Living Lucky® Podcast with Jason and Jana Banana

Mastering Your To-Do List: Strategies for Greater Productivity and Alignment with Personal Goals

• Jana and Jason Shelfer • Season 5 • Episode 48

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Are you constantly overwhelmed by your to-do list? Jana and Jason are here to help you transform your approach to task management. In this dynamic podcast episode, they redefine the traditional to-do list, turning it into a powerful tool for productivity and personal growth. They introduce the innovative Quadrant Method, a system to effectively manage your tasks. Through candid personal stories and practical insights, Jana and Jason share their own experiences with task management and how they've turned it around.

Fasten your seat belts for a journey into the realm of efficiency and the art of prioritizing tasks. But this episode is about more than just task management; it's about understanding the significance of your tasks and aligning them with your personal goals and belief system. You'll learn to decode the importance of tasks for both you and others and how this understanding can lead to greater productivity.

Whether you're a career-driven professional, a multitasking parent, or a student overwhelmed with assignments, Jana and Jason have the insights to help you dominate your to-do list.

Discover how to:

  • Redefine your to-do list for improved productivity
  • Implement the Quadrant Method to manage tasks effectively
  • Understand the significance of tasks in the context of your goals
  • Gain control over your daily schedule
  • Find balance and increase productivity

Don't miss this insightful episode where you'll unlock the secrets to mastering your to-do list and taking control of your life. Start living lucky today!

For more inspiring episodes and in-depth discussions on personal development, visit startlivinglucky.com.

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*Previously Recorded

Speaker 1:

Are you ready to create a life you crave? Let's spin that doom loop of negativity into an upward success cycle and start living lucky. Good morning. I'm Jana, I'm Jason and we are living lucky, we finally did it together.

Speaker 3:

Hello, we're talking about prioritizing today.

Speaker 2:

Sometimes it's easy and sometimes it's hard.

Speaker 3:

I am a to-do list girl. I have been making to-do list for as long as I can remember. In fact, I even make to-do list for my to-do list, that's right.

Speaker 2:

Check off the to-do list. Make to-do list. Answer how things to to to to do list. To do, do, do, do, do yeah it feels like you're to do and do and do and do all the time. I think you just said do, do. Darn tootin.

Speaker 3:

I just sound like Beavis and Button. I'm like he just said do, do. But I even sometimes will do a task and then, just to get that dopamine hit, I will go put it on my to-do list so that I can mark it off.

Speaker 2:

See, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, because one of the biggest things is we'll get through with a day and we're exhausted and there will be a couple items left on the to-do list, and then we beat ourselves up over those three items when we've gotten dozens of things done.

Speaker 3:

Okay, that's my pet peeve. That is my pet peeve because I remind myself all the time look at everything you got done.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

However, sometimes we focus on everything we didn't do.

Speaker 2:

There's few things that we didn't do, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And I'll even make it a new to-do list because I'm like, oh well, I want a nice, new, clean to-do list.

Speaker 2:

Let's give me things to start tomorrow.

Speaker 3:

And then I think well, now I have a new to-do list that has no markings off.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so the truth is, the to-do list never ends, that's true. But if we can prioritize and do the most important time critical things up front, yes Then it leaves space.

Speaker 3:

Okay. So what we're really talking about today is that the to-do list is old-fashioned.

Speaker 2:

And timeless.

Speaker 3:

I don't know if any of you know this. Yes, it's old-fashioned and timeless all at the same time.

Speaker 2:

You can make it better.

Speaker 3:

It's a classical, old-fashioned. Give me an old-fashioned, it sounds like a blow job Drink, oh okay.

Speaker 1:

Interesting.

Speaker 2:

Okay, sorry folks, we got to go, so Get an old-fashioned.

Speaker 3:

I don't know if any of you have read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I believe it is in that book.

Speaker 2:

I believe it is also.

Speaker 3:

But there is a quadrant of how to do your to-do list where, if you actually make a four squared chart, it's like did you ever play four square when you're younger and you know how? You have the little four squares on the ground where you bounce the ball, which nobody knows the rules to that game. I don't even know why they have, that I know the rules. What are the rules to that game?

Speaker 3:

Well, it's too complicated to explain on this podcast, but maybe we'll do a special podcast Because nobody knows the rules to four square, but do you know the lines that you stand in the four squares?

Speaker 2:

That's right.

Speaker 3:

That's what I'm talking about. So there's four squares it literally is four squares, or you can call it a quadrant if you want and on the top of the quadrant you have two columns, and those two columns are One of them is do it now.

Speaker 2:

So that's time sensitive and important. So it's critical and important. On the top left it's critical and it's urgent.

Speaker 3:

It's critical and urgent, so do it now. It's urgent. Are those the two things? Yeah, critical and urgent.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and in the right column on the top you have things that are critical but not urgent, so you can just schedule those out for later in the week or the next day or at the end of the day.

