Learn | Do | Become

Quick Announcement! If you are reading the show notes and listening to this podcast when it first comes out, there is about a week left until our STEP Momentum accountability group begins! (Starting on Wednesday, September 3rd, at 10am Pacific.)

Our signature program, Steps to Everyday Productivity, helps you build a simple system to organize everything in your life–projects, tasks, goals, routines, paperwork, email, and all the “stuff” in your physical, digital, and mental space. When you organize your MIND, your space naturally follows!

This is event is for all members of our STEP Mastery program, and if you want to learn more and get our BEST offer to join, click here to visit the STEP Momentum page!

Eric and I recorded a brief video telling more about it, and you can click here or on the image below to watch!

We’d love to have you join us as we go through the STEP program together! If you have any questions at all, please send a message to email (at) learndobecome.com and we’ll get back to you shortly!

In today’s podcast, we’ll be sharing 10 stories from our community members that each represent one facet of life that is benefited by getting organized (and we’ll share tips and tricks along the way!) Let’s dive in!

Patty shared, “Selected the kitchen as my Command Central. I did #clearthespace before setting up. For now, all the folders Goals/Routines/Current/Projects/etc… are behind the tickler file on the left. The binder contains my LDB instruction manual for references and cheat notes.

“I set up my writing desk in my bedroom for journaling, writing and privacy when I need it for calls, etc. No mess on this flat surface allowed. I have a work desk area in my formal living room as well. I will likely set up a separate tickler system for the home based business at some point soon, goals and CBNAL too.

“One step at a time Happy to be here, thanks for all the support!”

Here’s the “before” picture:

Here’s the “after” photo:

One of our STEPpers shared this message and photos of their calm, tidy, and peaceful home:

“Just want to encourage you all. For the first time in my adult life I am not freaking out when I know people are coming over! We may occasionally have a small pile here or there but it gets taken care of weekly. DO NOT GIVE UP!!! You can do this!!! It is definitely a process but so worth the time!”

Loleta wrote, “My wonderful daughter built this closet for me (when she renovated my home office). I wasn’t allowed to put anything in it until she was ready to assist me. Hah, now I don’t need to wait on her. I’ve got the STEP System. This is where I will store my support materials for work.”

Ruby shared, “As I’ve been recovering from cancer treatment, I’ve been going through the revamped STEP program and have gotten excited about it again. Somewhere in the garage boxes is my previous command central [after moving and having most of our belongings in storage]. But I decided to start fresh and build a new one so I can get going once again!

“I still don’t have my routines, mind sweep, current projects, next in line projects, CBNAL, etc, but my machine is built and ready to handle it!! The rest of my office is a mess again, but that will be one of my first projects. In the pictures my work desk (I work from home) is on the left and my Command Central is on the desk on the right. I’m just proud of the fact I finally had enough energy since cancer to accomplish this today!”

Karie wrote, “My office and creative space is finally clear and organized!! My Command Central is on the left side of my desk. It took me a little longer than I hoped but boy does it feel good! There is still some Level 4 work to do on the cabinet but I have clear, organized space to be productive and focused. Before and after pics show the difference.”

One of our program members wrote in and said, “I’m really excited about what lies ahead. The more I dive into the STEP Program, the more I can see myself becoming the organized, focused person I’ve always wanted to be.

“It feels amazing to know that with each step I take, I’m moving closer to turning my ideas and plans into reality. Suddenly, projects that once felt overwhelming now seem exciting – almost like a puzzle I can’t wait to solve. It’s such a relief to feel this newfound sense of clarity and motivation. Bye-bye procrastination – I’m ready to get things done!

“Thanks again for your support. I really appreciate how helpful and encouraging you’ve been.”

Free LearnDoBecome Community Facebook Group

YouTube Channel: Subscribe Here!

Brand new? Get the LearnDoBecome Welcome Kit here!

Free Training, How to Finally Stop Drowning in Piles

Our Steps to Everyday Productivity program!

The ARISE Membership– an amazing gathering place for community members that are using their Command Centrals to refine relationships, health, finances, individual purpose, and more. We focus on a new topic each month, and this is an amazing opportunity to receive coaching and support from Team LearnDoBecome. You can sign up for a free, 60-day trial here.

Quick Announcement! If you are reading the show notes and listening to this podcast when it first comes out, there is about a week left until our STEP Momentum accountability group begins! (Starting on Wednesday, September 3rd, at 10am Pacific.)

Our signature program, Steps to Everyday Productivity, helps you build a simple system to organize everything in your life–projects, tasks, goals, routines, paperwork, email, and all the “stuff” in your physical, digital, and mental space. When you organize your MIND, your space naturally follows!

This is event is for all members of our STEP Mastery program, and if you want to learn more and get our BEST offer to join, click here to visit the STEP Momentum page!

April and Eric also recorded a brief video telling more about it, and you can click here or on the image below to watch!

We’d love to have you join us as we go through the STEP program together! If you have any questions at all, please send a message to email (at) learndobecome.com and we’ll get back to you shortly!

In today’s podcast, I’m going to take you through a real-time inbox processing session. I’m using our 8 STEP Processing questions, detailed below, and these questions help me know exactly what to do with every items that comes my way.

Here’s what my inbox looked like at the start:

And now on to the processing questions! Here’s the original list without my edits:

I’ll include the names of the items and how I answered each question below:

I hope you enjoyed processing the inbox with me! I had a lot of random items this time around, but I am feeling great about the Next Actions List I have prepared for myself. And I’m totally confident in when/how I will interact with each of these items moving forward.

Excited to see how you process your own inbox and incoming items!

Free LearnDoBecome Community Facebook Group

YouTube Channel: Subscribe Here!

Brand new? Get the LearnDoBecome Welcome Kit here!

Free Training, How to Finally Stop Drowning in Piles

Our Steps to Everyday Productivity program!

The ARISE Membership– an amazing gathering place for community members that are using their Command Centrals to refine relationships, health, finances, individual purpose, and more. We focus on a new topic each month, and this is an amazing opportunity to receive coaching and support from Team LearnDoBecome. You can sign up for a free, 60-day trial here.

Most of us have WAY too much coming into our lives…emails, texts, messages through a variety of apps…it can feel overwhelming, for sure. But there are some things we can do to alleviate the pain, and that’s what I’m covering today!

