach and advocate for having a central home for all of your to dos, and I'm going to give you a sort of an analogy, if you will, of what I mean by this.
So let's picture that you are trying to get dressed in the morning maybe you're in the office one day a week. I've got some clients right now who have these, right, return to the office policies going into place. And so everybody's putting on their hard pants again. We're going back into the office, not full time, but maybe just a day.
So let's, let's imagine that you're getting dressed in the morning. You're going into the office, but let's imagine that your clothes, when you put them away, you put them in different rooms and different homes throughout your home. Okay, so let's say, you know, first as you're getting dressed, you need a pair of underwear and those are in the pantry.
So you run downstairs to the pantry to grab a pair of underwear. Then you're like, oh, well, need to grab a pair of pants. Oh, those are in the hall closet. Let me grab my pants from the hall closet and Well, probably should wear a bra to the office. So let me go grab that. I have those upstairs. Those, those are actually in my bedroom.
So I'm going to go grab a bra there and then, Oh shoot. I need a top. Hmm. Where are those? Oh yeah. They're in the shelves in the living room. So you go down and grab a top. Not only are you running around to all of the different places, having to remember where do the pants live? Where does my underwear live?
Where do the tops? Where are my belts? Where are my socks? Where are my shoes? Did anything get put away? Maybe they're still in the laundry basket. Maybe they're still in the dryer. Right? So not only are you having to think about where are these items living, you're putting together an outfit without being able to see all of the options.
So, maybe your wardrobe is all color coordinated and it really doesn't matter what pair of pants and which top you choose, they're all gonna match, but maybe not. And maybe you grab a pair of pants, but then you realize when you get to the tops, the ones that are clean don't actually go with the pants that you have, so then you gotta go back to, I forget where I said the pants live, maybe the pantry, no, the bedroom so you have to go back up there and swap your pants, right?
You're making choices about what to wear based on incomplete information. You're spending so much time and effort piecing together an outfit, whereas, right, if the opposite were true, and you have everything in, say, your closet, or a combination of your closet and your dresser. You can open up the doors or the drawers, see all of the options that are there, see what's actually clean today, and make your decision about what to wear and grab all of the pieces in such a short amount of time.
So creating a central home for your to dos is like having a closet or a dresser where everything lives, where you can open it up, scan the list, and start to make your decisions about what you're going to wear today or do today. Which things have a deadline? What feels most important? Which items am I just tired of seeing on my to do list day after day and I just want to cross off?
Right. So a lot of times I will see women who have their to do's collected in various locations. And that's, you know, that's just the reality. Sometimes we're moving so fast, we grab whatever is right in front of us. So again, we mentioned maybe your to do's live in your inbox. Maybe some of them live in your messages app.
Maybe some of them are on some post its or in a random notebook or on a piece of paper, whatever was handy. Maybe you sent a voice memo to yourself. Put a couple of items, maybe you were good for a week, and you put them all into some sort of digital notebook or maybe an app sort of project management tool.
There are so many options out there, right? And so you've got these to dos in scattered places. This is actually another reason why I really do advocate for a central home for all of your to dos. And when I say all, I mean everything, work, home, personal. However you would divide it up, having them in one place makes it so much easier to know where they all live.
Maybe you divide those up into categories so that when you are primarily working, you're at the office, you're focused on work tasks. When you're in the evenings or on the weekends, you're focused on home things. I have experimented with other categories, which we can certainly get into more, like what.
Things do I do at my computer versus what things do I do kind of around the house physically, right? Like putting clothes away or hanging that picture or cleaning this thing and which items do I need to get in my car and go run an errand for or walk, right? To go do. But this central or, one place for all of your to dos is really more about building the habit of just putting all of those things that you need and want to remember in the same place.
Now, there could be some exceptions, and I'd love to hear from you. If you really want to make a case for why this won't work for you, please, I'd love to know. I'm thinking of clients in the past who maybe had jobs, I'm thinking maybe like healthcare workers, where you truly do not have the ability. To do anything like jot down something that you might think of like, Oh shoot, I need to order a new swimsuit for my son or need to register, right?
For those lessons or something like that, where you truly don't have the ability to jot those things down while you're on the clock. Or conversely, you have a job where you really cannot, for security reasons, bring anything work related home, right? So, if you think of anything that you need to do for work while you're off hours, I guess you're putting it on a piece of paper and you're carrying it into the office the next day.
