Capture Your Time-Drainers and Free Up Your Life

My to-do list was 3 pages long. Double sided. Itrandomly whenever they pop up - set aside a
ranged from "Make eye appointment" and "call Mom"predetermined amount of time each day to take
to "create teleseminar talk" and "create social mediacare of them and batch similar ones together. Do the
plan for client A" to "research homemade cat food"same for the bleed-y business to-dos (email,
and "learn Quickbooks."scheduling appointments, social media time, etc.).
I had just gotten back from being out of townHere's an example of how I've done it:
unexpectedly and was in the midst of several new- Monday is errand day. This is when I get groceries,
business projects in addition to my regular clientrun to Target, take in the recycling, go to the pet
work. And a life. Somewhere in there I had a lifestore, and the post office.
beyond business and to-do lists.- Tuesday is household to-dos. That's when I do
I was working frantically trying to get caught up andlaundry, clean, go through stuff and de-clutter.
get back into a regular schedule. But the list just kept- Wednesday is appointment day. I schedule all my
growing and I kept getting more and more scattered.massages, hair appointments, dentist appointments,
I left my keys in the door 3 days in a row. I was 2eye check-ups, etc. on this day.
days late paying a bill because I just forgot all about- Thursday is business only day - no to-dos allowed!
it. I drove across town to Target 3 times in a week- Friday is finances. This is going to the bank, doing
for the same item because I kept forgetting it. (IQuickbooks, paying bills, and reconciling accounts.
don't even want to remember what else I did thatAnd I don't just say - "I'm doing errands on Monday!"
week!)I schedule it in. It's on Monday, I'm doing errands
I was doing all sorts of weird and forgetful things,from 4 pm - 7pm.
but what I wasn't doing was the important geniusThen, I schedule in daily time for the bleed-y business
work for my business - you know, the stuff that isto-dos. 11 am - 12 pm and 3 pm - 4pm are set aside
actually going to build my business and increase myfor checking and answering emails, scheduling
income?appointments, and doing social media.
I don't know any business owner who hasn'tThe beauty of creating a system like this (and you'll
occasionally felt like their to-do list has taken overhave to tweak it to fit your life and business, of
their life. Unfortunately, most of our to-do lists havecourse) is that you no longer waste hours of time in
little to do with our genius work. Instead they area week because you're making your 3rd trip to the
cluttered with items like getting groceries, going togrocery store. Instead losing focus in the middle of
the post office, doing laundry, getting a haircut,your creative work 3 days in a row because you had
taking in the recycling, and returning those endlessto stop to go to an appointment, you knock them all
emails.out in 5 hours on one day and don't have to worry
I call all these to-dos time drainers - mostly becauseabout them.
we often go about them haphazardly and spend a lotThe best part (at least, for me)? Your life is no
of jumping from one to the next without a plan orlonger taken over by to-dos. You no longer wonder
structure. When our lists get too long, we can startwhen or how you're going to fit them all in. You
to get scattered. Then we end up with even moreknow. It's written down and planned. Your brain can
to-dos that drain our time and energy away from ourrelax because it knows you're taking care of it and it
genius work.can just focus on your genius work.
So, what to do about all those time-drainers?Capture those time-drainers and get them in a
Capture them.system.
Gather them up and create a system for doing them.Free up your life to do the work you love to do.
Instead of doing those individual to-dos of life