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This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor in chief of.

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Entrepreneur magazine, and I'm money expert Nicole Lapin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.

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And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love.

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And it starts now.

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You have too much to do. I mean, you probably don't need me telling you this, but let me just say it. You have too many tasks. You have too many deadlines. You have too many things to track. Every day feels like a scramble and a failure. All right, maybe I'm talking about me here, but I bet I'm also talking about you. I bet we have the same exact problem. And today I'm going to share a simple solution that helped me. It's called a list funnel and it's something that I learned from Google's in house productivity expert. The list funnel helps you get things done and reduces your stress. Today I'll share how it works, but first let's talk about why our current solutions don't work. So why do our lists fail us? You know, everyone has a to do list and those things suck. Maybe you can relate. My list, for example, is a total mess. Some items require a lot of work, some a little. Some must be done now, some next week. As a result, I am constantly adding little things to this giant list which then distract me from the major things which I don't see among all the little things. And then I feel anxious because my list keeps growing. And anyway, you see the problem. So what's the solution? Well, here it is. Stop making one list and make a series of lists. This is the list funnel. I got the idea from Laura Mae Martin, who helps Google executives get organized. That is literally her job at Google. She is Google's in house productivity expert. Her job is to help Google executives get organized. And she wrote a book about productivity that was so useful. It's called A Practical Guide to Personal Productivity and well being. I read it. I loved it. I have started to use parts of it. So, ready to make a list that you will actually use? This is the list funnel pulled from Laura Mae Martin's book. Well, let's do it. Okay. List funnel basics. Before I say anything else, let me say this. The next things that you hear out of my mouth will sound overwhelming. You will think, just as I did when I first read about this. You know, that is a great idea and I will never do it. But please stay with me because there are two important things to know up top. Thing number one, you do not have to do all of this. I'm going to tell you a lot. You can just pick the parts that are most helpful. And thing number two, to know, I learned about this and then I sat on it for six months, and only then did I take action. And I will explain how I overcame my reluctance because perhaps you will relate. All right, here we go. You ready? The list funnel consists of three lists. And here it is. The main list, the weekly list, the daily list. And then if you want to get more specific, you can also add an hour by hour plan. Now, Laura includes templates for all this on her website, which is really useful. So you could check that out. Lauramaymartin.com May is M A E. But I will do my best to describe these templates. You can imagine them and maybe even recreate them yourself. All right, so we're going to break down the basics here of all these lists. So remember, list funnel is the main list, the weekly list, the daily list. So, all right, step one, the main list. This is the full kitchen sink. This is everything that you need to do or aspire to do, all broken up into categories. So imagine her template. It's a single sheet of paper and it says the main list at the top. And then she's just got basically little mini lists broken up into categories. So her list says work computer. That's a category. And then like, you know, what would you need to do? What do you need to do for work that you could do at your computer? And then personal computer. What do you need to do personally? That's at your computer. And then personal calls. Personal, physical. That's interesting. But what do you need to do that's physical personal to buy personal errands? All right, that's her main list. Of course, you can make your own categories based on your own life. The idea is to just separate all of your tasks out so that they're all in one place and coherent and easy to see. Okay. Then after that, you make the weekly list. You make a weekly list every week, top of the week, what do you need to get done this week? Again, she has a template I will describe it here. So her weekly list says the weekly list up at the top and then it's broken up into a couple interesting little areas. So she has top three priorities this week, and then when I plan to do these things and then there's another section for other things I can get to this week and when I plan to do this, and then she's got some other things towards the bottom, which may not be for everybody, but you know, she has themes for each day. So you know, if you're breaking out your days by like, what are you going to be most focusing on? She's got like a habit tracker in case you want to do that. And she's got looking ahead. Anything next week that you want to be thinking about, but you know, whatever. You can construct this however you want. For me, this template is way too complex for me. I do not need daily themes or habit trackers or whatever. But I do love how she prioritizes three big items at the top. Like, what are the three things that have to get done this week? And then she creates space for other stuff underneath. All right, so that's the weekly list. Remember, we've done the main list and the weekly list. Now it is time for the daily list. Every day a new list. Again, Laura, she's got like a whole structure for this. Imagine the template. It says the daily list up at the top. And then there's a little box that says top priority today. There's another box that says today I'm grateful for. Again, you can customize these to your liking. I am not a today I'm grateful for guy, so I wouldn't do that. But anyway, top priority today, that's pretty smart. Other priorities, list that out hour by hour when you're going to do them, if you can be that organized. And then you know, other things. She has like a little box that says snack size to do's, which is smart because, you know, everyone's got those little snack size to dos, send that email, respond to that thing, whatever. Anyway, the daily list has been a game changer for me. And not just because it organizes my day, but it's