In the millions of personal development books out there, you will find many of them referencing the habit of creating To Do lists.  These gurus proclaim that the list is an important tool for organized people to get an exceptionally high amount of productivity out of a day.  I could not agree more.

As I have said in other posts, I know an awful lot of business owners and business managers.  The most successful people that I know and the ones I admire the most are ones that use these lists.  I didn’t realize it at first until after I had been in business for a while.  Then one day I started realizing that some really smart people were using lists more than most people use a damn cell phone. 

One guy keeps a daily To Do list on his desk like a diary.  Another guy uses a cheap little notepad about half the size of an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper.  Some people who work behind a desk all day use a desk calendar.  I know salesman who use a day planner.   Professional women tend to use these even more than men.  I guess that is why it appears that women are usually better organizers than men.

Being more organized is a really beneficial habit that you could start developing today. You won’t believe the additional mental power you discover within yourself once you start using these lists.  You become far more creative and a much better problem solver.  By writing everything down that you need to accomplish, you free up all that mental energy that you were using to remember what had to be done.  You are basically telling your brain that it doesn’t need to remember these things anymore.  That is what the list does for you.  If it is on the list, you cannot forget to do it.  You can choose not to do it, but you cannot forget.

Believe it or not, little details like this are what separate the average person from a person who gets things done.   If you have the discipline to actually stick to a system like this, it will literally be impossible to stop you from getting a massive amount of work done each day.  Your brain will love you for it and so will your bank account.

If you don’t work from a list right now, I strongly encourage you to perform this exercise.  You simply won’t believe it until you try it firsthand.

Take an 8.5” x 11” spiral notebook.   Use a Word processor if you want to instead.  At the top of the page write the words “To Do” and make them large.  Start writing down every single thing that you need to do today, tomorrow, this week, this month and this year.  You don’t have to break them down by date.  That is not what I mean.  I just want you to write down every single thing you need to accomplish at any point in the next year.  Write down everything whether business related or personal.  Write down every last specific thing.  Keep writing until you think you have got every last detail covered.  Leave nothing off the list. 

You have got to do this exercise.  It doesn’t take but a few minutes and the results are simply amazing.  Once that list is complete, you will feel the weight of the world come off your shoulders.   All of a sudden, that huge list of tasks seems manageable.  The tasks look smaller on paper and they are smaller.  You have just made them smaller by writing them down.   You are far more likely to accomplish them now.  It is a highly motivating exercise.

Now look at your list and pick out something you can do in the next ten minutes that you could cross off that list.  There has got to be something.  If you will take ten minutes right now to do just one thing so you can cross it off, then this whole lesson will have been worthwhile.  You will see and feel the power.

If for no other reason, you should do this task just to release the anxiety and stress that is bothering your brain because you expect it to remember everything.   By writing this stuff down, you are giving your brain a spa treatment.  You are giving it permission to exhale and relax for a minute.  This is incredibly liberating and gives a major boost to your inherit creative problem solving skills.  You will find ways of accomplishing things on that list much more efficiently with a lot less work.  Somehow you will now manage to fit all that stuff into your day and get it all done.

The key is in developing a habit of using this list every single day without exception.  Even on Sundays you should be using it.  You don’t necessarily have to do any work on Sunday.  But, you should still add whatever you need to put on that list so that you don’t forget it.  Your mind will never be happier.  Trust me.  If you want to become super successful, I suggest you become anal about using this list.  Develop your own system of what works for you and stick to it.

Some people try to use a high tech gadget to do this.  I prefer the simplicity of a piece of paper and a pen.  If you want to use an electronic organizer be my guest.  I think it is way easier to use paper.  The easier your system is, the more likely you will be to stick to it.  I have never seen a millionaire use an electronic organizer.  Every single one of them that I know use paper and pencil or else they have a personal assistant who uses a paper and pencil for them.

Starting your own business is not something to take lightly.  You should weigh the benefits and drawbacks carefully before jumping in.   It is tempting to want to make the leap to running your own business full time.  But, you better be very well prepared or you might regret it.

Benefits of going Full Time:

1)      Easier to stay focused

2)      Easier to stay committed and motivated

3)      Much higher earnings potential

4)      Faster growth

Drawbacks of going full time:

1)      No supplemental income from primary job

2)      Pivot point for success or failure is not far away

3)      Harder to pull off successfully

4)      Increased pressure on yourself for faster success (more stress)

5)      Much harder to plan for financially

6)      Overall much greater risk

Because of these reasons, I recommend that most people start their businesses part time if possible.  Your initial motivation will be nearly equal for launching your business either way.  That won’t really be a factor.  It will be just as much fun and just as exciting.  It won’t be quite as stressful though.  Because it is less stressful, you will probably make better decisions and are more likely to stay persistent for a longer period of time.

You might think you are well prepared for your journey ahead, but I can assure you that things will pop up that you are totally unaware of right now.   It is simply impossible to foresee all of the potential roadblocks and problems your new business will face.  They will be a lot easier to deal with a little bit at a time. 

If you are launching this business because you were recently unemployed, then that is a different story.  You should still try to have a contingency plan in place if things don’t take off for you with your new business as quickly as you had hoped.  There is a very good chance that this could happen.  Don’t rule out the possibility that you might have to go back to work until after your business has experienced some substantial steps forward.   A lot of people who jump in with both feet will find out that there was a lot more to know about running their own home based business than they first realized.

One of the most important things that you must do when starting a business is to get extremely well organized.   I guarantee you are underestimating the importance of having everything perfectly organized.  You probably know someone who is in business who isn’t that organized or at least appears to be less than perfectly organized.  I am telling you that anyone who isn’t organized who tries building a business will regret the day they ever tried starting one.

I happen to know an awful lot of business owners.  I know people who are extremely successful in business and I know people who have failed.   The one thing that every successful business that I have seen has in common is that the business is well organized.  Everything is neat and tidy.  All paperwork is neatly filed.  Employee desks are mostly free of clutter.

Then there is the other business person who has never been organized in his entire life.  He has paperwork all over the place. His customers don’t get billed on time.  He pays a lot of late fees.  He screws up his tax paperwork.  He is not really happy running his business due to the stress he places on himself by not being exceptionally well organized.  The larger he grows his business, the more miserable he becomes.

He must realize that the source of most of his problems is his lack of organization.  If he doesn’t change his ways, you can bet that his business is headed for failure.  There is little doubt about this.  Clutter is the enemy of business.  Clutter is a major source of anxiety.  In fact, this is true about your personal life as well.

If you were to watch an unorganized business person in private without him knowing that you were watching him, you would see that he lives a very tortured life.  Outwardly he may appear as though he is happy and has a handle on things.  In private you would see a mad man.  You would see how he struggles with so many things that he should not struggle with.  He may be exceptionally talented.  He may possess all the other skills he needs to build a massively successful business.  Without being organized though, he is a train heading off the track that is about to cause a massive wreck.

Do not underestimate the importance of being an exceptionally well organized business person.  The more organized you are and the more anal you are about it the better.  You should develop this habit immediately.  You will see stress melt away from your life.  You will see that running a business can be as fun as you originally imagined it to be.  If you blow it off like a lot of people do, I guarantee that one day you are going to be really mad at yourself and wish that you had never even started this business.