Speaker 3:

So it's it's do it later. It's still critical, but it still needs to get done. But you can do it later, okay, and then on the side column you have what are the two columns?

Speaker 2:

The one on the bottom left is like the delegation column, so it's not, it's a little bit of all, but you can pass it off to somebody else. So it's not urgent, it's not critical, still something that kind of needs to get done, but it's something that you can delegate out.

Speaker 3:

But there's something. There's a name for it.

Speaker 2:

So I just call it the delegation column. That's one of those things where it's if someone else can do it, let them do it, unless it involves your specific expertise, your specific touch and flavor, but get someone else to do anything that they can do. So delegating whatever's possible out of that list to leave room for the things that are urgent and critical.

Speaker 3:

I think it's important, but not critical. I don't think we know what we're talking about. That's what I think. Do we know what we're talking about?

Speaker 2:

I believe we know what we're talking about.

Speaker 3:

It's not critical, but do it now. That's what it is Not critical. Do it now Perfect.

Speaker 2:

So it's not critical, it's important. It's not critical, but it needs to get done now and I can delegate it.

Speaker 3:

And then, what is the fourth corner?

Speaker 2:

Get rid of it.

Speaker 3:

It's not important, it's not critical.

Speaker 2:

It doesn't need to get done. It's just a time filler that you like to put in there to take up space. That might be one of those little feel good things.

Speaker 3:

But see, that's the column where I like to.

Speaker 2:

I like to spend.

Speaker 3:

It's not waste time for me though, that's where I get my energy. And this is why I struggle with my to-do list.

Speaker 2:

So to me that is an urgent now, that's a do it now, so whenever you schedule, those throughout the day.

Speaker 3:

I don't like this quadrant philosophy.

Speaker 2:

But if you schedule that throughout the day, like you know when you're gonna get down, like you know when you're gonna get hit with that, oh, I need a break, I'm tired. Schedule one of these things that gives you energy in that timeframe. Like most people, would consider some of the things that I do to be in the dump category, but I consider them Like schools, like what, like schools in America, like get rid of the art program, get rid of the art, and that's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3:

Like, going to my art room is very critical for me. Now, what do I do in there? I toodle.

Speaker 2:

Imagine I toodle. You exercise. To me that's an exercise program for your brain and your imagination.

Speaker 3:

And so for me, which column does that fit in?

Speaker 2:

So I think you schedule that.

Speaker 3:

I can't delegate that.

Speaker 2:

You schedule it for time, critical times, when you are in the tired zone, like when you feel your energy depleted and you're like I really want to continue with the mission critical events that need to get done and have to get done today. But I'm really exhausted right now. My energy's low. Let me pull in one of these things that I have scheduled and do some art, do some creativity, do something that lifts my vibration back up, and then you get right back into the do it now section.

Speaker 3:

And meditation. That's another one for me. I definitely need my time where I can go into my space.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you're kind of zen zone.

Speaker 3:

It's my zen zone and for most people that would be considered almost laziness or apathy or nap time.

Speaker 2:

So I think that's for people that aren't aware of the positive benefits of it, like aren't deeply aware of it and haven't experienced it for themselves. So we've got Mahatma Gandhi, we've got Martin Luther King, we've got Muhammad Ali, who all talk about those moments of quiet, those moments of reflection, moments of meditation and prayer where, when they have a busy day, when they have a big opponent, they are giving themselves that space and time to really raise their energy level, raise their frequencies up so that they can actually go into those and show up full out.

Speaker 3:

So again, where do I put that To me you?

Speaker 2:

schedule it.

Speaker 3:

I schedule meditation as well. Yeah, because you know your pattern, the thing is, though, those activities, because I also like journaling and I also like gratituting and going for a walk, and sometimes it becomes a full-time job just being me.

Speaker 2:

Right? How many people feel that?

Speaker 3:

And so then I think, gosh, I really don't have time for the urgent get it done now.

Speaker 2:

Category so to me that's what kind of what the whole morning routine that we established because taking a shower and brushing my teeth delegate it, I'll watch you baby.

Speaker 3:

No, that sometimes is a an urgent get it done now.

Speaker 2:

Like it is a week, it is time, don't give away my. We don't need to be that trans. Just got back from Tulsa and I realized after three days and I'm wearing the same out- stop. I'll work in. No play makes Jason wear the same thing every day.

Speaker 2:

Your poet didn't know it so I guess my problem is, coach Jason, is I sometimes don't know which quadrant to put my things in, because what is important to me is not important to everybody else so if you are in a zone where you have time, critical things that are coming up and you live in a crunch time situation, where does it feel more relevant to put something that is coming up, say a week down the road that habitually would fall into a time crunch and cause you a lot of stress?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and that's the other thing is that sometimes I put things in that critical urgent zone a week out and it really needs to be there a month out, yes, or two months out.