because it is now how I define success. Because in the past, I would spend my days scrambling to accomplish things. Whack a mole style. You know, something pops up and I do it and then something else pops up and I do it. And by the end, I felt no sense of progress. I just felt like I was chipping away at a mountain that kept regenerating. But now I start my day with a simple daily list. I identify my biggest priorities and then I systematically check them off throughout the day. After a block of meetings, I can look at the list and refocus like, ah, yes, that is what's left to do today. Yeah, I find I add things to the daily list as we go along, but, like, I know what I got to do. If I finish my list, then the day feels like a success. I am no longer as concerned about the other stuff that's waiting for me. Because you know what? I know that that stuff is for tomorrow. It's for tomorrow's list, not today's list. But wait, I said at the top of this podcast episode that I struggled to adopt this to start. And that is true. So let's talk about actually doing this. Now that you've heard these lists and perhaps have been overwhelmed by them, to adopt a list funnel, you really. Let's think about it. You really need to change your behavior. Whatever it is that you are doing and the way that you track your days, you got to do it differently. And that is not easy. So let us take a tip from someone who thinks a lot about changing user behavior, and that is a guy named Ivan Zhao. He is the CEO and co founder of Notion Notion, the productivity and work tool. I recently talked with Ivan for a cover story in Entrepreneur magazine. His company has 100 million users, which means 100 million people stopped using one product and started using his. As a result, he has thought a lot about what changes people's behavior. And when we spoke about how to change consumer behavior, how to get people to stop doing one thing and do another, he said this. I love it. He said, vitamins don't change user behavior. Painkillers do. Now, what does that mean? It's a great line, but what does it mean? Well, what it means is this. Most things in the world are vitamins, and they're sold as vitamins. Which is to say, what is a vitamin? A vitamin is something that's like, good for you. You're supposed to take your vitamin, but does it solve an immediate problem? Not usually. Can you see the instant results of a vitamin? Eh, not usually. That's a lot of things. You know, it's like, hey, you should do this. It would be better for you. And you say, okay. But vitamins don't change user behavior because changing behavior is painful and it's annoying. So the only thing that really changes user behavior is painkillers, which is to say something that solves a active pain for you. A pain, in fact, that is bigger than the pain of making the change. We are only incentivized to change when we are in pain. That's when we can see the immediate impact of a solution. So if you want to change someone's behavior in business, like, then you need to figure out what are they really in pain over. And how can you present your thing as a easement of that pain, A painkiller, not just a vitamin, not just something that's good for you. And ever since I heard that, I've been applying it everywhere, including myself, for example. Now here we come back to list funnels. For example, I learned about the list funnel in April when I interviewed Laura Mae Martin, but I did not take her advice for six months. I learned about this in April. I'm telling you about it in December, and I only started it a couple months ago. Why? Why did I not take her advice back then? Because it sounded like too much work, that's why. So what forced me to change? The answer is. Cue it Ivan Zhao of notion. The answer is pain. Back in April, the list funnel sounded like a great idea, but I didn't feel like I needed it. So it was a vitamin. Then I took on some new projects this year. I felt very overwhelmed. My old systems were breaking. I was losing track of things. I was in pain. And then I remembered Laura's list funnels. And I decided to start not by taking on the whole thing, which is overwhelming. The main list and the weekly list and the daily list. I just started to make a daily list. But I did it my way, not her whole sections and whatever. I just did it on a simple sheet of printer paper where I would just write the day, I would just write Thursday on top of it. And then I would just list off everything that's got to get done today. That was it, right? I still have another to do list, which I guess now is functioning as my main list. But now I have a daily list. And this has been so helpful. It is a helpful process to start the day by writing down what needs to get done that day. It is helpful to continue to look at that list as the day goes on and and stay focused. And now I am starting to experiment very softly with weekly lists. That'll be my next step. And the whole point of this is, I want to tell you something. This will work for you only when you need it. If you don't use the list funnels today after listening to this podcast, that is fine. You might not be ready. Back in April, I wasn't ready. I wasn't in enough pain, but now I am. Ideas like this take time. We can't just change on a whim. We need to evaluate what we do, feel its shortcomings, and perhaps even suffer its consequences. So if you've listened this far, it's probably because you're feeling overwhelmed by your day. You're looking for some kind of solution. So ask yourself, am I ready for a change? If the answer is no, then that's fine, keep going. But please continue to ask yourself that question, am I ready for a change? And if the answer ever becomes yes, now you have a place to start. You don't have to be stressed and overwhelmed. You can just get things done. And regular listeners of Help Wanted will know that something like that that you just heard originated in my newsletter. It's called One Thing Better each week. One way to be more successful and satisfied and build a career or company that you love. Every week I read something from my newsletter here on my solo episodes of Help Wanted. But you can get the newsletter early in your inbox. Absolutely. For free by going to One Thing Better Email. Again, that's a web address. Just plug it into a browser. One Thing Better Email Email. I will tell you, be totally honest. Help Wanted solo episode that was on my to do list today. And you know, here I'm just going to move the microphone down to the sheet of paper where it was written. Can I do that? Here we go. And maybe you're going to hear me cross it off. Ready? One Thing Down Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network. Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason.