How do you keep track of your to-do’s?  Are you using Outlook, Evernote, an old-fashioned tablet and a pen?  I have what I will loosely call a passion for making lists.  Sitting down with a cup o’ coffee in the morning and putting together my list for the day or the week, just gets my day and week going on the right foot.

I like to keep myself fairly organized, and feel like I am accomplishing things each and every day.  I have lists for groceries, sewing projects, household projects, gifts ideas, recipe ideas, etc, etc.

I am always trying new and improved ways to organize my lists, with the hopes that the things on the lists will get done just that much sooner.  Ha!  As we all know the only thing that helps move  your lists along, or get things checked off of your list is just by digging in and “doing”.

My lists were bugging me recently, because a few assorted tasks were sitting on the list idly and not getting done.   So,  I decided to keep track of my time for a few days to see where I was wasting time, or not making an efficient use of my time.  This is kind of like writing down what you eat every day to keep track of your calories.  As soon as I started keeping track, in writing, each day of what I was doing I started getting more things done.  More productive time spent on things I wanted to accomplish each day.  My to do lists started getting the items on them checked off in a more timely manner than normal.  Boom!  This principle also applies to stalking your calories each day.  When you write down what you are eating, Boom!  You stop snacking so much because you don’t want to write it down on the list and add it to your calories!

My favorite list / project tool right now is using Evernote.  Evernote can be used for project list or shopping lists and if you have a smart phone you can sync your lists with your smart phone to your pc.  In Evernote you create a notebook for your “project”, and then within each notebook you can create a list of to-do’s, and the notebooks can be shared.  I find this to be a great way to keep track of ongoing projects, that are longer term items.

For my daily lists,  I am finding that the old-fashioned paper and pen method is working   best for the moment.  Just taking a few minutes in the morning to write down what I want to accomplish each day helps me to get on track first thing in the morning.   There is some kind of sense of accomplishment for me to check things off the list!  Oh and I use a red pen for this part!  A good way to feel good about getting things done.

How do you keep yourself organized?  What’s your favorite way to make a list for the day?  Do you work a list each day or week?  Do lists make you cringe?

I’d love to hear from you about how you keep track of your to-do’s.  Leave me a comment!  Happy listing everyone.