I asked our LearnDoBecome Community group what, exactly, was contributing to their communication overload. (I’ll link to the full conversation at the bottom!)

(1) Too many communication channels: This leads to overwhelm and fragmentation of information. For example…

Donna told me, “I’m part of a performance group and we have a Facebook messenger group list and a WhatsApp group mailing list and a text message group list and an email list. Each of those started as a way to send critical information to the members. But it’s so hard to find the critical information, because they always turn in to a “reply all” situation. The important stuff is buried under a pile of–thumbs-up…smileyface…lol…emoji”

April shared “Text messages from friends and family with general chitchat, but also trying to organize plans, group messages from other parents with kids in the same class as my son, group messages from the school parent team. WhatsApp messages from a broader group of parents at school, and Signal messages from another group I’m involved in. Not to mention all the emails coming in about medical appointments, medical information, and emails with more details than the group chat messages from text, WhatsApp, and Signal can provide. And that feels like just the tip of the iceberg. It feels like I’m drowning in communication sometimes!”

(2) Too many messages, in general:

Alia said, “While I was in college, I found that I was getting about 500-600 emails every couple months from the different professors, grading websites, school newsletters, etc.  I had many friends who said “yeah I just don’t check my school email because it’s too much.” But I could tell this seriously weighed on the students in my classes, and many of them just avoided the emails altogether, missing important date changes, scholarship opportunities, deadlines, club events, etc.”

Christine gets emails every day from some companies she’d like to stay connected to (for deals, etc.).

Jeanette gets tons of feedback requests–every time she rents a car, books a hotel, goes to the dentist, etc.

Jennifer has hundreds of emails coming to her work email–with problems she needs to solve and situations to support. It’s tough because she’d already attending too many meetings, supporting committees, coaching employees, and addressing conflicts, so these extra emails feel like an added burden.

(3) Lots of details IN the messages that are hard to locate, when needed:

Jane said, “One of my daughters is a dancer. She dances with her school, with her dance school, and is part of a huge state wide dance concert. So, when emails come my way with dates and rehearsal schedules, competition dates, what costume stuff I need to get her, where does she need to be on a particular day, oh, I bought this for you… was that for the dance school competition or the school dance competition… oh, and then there is the dance exam stuff too  Add that with the fact that 2 of her sisters are in the state dance concert too, in different sections…”

Liz shared, “Multiple modes of communication are bogging me down. We are selling a house and building a new one. I get emails, text messages and voicemails from the realtor, sales person and project manager. I am not sure when I need to access this content what mode was used to convey that information so I can review it.”

We’re human, and we have limited mental bandwidth. Making decisions, dealing with emotions, handling interruptions, or even just knowing messages are waiting for us can take brainpower.

But at the end of the day, we need to take a leadership role in our lives, and, while it often feels like it’s “us against the world,” there are some techniques that really make a difference.

Inside this conversation (again, I linked it below in case you want to engage with real people in our Facebook group!), our members shared some great tips:

(1) Consolidate where we can.

Sometimes we can influence group leaders, friends, family members, colleagues, etc. to streamline communication by only using certain channels or setting “rules.” Eric, for example, prefers texts to emails, so I rarely email him. In our company, we send emails if the information we’re sharing might need to be referenced again in the future (easy to search in Gmail), and then we have casual conversations in Slack (those are deleted automatically after 30 days).

Christine, when referencing the daily company promotional emails, said, “I’ve used your suggestion of creating a filter on Gmail so they all go into @vouchers/offers and I go and clear them out every so often… The best thing is that they don’t go straight into my inbox any more!”

Stephanie shared, “”I try to keep subscription emails in one account & more important/time sensitive (people, appointments, doctors, bills, school, extracurricular, etc.) [in another]. ”

(2) Batch responses.

Jane said, “Normally, I look at messages once or twice a day, and when I get home from work and have a couple of minutes I will add dates and notes of what, where, when and who needs what.”

Jennifer shared, “Scheduling ‘no meeting’ blocks on my calendar, including all day Fridays… My challenge here is to hold fast to those blocks.”

I agree–I think it’s essential to silence our phones and close our email so we can have focused time to work. I put extra social apps on the second page of my phone, with only the specific app notification turned on, so I don’t have anything popping up during the day, and I have to actually LOOK to see if there’s a conversation going on. For my phone, I did create a setting where, if one of my “Favorites” calls (this includes my husband and children), the phone does ring. Texts don’t interrupt me, but I’ve told them if it’s an emergency to give me a call. And, I know, easier said than done, but this has been extremely helpful to many of us!

(3) Automate when possible.

Jackie wrote, “I leveraged email rules (Outlook) to manage them. If I was cc’d it went to a cc’d folder… Emails from my bosses were color coded to catch my attention… Certain senders went directly to trash.”

Gmail filters do this BEAUTIFULLY, as well! I have dozens set up so emails are automatically sorted, forwarded, etc. as needed.

Okay, maybe you DO want to hear these, but they’re not as easy to digest. 

(1) Before you sign up for something, make sure you recognize the full scope of the commitment.

My rule of thumb is to imagine how much time/energy it’s going to take–and then multiply that by three. You might be thinking, “April, you’re such a pessimist. Such a killjoy. It’s not that bad.” And maybe you’re right, but here’s what REGULARLY happens to me.

I’ll volunteer to run something (like a charity drive for our local food pantry), and I assume it’s going to be easy-peasy. A couple of emails, maybe a flier, collect the items at an event, load my van, and then drop everything off. But then questions come up from donors, so that necessitates more texts, conversations, and phone calls before the event. Then people who forgot might want to drop things off at my house later. More texts and calls–all for a good cause. And then my husband needs the van to do a different errand, but it’s full of stuff because I’m waiting for everything to come in.

Same thing with kids’ sports. It’s more than just practices and games. Usually there’s a photo day, a closing dinner, coordination for a coach’s gift, a snack rotation, updates when it rains or practice is canceled, people who need rides… It’s all great, but if we don’t build that extra stuff into our expectations, we’re going to take on too much and end up overwhelmed.

(2) Extract all the details and tasks as you process your messages–and put them into a trusted system.

Again, this takes time. It’s easier to say, “I’ll just go back to the text when the time comes.” But honestly, when you learn to extract all necessary information as you go, you get to the point that your messages are all “read,” and you literally never need to go back unless some odd situation comes up.