So, I, I think if, maybe if you're in one of those scenarios, You, you would have those separated, but even then I want to offer that our brains, you know, are still going to do their thing. And they're probably going to offer up reminders of personal things when you're at work and work things when you're off the clock.
And so just have a plan. Where will you put those things? When you remember them, but you're maybe not quite in, you're not wearing that hat at the moment, where will you put those things so you don't forget? Again, we'll get into it in a later episode in much more detail about what to do with all of the things on your list, how to categorize them if you want to do that, how to slot those things in to your calendar so that they actually get done, how to decide priority order.
Creating those daily and weekly to do lists, which is kind of the next iteration and step that I take all of my clients through. But for now, I want you just to think about this practice of having some place you can trust. Someplace that you can rely on to house those things to free up your mental bandwidth.
Even if you don't have a practice of checking this to do list regularly, yet, we'll get you there, start to build the habit now. I think one of the reasons that to do's and tasks feel so overwhelming is often just because we worry, right? We worry that we'll forget that we are forgetting something that something will fall through the cracks.
I. I use this example a lot, but it's, so real for me. And I think it resonates with so many of you too, that, you know, picture that scene, whatever that looks like for you, where you are, I mean, I remember this so vividly with my kids, with my oldest when he was really young, you know, you're sitting on the floor Playing with duplos or blocks or, you know, something like that building and of course they're being cute and and this is a moment You know, this is something you should be present for you should be here like really soaking up this time Maybe I'm for me.
I was at work all day right come home and instead of being there Where my feet were on the ground, sitting cross legged, building the thing, my mind was running with what all I needed to do after he went to sleep. What else I didn't get to that day at the office. What I needed to make sure that I got done first thing when I got to work and opened up my laptop.
So that is what we do with to dos and tasks when we don't have them somewhere that we trust. A place that we know we can come back to and look at again because, you know, we're not going to forget. It's there. We wrote it down. Our brain doesn't have to keep offering it up to us. Give yourself the peace of mind, allow yourself to be present with where you are by writing it down or adding it somewhere to some tool for safekeeping.
Now, the next question a lot of people ask me is like, well, what do you use? How do you do it? Where does your to do list live? And I'll be honest, I have done it all. And I know, I want to say I'm very confident in knowing that I'm probably not done in my lifetime experimenting with different tools. And here's the thing, the secret I want to let you in on.
All of the tools work. It's true. They all work. They're amazing. Whether, you know, it's this app or software or a planner, they're all amazing. They all can work. What this is about is building a habit of getting things out of your head, not forcing yourself to remember, to grip so tightly that you have to constantly be thinking about it lest you forget.
So that habit of, of collecting to dos for safekeeping of putting them somewhere will travel with you from tool to tool, from project management software, to app, to notebook, to planner, it will travel with you. It's traveled with me for decades. That habit will not go away. Just my tool will change. So here are some of the ones that I have used.
And like I said, I have used a lot and I'll walk you through some questions as well, if you are getting started, you want to choose something, how could you choose? So I think one of the OG tools that I used, and if you were to dig through my archives here, actually, with Mother Nurture, with my coaching practice, I did a number of trainings then as well, because for me, I was so excited, and it was Trello.
I used Trello. I still use Trello, just for a different purpose now, actually. All of my private clients have access to a Trello board where we keep all of the notes and homework items and to dos throughout our coaching relationship. Resources, links, it all lives there. I love Trello. I think Trello is an amazing tool.
It just, wasn't what I wanted to use anymore, but I did use it for years. So I've used Trello. I've used Asana. I've used ClickUp. Those are somewhat similar, more project management. I actually still use ClickUp today. That is where I manage my bigger projects within my business with my assistant, with Allison.
I've used This app that was called ToDo, but spelled e a u x. We used, my husband and I used to live in New Orleans, so it was kind of a nod to that, and I loved it, and it was a great app. Right? My life was a little bit more simple then, but I've had clients that also used Todoist, which I think is somewhat similar to that.
I, you know, for a while experimented in my corporate days with, I don't even know if this is what it's still called, but Microsoft, you know, what, whatever was in Outlook, the task manager there, I made that work for a long time collecting all of my to dos. I ultimately transitioned to a little bit more of a paper model for myself.
I have hybrid, which Which we can talk about too, but I used the Passion Planner for years. Then I switched to the Panda Planner, one that I still recommend. I love the Panda Planner. I used the Monk Manual, which I think is amazing, kind of for that next step beyond just a basic to do list. And then I ended up transitioning to Bullet Journaling.
