Lani Jackson: Hi, everyone. Thanks for joining.

Lani Jackson: Before the session of The Power of Eliminating the Never Ending To-Do List. I am really excited to bring this topic to you and to share with you all of my thoughts and tips and tricks, and really the strategy behind eliminating the never-ending to-do list and how it can help you in your business. Uh, Shannon, thank you for inviting me to be here today. And we have heard some, so many amazing speakers and sessions over the weekend. I can't wait to dive in deeper and to see all the amazing things that happen because you attended this, this conference this weekend. So let's get started

Lani Jackson: If you haven't

Lani Jackson: Met me yet. I'm Lani, I'm Lani Jackson. I'm a strategy and clarity coach for mom entrepreneurs, and I help moms double their income without doubling their to-do list. I am a mom of six. Myself is 12 all the way down to six. I have one set of twin identical twin girls in there, and we're a big, crazy family. Another fun fact about me is I'm obsessive foodie. If you ever around me, I will cook you with some really good food. I'm also an Enneagram 2 Wing 3, and I'm a serial learner. I love

Lani Jackson: Learning. So here we go

Lani Jackson: Are we're on the last day of the summit, we are talking, wrapping up all the things and we've learned such a valuable information. It's all awesome. But I am so sad to tell you a lot of what you learned over this weekend and maybe more is going to be collecting dust.

Lani Jackson: Yep.

Lani Jackson: You heard me think about the other summits that you've attended. You filled up notebook, fulls, note books, full of dreams and ideas and great tips, hacks tricks, step-by-steps courses, ideas, all the things. And then you close that notebook and it's really overwhelming. You make a list and what happens to it just collects dust. I have a lot of those notebooks on my shelf behind me, as a reminder of all the amazing things I learned and never did. Um, so that's one extreme, or maybe you're on the opposite end and you've been making a to-do list this whole time. Every session I need to do this, I need to do this. I need to do this. And you got to do list as longer than the last eight Christmases wishlist from your kids. Seriously, it's going to be impossible or overwhelming to accomplish all the things that you want to.

Lani Jackson: It's all good things on your list, but is it really going to make a big difference in your business? If it just stays on your list? I have a quote that I love to share with other entrepreneurs especially moms is strategy without process is little more than a wishlist. And I think a lot of times our checklist, our to do list, turn into a wishlist because we'd never actually put it into place. So here's how, you know, if you may have a wishlist strategy, if you're stuck in the same income, the same numbers, the same price as you were before, if you're frustrated that everyone seems to know the secret that you don't know about growing, if you're wondering why you aren't growing and why, the strategies that you learned, aren't working for you, but they seem to be working for everyone else. So this is a little filter.

Lani Jackson: You can run it through. Here's the thing. It's time to ditch that never ending to do list. Um, the one where, you know, you put it on your list and you carry the list around with you. And somehow you add five things. Every time you check one thing off, and the same things that were on the list yesterday are on the list today. They will also be on the list tomorrow because you just don't have enough time and you're so overwhelmed and you can't get it. All done. Overwhelmed is not cool. So what do we do? I mean, obviously there's a problem. We have too much on our lists. Not enough time. How are we going to get it all done? We've added more things this weekend because there's been some amazing tips, ideas, strategies, all these things that we've been told, we should do work.

Lani Jackson: They've been proven. What do we do now? So first for that first, we need to stop with that. Adding to the list. Let's let's think about how we can eliminate it. We're going to start with our real time. How much time do I actually have in my week before we even look at our list before we even dive deep into strategies and all the things that you want to do, your goals, your big dreams, let's start with the time that you actually have to spend in your business. I know a lot of people tuning in this weekend are side hustlers. They have a full time, nine to five job. And in the margins like the evening times, early mornings on the weekends, you're building a business with a dream of quitting your nine to five. And that is amazing, but let's be realistic with what time we have to invest in our business.