I personally use my STEP System to manage all of these things, and here are a few examples:

You do want to have a full system set up, if at all possible, as that will alleviate any stress you might otherwise feel.

(3) You may need to say no to some things.

NONE of us like to hear this. I like to believe that I have the bandwidth to do everything my heart desires, but when I try to do too much too fast, my brain skips some steps. For example, after getting back from our three-week trip to Boston and Kenya, I cleaned out my paper inbox and found 5 wedding and graduation announcements. Eric and I looked at our calendars to see which receptions we could attend, and then I was sending money to the others and simultaneously coordinating a bunch of other bills and correspondence (while my mind was trying to process some difficult things that had happened while we were gone–and I was trying to get a stain out of the carpet that appeared when our plants overflowed). In my haste, I put an important wedding reception down a week EARLY, and when Eric and I showed up, we were the only ones there! We ended up having a great conversation with the future bride and groom, who were at the house, but I realized I was trying to do too much at the same time. I needed to “say no” to some of that and just take it one task at a time. We did go back to the “real” reception the following week, and they were happy to see us back!

One other thought I want to share comes from a STEPper named Gwen. In response to a question about how to possibly get project work done when routines take up way too much time, she shared this incredibly insightful response: “Routines are choices we build into our lives. Should I live in a house, or an apartment? Get a pet? Get takeout or cook? Use a paper bowl or ceramic? We construct our day to day routines around hundreds of choices (or happenings) over time. Realizing that my routines are heavier than I want is very valuable. Yes, it’s frustrating (but we are all here because we were already feeling frustrated, right?) Maybe it’s the most important thing that I needed to look at, instead of distracting myself with projects or shopping. For myself, and likely many others, I had to face that I had created a life that was too full of routines- that was too heavy of a lift for the number of hours in my day. I was annoyed that STEP made me look at routines…I only wanted to figure out how to find time for all of my projects. Turns out, lightening the routines was the essential first step in the process. I had to deeply reconsider my priorities and simplify things that I found value in, to create time for myself to be creative, have adventures, and rest. Deconstructing can be very freeing! “

We get to decide which and how many forms of communication come into our lives. As we were visiting a small village in Africa last month, part of me was envious of their quiet lives. Very few people had televisions or telephones, and internet access was extremely rare. They gathered together in person–and they had INCREDIBLE attention spans. Even the children sat through a 4-hour celebration without getting up and running around.

And, while the volume and frequency of information can truly be overwhelming, I do see it as a gift to be able to communicate with family, friends, and our whole LearnDoBecome community–all from my phone or computer, while sitting in my own home (or wherever I am).

What I don’t want is for you to have the benefits and blessings of technology at the cost of your personal peace. It is possible to create simple systems with our communications so we can do what matters most.

Take a few minutes to assess your communication “pain points.” Look through the ideas shared above and, if desired, create a small project that includes setting up filters, adjusting notifications, and/or having conversations with those who message you most frequently to create better processes going forward. This is TOTALLY worth it!

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Our August 2025 ARISE topic is: Financial Health Check-In: Money Conversations that Matter

This upcoming live workshop will be held on Friday, August 22nd at 5pm Pacific. (And a recording will be available afterwards!)

Join us alone or with a partner (and maybe order dinner in!) for this ARISE Transformation Accelerator. We’ll have some solid discussions (featuring YOU!) that will enable you to get past any roadblocks holding you back from financial peace and success. It’s going to be a party! (And if you’d like to bring a partner, but you don’t think they’ll be thrilled about it, Eric promises it will be way less painful than a root canal…)

Click here to start your free 60-day trial of ARISE!

A live session of STEP Momentum is starting on Wednesday, September 3rd, for all STEP Mastery members!

Full details can be found on our information page, linked below, but this is a fantastic opportunity to go through the whole STEP Program and set up your own Command Central in 3 weeks. We’ll provide simple homework assignments 3 times a week, send encouraging texts, and provide accountability opportunities for you! Can’t wait!

Click here to learn more! 

Whole Communication Conversation in the Free LearnDoBecome Facebook Group

Free Resource: Emails to Zero Training

Brand new? Get the LearnDoBecome Welcome Kit here!

Free Training, How to Finally Stop Drowning in Piles

Our Steps to Everyday Productivity program!

The ARISE Membership– an amazing gathering place for community members that are using their Command Centrals to refine relationships, health, finances, individual purpose, and more. We focus on a new topic each month, and this is an amazing opportunity to receive coaching and support from Team LearnDoBecome. You can sign up for a free, 60-day trial here.

Hello! So happy to be back here on the podcast. Our daughter/wonderful team member, Alia, has done an amazing job podcasting these past several weeks while Eric and I were in Kenya with Village Impact (see the related links below for a video recap!). I love hearing her share her experiences and wisdom. She strengthens me, and her episodes beautifully illustrate how the principles we talk about here at LearnDoBecome literally work for every age and stage.

Today I thought it would be fun to talk about two “secret weapons” for calm productivity. (I could call them “useful tools,” but I like feeling like a ninja when I call them weapons.) And when I say “calm, values-centered productivity,” I mean that we’re able to get the right things done and feel a deep sense of progress in our lives, but we’re not hurrying, hustling, jumping back and forth from thing to thing, etc. I have a tendency to do too much, move too fast, say yes to too many things, but in my heart of hearts, calm, values-centered productivity is the only kind of productivity I truly want in my life.

All right, so the two secret weapons I’m covering today are discernment and a tiered list, but I want to give a little background on why I’m even discussing this.

As Eric and I were traveling, we had a chance to talk to many, many people from different walks of life. Eric is incredibly extraverted, and our children joke that he makes friends with everyone and helps them rethink their business models, and then they ask him to be in their weddings. I’m more of an introvert, but I do genuinely care about others and try to be helpful, so between the two of us, we’re usually able to have a lot of solid, meaningful conversations.

When we meet new people, they usually ask us what we do, and we explain that we help people who are overwhelmed by the details of life to create simple systems so they can do what matters most. We talk about how we help people out of overwhelm and enable them to feel calm and present–even when there are thousands of emails, piles of stuff, and tons of ideas swirling in their minds.

They often widen their eyes, take a deep breath, and say things like, “Oh, I NEED that.” And we don’t go deep right there and start teaching them our STEP system, because sometimes they’re just trying to be polite and they don’t actually want us in their business. But here’s what I notice from our conversations when they’re willing to share their struggles.