Speaker 2:

So if we, if we know that it's critical and urgent coming up, it behooves us to kind of get that done now. And even if it is something that's coming up six months down the road, but it's going to be, we know historically that that's going to be a pattern. It's going to be a time crunch type thing, because it's one of the things we typically push off, push off, push off because it's not something we want to do.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

If we can put it in that, do it now. It's urgent because of where it will be later Then and we don't have to put it in there today we can put it in there on a schedule like pick the day where I'm going to feel I'm going to get prepared, I'm going to have my meditation in and I'm going to be in the right frequency to get that project done. And that might be the only project I worry about that day.

Speaker 3:

The other category that I really struggle with is the delegation category. That's a hard one for me to, because when I do delegate things I don't feel. Actually, one problem I have is I feel like it takes me more time to delegate than it does to just do it myself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's one of the hardest parts of being a small business.

Speaker 3:

And then two is I don't feel like it turns out the way I want it when it's all said and done, that's like telling Jason to fold the clothes. He's not folding my clothes the way I like to fold it I think you know what, I would have been better off just doing it myself. I would have saved time and I would have been more satisfied.

Speaker 2:

I don't have to do it over again.

Speaker 3:

So I mean, that's two things, two reasons of why I should have just put it in the do it myself category.

Speaker 2:

So then we look at how important is it to A your sanity, your brand, your daily living, for, if we're using the clothes example, for the clothes to be folded in a specific way, some people it's critical importance and that's also one of their Zen zones is folding clothes because they have that order and they love it like that. But if you can manage that, if there are other things that outweigh that, are we spending time doing things over again just because we want it a specific way, when the way it has already been done and delegated out is good enough and it serves all the purposes? Then we're just nitpicking. I hate that word.

Speaker 3:

I think he just called me a nitpicker.

Speaker 2:

And then and then last but not least.

Speaker 3:

I mean, I know that I already kind of brought this up. I kind of brought it up that you know, a lot of my things fall in the what other people would probably consider the dump category, but for me they are the most important category. And I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't know what I would put in the dump category. I guess what I would put in the dump category are checking email. Doing the dishes and maybe social media, and then I think well, is that really serving me Shopping?

Speaker 2:

for groceries, we have them delivered now. I mean some of the things that take a lot of time and you don't have to do. We do live in a land of convenience. I'm not saying that everything has to be convenient, but some of the things that we just designed so that we are dumping it, like we're dumping the trip to the mall a lot of times for Amazon, right. So we have kind of put some things in the dump category, but then we also need to go to the mall sometimes because we need that interaction, we need to see things like in front of us, we need to be able to touch and feel, open up our senses to all these things, because that's inspiration and we also just get energy by just getting out and I think you're dead on when you say most people would dump a lot of the things that we hold high value for, but we have realized the benefits of those things.

Speaker 2:

Because, we've spent enough time understanding their importance and how they factor into life. And how they really make all the other quadrants work.

Speaker 2:

Together and everything that you're going to do during the day, if you can get clear on it, put intention on it, have a high frequency going into it and have a strong belief system as you're doing it. Yes, it changes the whole ball game and it speeds up the process, gets you in flow and also gets you aligned with the universe. I 100% agree and I think most people have thrown those things away.

Speaker 3:

I understand the philosophy and I do think that I need to update my to-do list. I will say that because I'm still using a diner pad, a linear list. It's not even a linear list. I literally use a Mel's diner 1950s pad.

Speaker 2:

Oh, kiss, migrants.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's a kiss migrants. It's what they would take. Your order of eggs and bacon on. Flat jacks and sausage and I literally make a list of 11 items that I want to do that day, and then I mark it off at the end of the day.

Speaker 2:

And then I, taylor Swift, mark it off, mark it off, no not like that, but anyway.

Speaker 3:

So I do think that I need to update it and in fact today I tried. It's so funny we're even talking about this because earlier today I tried to do it digitally on my phone. I tried to send myself a reminder for a three o'clock meeting that I had, and so I tried to make a to-do list on my phone and I missed my meeting.

Speaker 3:

Oh and so when we try new things, we're going to recognize where we don't understand the whole process yet, and it's not going to always work, because we're moving out of a system we're familiar with and into a brand new environment. Which is why I should give this quadrant thing a chance. I should keep an open mind. Thank you for that reminder. Give love a chance. Yeah, he yes.

Speaker 2:

Like dumb and dumber. So you're saying there's a chance.

Speaker 3:

Yes, All right guys. Thank you for joining us. We do know what we're talking about. I was just joking earlier.

Speaker 2:

Yep, keep living lucky and get your quadrant in line. Get on the matrix.

Speaker 1:

Have a great day, bye-bye. If the idea of living lucky appeals to you, visit us at startlivingluckycom.