Lani Jackson: Not to say that you can't stretch yourself a little thin. Sometimes you can't push a little harder, but is that sustainable longterm? So with my clients, my coaching clients, we always start with what time we have available. And I want you to be realistic because if you get off work at five o'clock and then you think you're going to get into your side hustle business at 5:30 and work until 11:30 at night, you didn't make time to eat. You didn't make time to shower or unwind, and that's not realistic. That's a recipe for burnout and not getting the stuff you want to done. Uh, some of you might be listening and your moms, it, I know what it's like to be a mom and working in during that time and after bedtime and with 15 minutes of screen time. So we all have limitations to the time that we have available to us to work.

Lani Jackson: So let's start there. Let's get clear about what to do. So I like to suggest you get out. Um, uh, I use personally a Trello board. Speaking of Trello, if you have never used Trello, it is an operating systems where you can organize your business. I love it. It's like list-making and post-it notes had a baby and it's online and it updates in real time to your app on your phone and to your computer. Is that, it's my favorite thing ever. I, with this session, you can grab my free weekly scheduled templates and download that for yourself. It's already set up kind of pretty, you can alter it if you want to, but it's all ready to go. So, uh, I don't know where she had to put it on this session, but grab it and start there, start with a piece of paper. If you don't want to do Trello, whatever you want to do, just pick one thing and then you're going to start lay out your time.

Lani Jackson: So if you say I'm working, I'd say I'm going to get up early. I'm going to work 5:00 AM to 6:00 AM, Monday through Friday, or I'm going to work, um, in the evenings after the kids go to bed 8 to 10, or I'm going to work in nap times between 2 and 3, write those times down. So you can see a realistically how much time do you actually have in your week to spend on your business? Of course it might change week to week, but for a general outline, start there. So once you know what time you have available, I want you to do a giant brain dump. What do I think I need to do? So this is like, this is your chance to make the giant to-do list to make that huge list of things that you need to do. I'm talking everything from schedule social media, to create a course, to sign up for this, to hire a coach, to everything you can think of, just dump it all out.

Lani Jackson: I mean, however many pieces of paper you need to fill up, fill them up. This is why I love Trello, because you can literally make a giant list in individual cards. You can put details on each card. It's amazing now. So we have our time that we have available. Now we have a giant to do list and you're about to shut down on me because it's no one can do all of that at once, right? Unless we have a giant team and you're ready to delegate, it's not going to happen. So what will take me closer to my goals? Here's what I always ask first. What is your most important goal? Like what is the number one thing that you want first? Um, most of the time I hear from clients and from people I work with, I want to make more money. I want to double my income.

Lani Jackson: I want to hit my first five figures. I want to hit a 10 figure month. Okay, awesome. Now let's look at that giant brain dump list and let's start circling and highlighting only the things that will take you to making money that will convert to money and will convert the fastest. Here's some hard truth. 10,000 followers on Instagram does not mean more money. I'm sorry. It doesn't. I know that we've heard strategies this weekend for social media. We've heard strategies for all kinds of things, but if it's a strategy that is long-term good for your business, that's awesome. But will it convert to you making money in your business? The quickest? So we might have to wait on some things we might have to say, this is top priority because oftentimes we get hung up on followed accounts or on engagements or these different things.

Lani Jackson: And what we're leaving on the table is the opportunity to connect with another human being who is our ideal client and signing them over. I know so many women and entrepreneurs and men who are don't have a big following. Don't have a huge social media presence and they're making multi-six figures. So let's, let's just, that's just one example, but make sure when you start to plug things into your week, that you're not putting tasks on your to-do list, that you're carrying around every day that are not going to get you closer to your goals and take you there the fastest route possible. So that's the first filter. I put it through the next filter. I want you to delete the fluff. the fluff meaning do you really have to do that? Is that really necessary for your business? Is that really what you want to do?