You can probably relate to this, but when we put something difficult off for a while, it feels kind of good. Like “I don’t have to do that if I don’t want to. I’m the boss of my life. See how strong and free I am!” And when we distract ourselves from doing those hard things–by doing something ELSE that feels more fun, perhaps, it’s like we’re laying a foundation for good things to come, so we can feel good about our intentions or our side projects–even though they’re distracting us from what we really need to do. Like, “I’m going to organize my kitchen because once it’s organized, I’ll be able to build my business.” (But then you still find something else to do later on instead of building your business, so you end up stuck or maybe even shutting down the business.)

We can get really good at masking the stress and pretending like everything is good, but unless we actually work on the deepest challenges we are facing, they are typically only going to get worse. For example, we met an entrepreneur who had started a brand new shop. She was struggling to manage her inventory, marketing, etc., and she wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to keep her shop open much longer. To make ends meet, she’d taken on some contract work that was taking quite a bit of her time, but the money felt good and helped stop some of the gaps she was facing. However, when she did have time to work on her shop, she found it overwhelming, so she would just watch TV, scroll on her phone, and relax. Which I TOTALLY understand–because I used to do the same thing when Eric and I were starting our first business back in 2007. That stress behind the scenes is still there, actually getting worse, and making it so your relaxation time isn’t actually relaxing you because subconsciously, you know there’s something else you need to be doing.

Okay, so what does this have to do with our secret weapons for today?

Asking ourselves the question, “What is the most important thing for me to do in my _______ (personal life, family, business, volunteer work)?” is incredibly important. And then using our discernment to answer that question appropriately is a skill (and, I would add, a gift from your Higher Power).

In the book The One Thing, authors Gary Keller and Jay Papasan ask, “What’s the ONE Thing you can do such that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?”

We can apply that question to multiple facets of our lives–our health, relationships, finances, purpose, etc.

What’s so interesting to me, however, is how infrequently we talk about discernment, as a society. It’s so easy to get distracted by our phones, to move through our days based on others’ agendas, or to just sit and do nothing because the alternative feels overwhelming.

And anyone can “make a list and check it off,” right? The skill comes as we use our discernment to put the best things on our lists, AND as we use our discernment to make adjustments along the way if our attention needs to shift to something more important.

So then that leads us to ask, “What can we do to protect our ability to discern?”

The answer might be different for you, but I personally prioritize things like spending time with my Higher Power, taking care of my mental health/thinking patterns, getting enough sleep, nutrition, and exercise, and connecting with my goals and vision each day.

When we see “discernment” as a secret weapon–or an incredibly beautiful gift–then “self care” isn’t optional. It’s essential because it protects this ability.

I love, love, love David Allen’s Getting Things Done® methodology. It has blessed my life in SO many ways. Some people give it a hard time, though, because it consists of “lots of lists.” I don’t see it that way, though. I see it as a visual way to take all the “stuff” in my mind and heart–and everything that used to clutter up my physical space–and organize it by what matters NOW and what might matter LATER.

Sometimes, though, our “now” lists gets super long, so I’ve created some guidelines for myself (and I teach them in our STEP program) to limit the number of projects, tasks, routines, etc. that I need to focus on at one time. This works through tiered lists. They’re simply set up so that the most important items are front and center, but the other ones aren’t forgotten. Here’s how it works:

The reason I get so excited about tiered lists is because most of the people here at LearnDoBecome have hundreds of thousands of things they want to do. If I’m guessing right, you’re compassionate, energetic, thoughtful, excited about a lot of things, eager to learn, and confident that you can make a difference in the world. Those are incredible characteristics, but if people like you don’t have tools to help organize all of those beautiful intentions, you end up feeling exhausted, frustrated, and unfulfilled…waking up overwhelmed and going to bed more overwhelmed. MY goal is for you to “wake up excited and go to bed content.”

If you’re thinking, “Okay, April, I’m willing to give your secret weapons a try. What should I do next?”

My invitation is as follows:

This first message comes from Judy:

This next message comes from Karen:

This next message is from Judy:

And this final message comes from Janet:

Our August 2025 ARISE topic is: Financial Health Check-In: Money Conversations that Matter

Our upcoming workshop will include some helpful, upbeat, and potentially life-changing conversations around a few solid finance sub-topics. Are you ready for “finances” to be included as one of your biggest strengths?

While talking about money management, mindset, and logistics can often feel complicated, our goal is for each ARISEr to feel confident, energetic, and deliberate around money-management, so we can all feel the JOY that comes when we use our financial resources to do what matters most.

This live workshop will be held on Tuesday, August 12th at 10am Pacific. (And a recording will be available afterwards!)

Click here to start your free 60-day trial of ARISE!

A live session of STEP Momentum is starting on Wednesday, September 3rd, for all STEP Mastery members!

Full details can be found on our information page, linked below, but this is a fantastic opportunity to go through the whole STEP Program and set up your own Command Central in 3 weeks. We’ll provide simple homework assignments 3 times a week, send encouraging texts, and provide accountability opportunities for you! Can’t wait!

Click here to learn more! 

Kenya Video Recap with Village Impact

Video About Next Actions: Clean Up Your Long “To-Do” Lists

YouTube Channel: Subscribe Here!

Free Resource: Emails to Zero Training

Brand new? Get the LearnDoBecome Welcome Kit here!

Free Training, How to Finally Stop Drowning in Piles

Our Steps to Everyday Productivity program!

The ARISE Membership– an amazing gathering place for community members that are using their Command Centrals to refine relationships, health, finances, individual purpose, and more. We focus on a new topic each month, and this is an amazing opportunity to receive coaching and support from Team LearnDoBecome. You can sign up for a free, 60-day trial here.

Backlog is something we all can’t seem to escape. Whether we have thousands of emails built up in our inboxes, decades of family photos we want to sort, or lots of papers stuffed in dozens of boxes in the garage, there’s at least one thing in our lives that needs to be addressed someday.

But when we are getting organized, it sometimes feels like we need to get rid of the backlog FIRST before we can move on to everything else.

I used to have this exact same mindset when it came to backlog, and it felt incredibly frustrating to not have the time or energy to get to everything from the past while I was trying to sort through the current stuff that was coming into my life. And it felt even more impossible to try to squeeze time in for the backlogged items while I was going to school, working on big projects for work, and trying to create meaningful relationships in my life.

However, once my mindset shifted and I learned the importance of putting the backlogged items onto my Next in Line and Someday Projects Lists, my life was changed!

I went back through several LearnDoBecome resources and podcasts on this topic and compiled some of our best advice for dealing with backlog. I hope it’s helpful for you!

April shared that she frequently hears this kind of sentiment from our community members:

“I love the idea of a small list but if I don’t make more headway on my tasks each week, they will get backlogged and either there will be consequences or I will be overwhelmed the following week or both.”

This podcast is one of my absolute favorites because it walks us through the process for creating a short list and shows us that we will actually get MORE done when our lists have less on them.

And this podcast/post offers some incredible insights into why many of us believe that we need to have long lists with lots of things to check off in order to be productive. This is such a great resource for doing personal mindset work before addressing the backlog. Here’s a quote from April’s post on this topic:

“It isn’t easy to lighten our lists. It often feels incredibly counterintuitive. I had to do this a couple of weeks ago when I had too many expectations for myself and didn’t even realize that was the problem until my incredibly insightful doctor pointed it out. As soon as I lightened my load and visibly made my lists smaller, my body responded, and I can’t even explain what a gift that is.”

I absolutely LOVE the process of doing a Mind Sweep and getting everything out of our heads and into our STEP System. This quote comes from this podcast’s show notes page and illustrates how sweeping our minds of all the “stuff” we’re thinking about can help us with the backlog:

“That mountain of “to-do’s” can sometimes feel overwhelming, but when we know how to address this kind of situation, our minds can feel calm and we can create a clear path forward.

“This is one of the most incredible aspects of the STEP Command Central–there is a place for doing a ‘Mind Sweep’ and getting all of the items out of our heads and subsequent places for projects, one-time tasks, routines, and next actions that are identified from the Mind Sweep.

“Alia and I both shared instances in our lives where we were dealing with health challenges, busy schedules, or interruptions to our day-to-day schedules, but we were able to work through the backlog and identify what was most urgent and needed our attention soonest.”

When we can identify the many projects, tasks, and routines that are swirling inside our heads, we can create a solid plan for tackling one thing at a time when the time is right. When we try to take on the backlog of items while we are going about our everyday lives, there’s a big chance that we’re going to overload ourselves and not end up making as much progress as we hoped we would.

When you do a Mind Sweep, the things you write down and put on your future projects list, for example, are SAFE and ready for your future self!

In this episode, I detailed my routine for processing all the new photos in my life. There’s a video on that page (linked above) showing my process, and I have kept up with this routine for almost 10 years now.

Here’s what I wrote about backlog back when I recorded this podcast:

Most of us have smaller sub-projects that we need to address when it comes to photos from the past or a lack of an organizational system. Here are a few things that might need to happen as examples–these would all be individual sub-projects (under the umbrella of “total photo organization” as the large end goal project). These might go on your Next-In-Line or Someday Projects List depending on your ability to work on them:

As you can see, there are a lot of smaller projects that can come to mind from this overall project of photo organization.

When you identify these small sub-projects, they don’t seem quite as daunting. This is how I’ve tackled my goal of getting all of my favorite family photos onto Google Photos over time. I started this project in August 2021 and am just finishing this project this week in April 2023!

One might look at this timeline and think that it took me way too long to accomplish this project, but in reality, I was able to use small, next actions to break the project down into manageable, bite-sized pieces. I was able to make progress on this project in the midst of a lot of life changes–getting married, moving a couple times, finishing up and graduating from college, and expecting a baby this summer. I’m so proud of the progress I’ve made on this project, and I was never stressed out by the thought of needing to simplify certain parts of it during the busy seasons of life.

This training includes a 13-minute video and simple steps that will TRANSFORM the way you use and look at your email inbox.

Instead of using your email inbox as a holding space for everything, April will show you how to move all your past emails into a “safely stored” folder. Once all the backlog is out of your main email inbox, she will teach you strategies for processing all the new emails that come your way each day. You will develop a routine to handle each incoming email and its corresponding tasks as it comes your way.

Then, it becomes one of your Next in Line or Someday Projects to handle the backlog of all your safely stored emails. Those thousands of emails are patiently waiting for you and when you are able to do a Next Action of spending 10-20 minutes sorting them and processing them, you’ll know exactly where to go/look!

Here is what Barbara shared last week about her experience with Emails to Zero–we had a great conversation about this training in our STEP Mastery Facebook group, and it was exciting to see how many people were going to add this to their Next in Line Projects List.

In this episode, April shared these two community testimonials and wrote, “Ignoring the piles of stuff often feels like the easy route, but honestly, when you build your Command Central and realize you have the tools to actually get out of the overwhelm and stay out of the overwhelm, that feels so much better.”

This podcast has some great resources that aren’t strictly related to backlog, so if you’re looking for more tips to handle the general overwhelm, this is a great place to start!

This is what April shared in regards to using the 2-minute rule:

“David Allen teaches it in his books, and it works EVERY DAY for me. If you can do something in two minutes or less, you do it. You don’t write it down. Now, sometimes when you’re returning from a vacation or catching up on backlog, you have like 20 2-minute tasks. I get it. But it saves time in the long run and helps build that momentum!”

When we are going through the backlog, we are going to find a LOT of 2-minute tasks and other 10-20 minute Next Action type of tasks buried in the emails/papers/other items we are sorting through.

Instead of feeling like we need to take action on every single item right away–especially if we don’t have the time right now to do those tasks–create a list of all the 2-minute tasks you’re finding. You might even decide to group them by context: Home, Computer, Phone, Email, To Discuss, Errands, etc.

I go into depth on how to turn a collection of 2-minute tasks into one of your Current Projects in this episode: Podcast 277: Turning Tiny Tasks Into Big Wins – The 2-Minute Rule in Action!

This allows you to know that ALL the 2-minute tasks are safe for now inside their project containers. When the time is right to make this one of your Current Projects for the month, you can confidently begin working on them and chipping away at the backlog.

Podcast 264: A Shorter List…TODAY.

Podcast 220: 3 Organizing Skills That Actually Make a Difference

Podcast 188: Digital Photo Organization with Alia

Podcast 133: Characteristics of a Successful Project – Week 3 Report – Four Weeks to Finished!

Our Free Emails to Zero Training

Podcast 104: What to Do When You Feel Overwhelmed by Tasks

Podcast 277: Turning Tiny Tasks Into Big Wins – The 2-Minute Rule in Action!

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Our Steps to Everyday Productivity program!

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Landing Spots exist in all of our lives, and what we decide to do with them determines how our minds and spaces feel. When we let the physical items pile up, things feel cluttered. When the digital items start to increase, it can feel almost impossible to sort through everything to pull out the important things.

However, when your Landing Spots are checked regularly, each important item will be addressed and any related tasks can be extracted from the physical or digital item.

We’re going to discuss 3 Landing Spot areas today, but I want to emphasize that there is 1 important part of the Command Central that is NOT a Landing Spot.

Your Inbox is NOT a Landing Spot.

When items come into your life, your Landing Spots are the first line of defense. You’ll take a look at all the items (physical, digital, or mental) and do the following:

So now that we know how to handle items that come into our Landing Spots and that our Inbox is not part of this first line of defense, what things DO count as Landing Spots?

(1) Physical Landing Spots

Each person’s life will look a little bit different, but here are some general ideas:

Where do physical items come into your life? Where do people place items that need your attention?

(2) Digital Landing Spots

(3) Your Capture Tool

This can be a paper or digital list that you keep with you throughout the day.

As ideas, thoughts, goals, future projects, pop-up tasks, etc., come into your mind during the day, write them down on this Capture Tool.

This is your mental Landing Spot. Whenever you have a thought that would otherwise get lost or keep you up at night, write it down here on the Capture Tool.

Now, what if we have way too many Landing Spots?

This is where you get to consolidate them!

In your home, you may need to tell your family members, “We aren’t setting items in 8 different places around the house any more. From now on, please set items in _____ place and I will look at them each day.”

The same goes for physical items given to you at work, a place where you volunteer, church, etc.

When it comes to the digital side of things, you might decide to consolidate email inboxes and have all your email accounts forwarded to one place, where possible. You might consider deleting some social media or messaging apps that are not being used regularly or that cause too much distraction or frustration.

This is totally up to you, and there’s no one right way to go about consolidating the places. Honestly, you could have 20 overall Landing Spots, and as long as you feel good about them and you are checking them every day, that’s all that matters!

However, if you feel like physical and digital clutter are building up and things are slipping through the cracks, you might need to streamline things.

I typically like to check in on my Landing Spots once a day. Here’s my overall process:

(1) My Physical Landing Spots

I check the following locations once a day and process all of the items that come from these areas:

At the end of the day, we do an apartment reset. This gives us a chance to check each Landing Spot and make sure that we don’t have any random papers/items floating around the house.

(2) My Digital Landing Spots

I have a solid routine for checking my personal and email inboxes at least once a day. I delete anything that is trash, I handle urgent things right away, and I put the rest of my emails into a folder to handle during my Weekly Review.

The same process goes for my text messages. I have a routine to check my messages 2-3 times a day and try my best to get back to everyone who messages me within 24 hours.

I have consolidated my messaging apps so I only have 3 additional places to look for my group chats with friends and family members.

If you’re thinking, “I don’t really have a good routine for checking emails, texts, or other digital messages,” I would invite you to add this as a future project on your Next in Line or Someday Projects List. It is a project to establish a new routine, and setting up a new routine that will support you long term is definitely worth the investment of time and energy!

(3) My Capture Tool

My Capture Tool is actually my email inbox because I have my email inbox to zero. Whenever I have an idea that comes into my head, I’ll simply send myself an email and then I’ll process these ideas along with my regular emails at the end of the day. Here are a couple things I emailed myself recently:

Each of these items was extracted from my email inbox and added to the appropriate place in my Command Central. Nothing is in my head any more and I can trust that they are all safe!

What about all the backlog in my physical and digital spaces?

Please resist the urge to handle every single email, text message, physical space, etc., right now. Dealing with backlog is a whole separate project (or many smaller projects once things have been broken down).

I recommend looking at what just came in today, yesterday, and maybe the past 2 weeks. Start pulling out anything urgent or time sensitive, but realize that most of the “stuff” that makes up the backlog has actually been sitting here for weeks, months, or even years. It doesn’t need your attention right this minute.

Focus on creating solid routines that will support you TODAY to process all the new things that are incoming. Once you have a good routine to handle everything new in your life, go back and start chipping away at the backlog. These can be added to your Next in Line Projects List, and they’ll be safe and ready for you when the time is right.

Are there any Landing Spot questions that you have for us? Feel free to leave them here in the comments section!

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The ARISE Membership– an amazing gathering place for community members that are using their Command Centrals to refine relationships, health, finances, individual purpose, and more. We focus on a new topic each month, and this is an amazing opportunity to receive coaching and support from Team LearnDoBecome. You can sign up for a free, 60-day trial here.

This month, we are celebrating LearnDoBecome’s 10th birthday! We are so grateful to have reached this milestone, and we couldn’t have done it without this incredible online community.

I remember being on summer break as a 15 year old when my parents first published this website. There was a lot of anticipation and excitement about this new website, but I could tell that this was going to be something really meaningful for both of my parents (April and Eric Perry) to work on together.

I really admired how diligently they worked to share more about organization, life architecture, and lots of other topics with so many people online. I was also really grateful for their commitment to a solid work/life balance that made lots of time for our family’s needs and volunteer work in our church and local community.

I asked our LearnDoBecome Community if they had any special “wins,” favorite podcasts, or insights from something they learned from one of our programs, and the following images are screenshots of their kind birthday messages:

Thank you for being a wonderful part of this online community! Here’s to many more months and years of learning, doing, and becoming!

xoxo

-Alia and Team LearnDoBecome

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I always love hearing about family and home routines that others have found helpful, and in today’s podcast, I thought I would share a few of my own!

As with all things at LearnDoBecome, we encourage you to adapt the things we share to meet your own needs and current circumstances. I’ll be sharing a few things that have been really helpful in our family setting, but I recognize that not everyone has children or families in the exact same stages as mine. I’ll share a couple adaptations below, and if there are any favorite home/everyday routines that you’d like to share with us and the community, we’d love to hear from you in the comments section on this post!

(1) Entryway Routine

I’m sure every one of us has misplaced our keys or wallet at some point–I’m certainly not the exception!

I felt like I was forgetting something every time I went out to the car or left the house to run errands, and it was taking a lot of mental energy to go around the house gathering everything I would need while I was gone. (Especially if I was bringing our kids.)

I made it a project on my Current Projects List to establish a solid entryway routine. My Next Actions included finding a shelf that would fit the space, hanging up our car keys, and gathering up all the essentials for day trips in one place.

This shelf (pictured below) helps me get out the door quickly because my keys, wallet, diaper bag, reusable grocery bags, and any items I need to take out to the car are easy to access.

When I get home, I immediately return the keys to the hook and put everything back where it belongs. It takes me maybe 30-60 seconds to reset each time I return home, but I love the feeling of knowing that everything is in its place and that I won’t need to spend time searching for anything!

(2) Laundry Routine

A few years ago, we used a hamper that was segmented into 3 sections, and once a section was full, we would do a load of laundry.

Now that we have kids and a lot more laundry, I found that the best way to keep myself from procrastinating doing the laundry was to keep the washer open all the time.

This means that whenever we have dirty laundry, it goes right into the washer and skips the waiting stage (aka, the hamper).

Of course, some things need to be washed separately so the colors don’t run together, but for the most part, everything we own can be reasonably washed together. This has been so helpful to us because we end up doing 2-4 loads of laundry a week, and there’s never a build-up of clothes on the floor or in other parts of our apartment.

This helps our spaces feel really light, open, and clean because all of the laundry is contained. And once the washer fills up, it’s time to start a new load of laundry!

(3) Resetting the Apartment at the End of the Day

This routine was one of the projects on my Current Projects List last year. My husband and I noticed that we were going to bed too late and forgetting to tidy up the dishes and other areas of our apartment.

We would wake up to a mess, and it wasn’t a fun way to start the day. We really focused on the elements of an evening reset that would make our mornings feel better (identifying those things were our Next Actions), and we added calendar reminders each evening to prompt us to stop what we were doing and start tidying up.

After a few weeks of calendar reminders, the routine started to stick! Of course, every day is a little bit different in terms of how much energy we have and how much we are able to do.

Is there an area of your home, office, or other space that needs consistent attention each day? Just a few minutes of tidying and resetting each day helps us avoid a major cleanup at the end of the week. Once we get to the weekend, the last thing either of us want to do is lots of cleaning, so this daily routine has been extra motivational for both of us!

For example, this is what things looked like in our kitchen one morning after we did a half tidy. We were super tired, but we at least got the dishes done and my husband was able to put away the majority of his sourdough baking items. It wasn’t perfect, but it was nice to only have a handful of items to put away the next day:

And this is a picture of our apartment at the end of the day when we have energy to do a full tidy. The kitchen is totally clean and all the dishes are drying in the corner:

(Our apartment’s main area is what gets messy during the day, so we focus a lot on the living room and kitchen during this tidy. We rarely use the rooms during the day, so those don’t need as much attention during this daily routine.)

(4) Toy Rotation/Reset

Our son’s toy area is right in the middle of our living room, so we do our best to make sure it isn’t overflowing with toys. We get out 3-4 sets of toys at a time and store them on a little shelf. Here’s what it looks like at the end of most days:

Before he goes to bed, we work together to gather up the toys and do a simple tidy alongside him. Once he’s in bed, we switch out some of the toys with ones he hasn’t seen in a couple weeks. It feels like a brand-new play area when he wakes up in the morning.

Either my husband or I will tackle the toys in the evening while the other focuses on dishes and other kitchen tasks.

Here’s the “after” photo of this space:

Is there a space in your life that gets heavy-duty use each day? Maybe a makeup bag or bathroom drawer during your morning routine? Maybe the front seat of your car gets lots of items piled in it during errands or on your way to and from work? How could you take a couple minutes each day to straighten this area up and leave it looking and feeling great for your future self?

(5) Nightstand and Baby Items Reset

We have a 1 month old baby right now, so anything we can do before bedtime to make the evening feedings and wake times easier is very appreciated!

During our apartment reset each day, we’ll restock the diapers and other baby items in the two places they’re used most–the living room and my nightstand. I appreciate this routine so much because I don’t need to hunt for any baby items in the middle of the night. Everything is in one place and just an arm’s reach away. (I included a picture below of our living room baby station.)

And if you don’t have a baby, you can totally apply this to other goals that you’re working towards! For example, if you have a goal (and a subsequent routine) to go to the gym 3x a week, you might establish a routine of setting out all your gym clothes and items on the dresser the night before. If you want to be a better journal writer or more consistent reader, you might set up your nightstand as a journal/reading station with everything you need in one place.

This kind of daily reset can be applied in SO many different ways (even with things like packing a healthy lunch for work the next day or making sure your bag is prepped for school/work). It might take a few calendar reminders to become a consistent routine, but sooner or later it will “stick.”

Do you have any favorite home or family routines that you’d like to share? I love learning from this community and hearing what has made a positive impact in your life. Feel free to share your own routines in the comments section below!

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Our Steps to Everyday Productivity program!

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We all have lots of “stuff” that comes into our lives. It sometimes seems like there’s a never-ending stream of papers, emails, digital files, thoughts, ideas, concerns, messages, etc. that we have to handle on a regular basis.

But how are we supposed to stay afloat and handle all these little things amidst our busy schedules and everything else we have going on?

Personally, I’ve found the 8 STEP Processing Questions to be the answer!

They have been absolutely life changing, and I feel totally confident in my ability to process every physical and digital thing that comes into my life. I recorded this podcast about real examples from my life, and I’ll take you through the eight questions now:

Note: We don’t use all 8 of these questions every time. Sometimes we can stop at question 3, for example, and then jump all the way to question 8 because we are done processing and we know where we are going to put the appropriate support materials.

And there you have it! Lots of things processed, and every single thing was able to be handled using the 8 STEP Processing Questions!

I feel so confident in my ability to handle every incoming physical and digital item. Sure, some items will have more emotions or complexities attached, but at the end of the day, I have the skills and the process to walk each item through the 8 questions.

This has been life changing for me because I no longer have items sitting on my desk or kitchen counter for days or weeks on end. Everything has a home in my STEP Command Central, and I am so grateful for that!

Can’t wait to see how you use the 8 STEP Processing Questions in your own life!

Podcast: Get Trained on the Basics of Processing with a STEP Command Central

Podcast: Turning Tiny Tasks Into Big Wins – The 2-Minute Rule in Action!

