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I have been writing to-do lists since I was teaching and I find it very helpful to keep up with everything that’s going on in the month. I originally did a bullet journal format but then that was hard for me to keep up with. I then moved to the Google doc but I missed the motivation of actually coloring things in or crossing them off. A physical looseleaf paper was best for me.
In December I decided to step it up a notch. I typed my to-do list using fun fonts and I printed it on green card stock for Christmas. I re-did it again in January on blue card stock and I have to say at the end of every week going in and crossing things off of my monthly list has been highly motivating. I have shared my list a couple of times on Instagram and I always get questions about if I have the template available. I did not want to do a premade template because this is highly customizable but instead I’m going to walk you through how I design my list. I’ll share how I pick what is on the list as well as how I make the actual list and there will be a video tutorial link in the show notes that you can follow as well!
Step 1-Pick professional goals:
In other words, as you look forward to the month what are the things that you absolutely have to get done for your job? I run a TpT business part-time. I already know I have products that I need to create in the month of February so those will be part of my professional goals. I’d really like to break it down so I can track the progress.
For example I have a product that is called Feburary Seasonal Digital Packs that I will be starting. Technically I need to get the entire pack done but if I just have that on my list it’ll take me forever to cross it off and I’ll lose motivation. Instead I’ll have a header that says February digital packs and then I will have four bullets with the four topics that will be found in that pack. As I complete each theme I can cross it off and more easily track my progress.
When I was a teacher some of my professional goals would be getting IEP‘s, report cards and progress notes done. I could look forward to everything I needed to get done in the upcoming months and have it mapped out. My problem now is I don’t necessarily know what I need to do. I am working towards BCBA supervision. What I need to do in the month depends on what my client needs and what my BCBA asks me to do.
What I ended up doing on my to do list is just having BCBA supervision and (check weekly list). I have four boxes, one to represent each week. If I got everything done for the week I colored that box in. I’ll talk more about what my weekly list is like at the end of this podcast.
Step 2 – Pick Personal Goals
I go back-and-forth as to whether or not I’m going to have personal goals on my monthly list but I’m always really pleased when I do it. My whole goal is to achieve a balance between my professional life and my personal life and so I feel like when I set goals for myself to take care of Nicole I do better in my job.
Some of my personal goals include reading a certain number of books, going on dates with my husband, working out, trying new recipes and anything else like that. It’s something that does not have anything to do with my job helps me as a person and I find it really motivating at the end of each week to make sure I did a couple of personal things as well.
Other ideas for personal goals is saving money or paying off debt. It can be starting a new hobby or calling your parents every weekend. Whatever it is, I think it’s important to set a specific goal. For example don’t set a goal that is simply to work out more because that’s really hard to track and it’s hard to stay motivated. Instead I might send a goal to work out 10 times in the month. That makes it much easier to track how close I’m getting with that goal.
Step 3-Assemble the list:
Like I said there are many ways to do your list. If your digital person use Google docs. If you are a pen and paper person by the journal or just type up a list. another Thank you consider different ways of tracking I find that I visually like the way my list looks like I use a combination of the bulleted lists and blocks to color in.
If you would benefit from seeing a video tutorial, click here to watch my tutorial on Youtube!
If you end up making a to-do list, show me on Instagram!