With more than 20 years of experience in wedding-related sales and marketing, Alan Berg has been called ‘The Leading International Speaker and Expert on the Business of Weddings & Events’ . He is also the author of four books which are all available on Amazon in paperback, Kindle and audio formats.Find out more about Alan and his consulting and website review services at HOW TO SHORTEN YOUR TO-DO LIST E ach time I return from speaking at an industry conference or event I reflect upon all of the great professionals I met, the wonderful ideas they heard and the connections they made.
I’m sure they all go home with a huge to-do list for their business, and it dawned on me how overwhelming it can sometimes seem when there are so many great ideas and so little time to implement them. So, how do you choose where to start? admittedly they were things I had also never even started. So, I erased that board and started fresh. It was liberating, but a little scary at the same time.
I took a picture of it first, just in case, but I’ve never looked at the photo and I can’t even find it now. What happened next was empowering: I actually started to get more things done by having fewer things on my list! You see, when you cross off one of thirty things on a list it feels good for a second… until you see the rest of the list. When you cross off one of only three things, it feels great.
If you have a big project, break it down into smaller bites and put those on your list of three things. What about the rest of your big list? When you make a list of things you want to do, it reflects what’s important at that moment in time. However, when you start to do some of those things you’re no longer in that same place and time.
You’ve moved, evolved, grown and progressed to a new place. If you were to make a new list, how many of those things that were languishing on your big list would appear again? Very often the answer is not many. They’re just not important anymore, so why have them on the list at all?
If they’re still important, they’ll show up on a future list – one in which they’ve made it to the top three in importance. Does it really work? Yes, I can tell you from my own personal experience, as well as from many who have heard me speak about this (and read my mini-book ‘Don’t Paint the House’), that it really does work. You can actually get much more done by focusing on fewer things at once.
You know that you can’t do it all, so don’t try. The key here is to not get bogged down by looking at a list of things you’re realistically never going to do. Try it yourself Sit down and make a list of the three things you really want to get done that will have the biggest possible positive impact on your business. I’m not talking about the weddings and parties you have coming up; I mean the bigger picture things (although this works for things big and small).
If you’re trying to make a new website, break it down into smaller projects (getting the photos together, editing one page of text, contacting website designers, etc.). If you’re looking to expand your business or take on an employee or partner, break it down into manageable steps. If you want to learn a new language, as I am, find a way to do a little each day. I practise my Spanish lessons in the car and walking through the airport.
Those little pieces add up to real results over time. Once you start doing this it becomes a way of life. You’ll be getting more done, and you’ll be less stressed because you’re not looking at a huge list that can feel like it’s mocking you for not getting to it. Show your To-Do List who’s in charge and slash it down to size!
You’ll be glad you did. Be sure to share your success stories! If you’d like to get a free copy of ‘Don’t Paint The House’ , join Alan’s mailing list to get his latest articles at: How do you go about shortening your to-do list? First, I think it’s important to differentiate your To-Do list from your Today list.
Your Today list consists of those day to day business and personal things that you need to do to keep your business (and life) ticking over (preparing music, completing paperwork, booking events, taking the kids to school, walking the dog, eating lunch). Your To-Do list is made up of those bigger picture things that help you to grow, personally and professionally. So many ideas, so little time I can relate, as I’m also an entrepreneur with a small business that has grown significantly over the past few years.
Shortly after I joined the National Speakers Association (the largest association of professional speakers) I was at a conference in New Orleans. It was 2½ days of non-stop sessions, social events and networking. On the last day, before we all headed home, the president of the association, Marc LeBlanc, left us with a very powerful thought. He told us to write down all of the great ideas we had heard, both onstage and off, and prioritise them in the order in which they’d have the greatest impact on our business.
Number them 1, 2, 3 and so on, then – and this is where the magic happens – he told us to keep the top three things on our lists and then get rid of the rest of the list. And he meant to physically get rid of it. See the forest AND the trees He told us we should only have three things to focus on, because when you have a short list, you can actually get the things done. It was hard for me to conceptualize, because I (like many of you, I’m sure) had a dry-erase board that was packed with things I wanted to do, but Alan Berg will be one of the two lead keynote speakers at the 2020 Pro Mobile Conference and he’ll also be doing a DJ Mastermind Day the following day (Tuesday 31st March).