Routines Made Easy Course with Alia and Josh

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The ARISE Membership– an amazing gathering place for community members that are using their Command Centrals to refine relationships, health, finances, individual purpose, and more. We focus on a new topic each month, and this is an amazing opportunity to receive coaching and support from Team LearnDoBecome. You can sign up for a free, 60-day trial here.

When it comes to establishing new habits and improving my health, sleep, relationships, and other aspects of my life, I’ve often felt discouraged because I wasn’t able to maintain these habits long term.

I set out with the best intentions, just to spend 2-3 days working on that habit and then promptly forgetting about it. (Or sometimes life just felt too busy to even bother adding one more thing into my regular routine.)

I decided to take a step back a couple years ago and identify why exactly this was a sticking point for me. How come I struggled so much to make these habits stick? How many times had I said, “I’ll just work on this later…Now isn’t really the best time for me to try to do _____.” I realized that I wasn’t giving myself enough structure, reminders, or an accountability partner. Once I did that, I saw a huge transformation in my life!

I’m excited to share three examples with you in today’s podcast, and I hope this provides some inspiration for you as you consider your own goals and the habits that would bring you closer to achieving those goals.

At the beginning of each year, I would start a new journal and have the best intentions of writing regularly about my life. I would promptly forget about this journal and maybe only write 2-3 entries in it for the whole year. And then the cycle would begin again with the next new year. I just couldn’t make this stick! And I felt bad that I was missing out on recording the small moments that were shaping our lives.

We were getting ready to have our first baby, my husband was about to start applying to medical school, and we were getting ready to do a little bit of traveling together. I knew that we needed to get this habit established soon if we wanted to have a little record of these transformative life events.

I looked online and found a simple, one line a day journal (linked below in the Related Links section) that seemed manageable. I got one for both me and my husband. We put them on our pillows or nightstands so that they would be in sight for us to write in each night.

There were a couple times when I had to put a reminder in my calendar to help us make time in the evenings to journal or catch up on a couple days that we had missed, but after a few of those calendar events, it started to stick!

I was also grateful to have my husband as an accountability partner. I asked him to remind me if I ever started forgetting to write, and I did the same for him. We are now coming up on 2 years of consistent journaling! It’s been amazing!

This felt so much more realistic and manageable than my previous expectation that I had of writing a full page every day or doing something really monumental and fancy. We thrived with this simplicity, and it only takes 2-3 minutes to complete each day. I love looking back on the past entries and thinking about how I’ve grown and how certain events have shaped me.

This routine is a more simple example because it really only took one Next Action to order the journal, and then I was able to add it to my Routines List/Calendar to get it to stick. Now that it’s a habit, I don’t need to think twice about it any more.

Making spinach smoothies for breakfast each day felt a little bit more difficult than starting a journal writing routine. I decided to treat this as a small project that was added to my Current Projects List. I wanted to find some recipes that were easy, fast, inexpensive, and that froze well so we could batch prep them.

I started adding simple Next Actions to my Next Actions List:

After two years of doing this, we have a pretty solid routine down now, and we call it our “family smoothie party” to prep all our green smoothies for the week. Our two year old son will run to his cupboard and bring us his toddler-sized cup as soon as he hears that it’s time to make them. We’re all big fans!

And honestly, we don’t even use a recipe any more. We just throw in whatever frozen vegetables (spinach, zucchini, carrots, kale) and frozen fruit we have on hand, add some protein powder, yogurt, almond butter, and almond milk, and we’re set. It sounds like a random combination of things, but we love how it tastes and love how it encourages us to use all the odds and ends from our fridge that might have gone bad if we didn’t freeze them.

We got off track making our smoothies in the last couple weeks, so I added this to my calendar to help us get back on a consistent schedule. We may need this calendar reminder for the next few weeks to help us remember to make them, and that’s okay! That’s the beauty of calendar reminders–we can always count on them to help us stay on top of the routines that matter most to our family.

Here’s what our freezer looks like on a regular basis:

My husband (Josh) is a full-time student and I balance online work tasks/projects as a stay at home mom. Both of us tend to work on homework and work in the evening since it’s quiet and we can usually do our best, focused work once our kids are asleep.

We found that we were both staying up too late and neither of us really wanted to reset the apartment or tackle the home tasks required of us at the end of the day. We were staying up too late and feeling really tired most days.

We made it a project on our “Family” section of the Current Projects List to establish a bedtime routine and find ways to reset the house and anything else for the next day.

My husband and I sat down together and did a brainstorm of everything we wanted to accomplish by the end of the day. We realized that there actually wasn’t too much that we needed to do–start the dishwasher, switch the laundry, clean up toys, prep for the next day’s errands or activities–we just needed to dedicate consistent time and energy to making it happen.

Josh sent me a calendar invitation that repeated every night from 9:30 to 10 that said “Clean Up Together.” Once the calendar reminder/notification went off on our devices in the evening, we would hold each other accountable and get off of our computers or stop working.

I absolutely loved having this built-in time to take 20-40 minutes (depending on the needs of our house) to talk and work together. Sometimes we would listen to a podcast and other times we would talk about things on our mind/ask each other for advice. I began really looking forward to this time for connection with one another.

We were able to consistently get to bed by 10:30 each night and wake up to an apartment that was tidy and welcoming for the day ahead. Of course, there were a couple days when we had way too much going on or we just couldn’t do our usual routine. And that’s okay! However, we definitely noticed the impact it had on our family/home when things weren’t reset for the day and we felt like we weren’t starting the day on our best foot. It was just another reminder to us of the importance of this routine and the impact it had on us all day long.

I CAN stick to new routines that make my life better and make me feel happier and healthier!

And here at LearnDoBecome, we want the same for you! Is there a new routine that you want to implement in your life? We’d love to hear your plan to do so in the comments. Will it be one of your Current Projects? Will you have an accountability partner? We’re cheering you on!!

One Line a Day Journal

Routines Made Easy Course with Alia and Josh

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YouTube Channel: Subscribe Here!

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Our Steps to Everyday Productivity program!

The ARISE Membership– an amazing gathering place for community members that are using their Command Centrals to refine relationships, health, finances, individual purpose, and more. We focus on a new topic each month, and this is an amazing opportunity to receive coaching and support from Team LearnDoBecome. You can sign up for a free, 60-day trial here.