The one list that changed everything

Like many people I always seem to have notebook lying around; gifts, samples, freebies from events. I started to find that if I needed to make notes or a to do list, I would just grab the nearest notebook and get writing. The problem was that I often found I then didn’t know where I’d written a certain thought down and that worse, I was running multiple to do lists and that’s before you even count the notes I’d make on my phone.

If I’m totally honest having a to-do list is not something I love. I’m more of a ‘wouldn’t it be nice if we could just glide through life without admin’ kind of lady. If I’m going to have a task list, I genuinely need it to be as simple as possible and having more than one to do list in different places is most definitely not that.

A couple of years ago I listened to the audio version of The One Thing by Gary Keller and it made so much sense. In the months that followed I started thinking about applying the One principle to task management. I’d spent lots of time reading about all sort of different ways people planned and organised their lives but it occurred to me that just one simple list might be the way forward for me.

Now this isn’t exactly revolutionary, I had had daily to do lists before but invariably I never finished everything and so I would find my self rewriting out the same tasks and flicking to old to lists to find uncompleted jobs. Not ideal. It was then I had the idea of creating a weekly to do list. It is so rare I have a task that HAS TO BE DONE TODAY but what if over the course of the week I could cross all ten weekly tasks off my list??

I tried it and within a week I was sold. I didn’t make my weekly list ridiculously long; I really questioned the importance of each task before it was added, and most weeks I have between five and ten tasks on my list. This does not include my business management; if you are running a retail business on less than ten tasks a week please share your secrets!!! For work, I need to involved so many other factors; budgets, costings, timescales and dependent tasks. There is no way I could run my business from a paper planner, but to have all my personal items in one place, organised by week has been a game-changer!

That’s what led me to create The Essential Planner in 2017. It was a physical manifestation of my ideal planner. One weekly list, in one dedicated place. If occasionally a task doesn’t get completed I can move it forward to the next week but for the most part my tasks get done in the week I’ve assigned them and I always know where to look to keep on top things. So much simpler!

I’ll be launching the 2020 planner in the autumn, so if you’re interested in finding out more and receiving an exclusive discount when the planner launches, you can join the dedicated The Essential Planner list here: https://emilyrollings.com/download-the-essential-planner I’ll even send you a free printable to try out before you buy.