And from there, and what I'm using today, is a remarkable digital notebook, and I create my own layouts, which I know is so extra, whatever. It is what it is. I create my own layouts and, and bring those into my Remarkable. So that I'm just, I was just collecting, honestly, piles and piles of notebooks for my planner, for my to do list, for all of that.
It was just taking up too much space. I had a hard time getting rid of them. They felt like a great documentation of my life. So I've switched to Remarkable where everything can be digital. And I, and I do love that. But I don't always have my Remarkable with me, right? And so I want to offer too, and we can talk about sort of this hybrid approach.
Okay? So as you think about how to choose, I would start with, right, what do you naturally gravitate toward? If I were to tell you right now, oh, hey, don't forget to call so and so. You need to make that appointment before the end of the week. What would you reach for? Do you reach for your phone to, you know, I don't know, whatever your old habit was, send yourself a text message or an email?
Do you look around wherever you are for like a pen and a piece of paper where you could jot it down? Do you open up something on your laptop if you happen to be at your desk? Where do you naturally go when someone tells you something or you think of something that you don't want to forget? That's a good clue of maybe where you could start and then beyond that you can think about What's practical for your life, right?
What will you have with you most of the time? And then thinking about what will you use when you don't have that thing with you. So I mentioned I don't always have my Remarkable with me. So when I think of something that I want to remember, I add it into an app on my phone. So I use OneNote.
We're kind of a Microsoft family here at the Denning household. So I will jot it down in OneNote, and then the next time I am with my Remarkable, I check that list. That's kind of my, like, temporary home, and I'll transfer them over. I had a client years ago who was a winemaker, super cool, and, you know, she was always on the go between different locations and she loved paper but didn't always want to be carrying, you know, her full planner with her.
From, you know, location to location, but she always had a clipboard, because she had a couple of spreadsheets and lists that she needed just for operations of the facility, and so she had like a half actually I think she used note cards, she always had that with her, and so anytime she would think of things, she just jotted down on that note card that lived on her clipboard.
And then the next time she was actually in her office, seated, had her planner nearby, she would transfer all of those over. Maybe it is an email to yourself and that's fine if that's the temporary holding place, but then transition it, transfer it to the everyday home. So for a lot of my clients that like paper, we make sure that they have sort of a plan B on their phone because they usually have their phone with them.
I do have a client. Right now actually, who often doesn't have her phone with her. She's one of those amazing people who can sort of leave it and forget and not even sure where it is. So for her, she's actually carrying always with her a small, tiny notebook in her purse. That's her temporary place, right?
That is keeping those things before she transitions them over to a software tool that she uses mostly at her desk. Okay. It's thinking about, again, what are you naturally drawn to? What will you have with you most of the time? And then where will you temporarily put things when you don't have that main tool with you?
And then I want to remind you that you are not choosing your forever partner. You're not getting married to whatever you choose. This is not till death do us part. This is just starting with something, anything. Remember I told you they all work. All of the tools work. We can make them all work. You are starting with something that's easy, that's accessible.
I really don't want you to have to like learn something new or go buy something or wait for something to ship to you. I don't want you to wait. You can always change the tool later. You are focused right now on building the skill, building the skill of jotting things down of giving your brain a break.
So it doesn't have to have all of that responsibility of remembering everything. So today, regardless of whether you've chosen any, a tool or what you want to use, just grab whatever is handy and do yourself a favor. Take one minute, get those things that you've been thinking about out of your head and onto paper.
I promise you will feel so much better. And if you want a step by step plan, to walk you through how to implement a consolidated to do list that will serve as the foundation for getting yourself organized, right? This is the first step before we can open the closet and actually pick out our outfit, What's on our calendar and what the weather is and what's clean, all of that.
All of those decisions that you ultimately have to make about the things on your to-do list. I have a guide that walks you through it all in detail. I mean, this thing has so much in it. It is just chockfull of examples and links. Very detailed next steps, you can head to themothernurture.com/resources. I'll put the link in the show notes along with all of the other tools that I've mentioned in this episode. So you can find them all there, can find the notes, the links so much more on my website for the podcast. You can go to themothernurture. com slash podcast. And I would love for you to DM me on Instagram.
I'm @lovemothernurture. If you have any questions. about anything I've talked about on today's episode, or if you want to share your progress on getting your to do list out of your head, I would love to chat with you. Send me a DM and we will talk again next time. Take care. Bye.
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