Lani Jackson: A lot of times we have great ideas. I tell, I have told myself this, sometimes this is, this is going to go on. The do never list. This is a great idea, but it's not for me. And it's okay to say that you cannot do all the things all of the time, all at once. So delete out the fluff from your to-do list, the things that you don't need to do. And here's another part of deleting a fluff. Maybe you need to delegate. You need to let go. You need to assign someone else to it, whether that be, um, grocery pickup or delivery to save you time. So you can work more on your business or it's hiring your first VA and hiring someone to manage your Instagram or to write your social media. Those are all things that can help you take out all the extra fluff that is going to just distract you from getting the things that will get you towards your first goal, your main goal, which most likely is making money.

Lani Jackson: So here's where we're at in the process of eliminating that never ending to do list. You are going through your schedule. You're saying, what realistic time do I have? What are the days that I could work? What are the hours that I can work so that I know how much time I can spend in building my business. And also just to recap on that, let's not spend too much time in our business to where you're burning yourself out and working 80 hours a week. Because as entrepreneurs we think like this is lifestyle that we think is going to happen somehow magically when actually, you know, we're, we're like sitting by the pool and we have a laptop and we're working like two days a week and that's it. And yes, that can happen. But most often it is the opposite in extreme. We're working 80 hours a week and burning ourselves out and our family is suffering or health is suffering. So roll that back in, reign it back in and choose those days that will work for you. And those times that, you know, you can show up for your business, then do that giant brain dump, make that huge list of all the things that you think you need to do, get it all out there. So you can actually view it. And then I want you to go back

Speaker 3: Into and say like, what are my goals?

Lani Jackson: What is the real things that I want to accomplish? What is the first goals that I want to hit? That's important then after you've seen those goals that you want to hit first, then delete out that fluff. Yes, it's okay to take things off of your list or to put them in a place where they can live until you're ready to do them. Don't keep them on your daily to-do list. And then the next step is one of my favorites. You start plugging it in. And as you plug in, you're going to need to say, okay, what days are my best days are my best times. When do I have the most energy? This is super intuitive to, um, really be your best self and to show up as your best self in the business tasks that require the most energy. So making sure that you are like, if you're a morning person, do your hardest tasks in the morning.

Lani Jackson: If you're not a morning person, don't try to write, you know, a blog post in the morning when you can barely talk to your family, let's be realistic when we plug these tasks in. So start plugging them into your routine. And again, it is a new routine. It's a new way of thinking. It's a new way of saying I'm not going to carry everything around every day. I'm going to suggest, look at what I need to do in the day that I'm in and creating a new routine, because a lot of what we do in our business as entrepreneurs is very routine. And you're going to get into this new habit of OK let's say, Tuesdays are content days. And I'm going to create content all day, Wednesdays, I'm networking, Thursdays, I'm going live, or I I'm showing up and doing coffee dates. And I am doing discovery calls get a routine.

Lani Jackson: So that those days, when you think of something that needs to be done, like let's say the content and you have a content idea Thursday. Nope. I do that on Tuesday. And you go and you put it back on Tuesday. You can put that idea where it's supposed to live instead of having it on your to-do list and distracting your brain to think about more than one thing when it just doesn't need to. So as you start to plug it in, you're going to see gaps. Okay. Uh, I still don't have enough time to do all the things. So again, you might have to delete more or you might have to look at what is overwhelming about these things. That's taking me so much time to do them. A lot of times with my clients, when we start plugging things in and we start working through their schedule and putting those tasks that they think they need to do, or they want to do into their schedule, we see some serious gaps and those gaps can be oftentimes be they're taking a 15 minute task and it's stretching out to an hour because they aren't focused.

Lani Jackson: And they don't have a clear strategy step-by-step process that they get to repeat every time or they're taking an hour long task. And they're shoving it in to this tiny little time slot of 15 minutes. And that doesn't work either. So start seeing those gaps of where you're like, okay, this is not realistic for me to try to push all of this into one day. I need to spread it out into multiple days, or I need more time. So as entrepreneurs, we're juggling, all the other things, we're side hustling, we have kids, whatever that case may be, that's taking up more of your time. On the other side of your coin of your life, you might have to adjust or commit less or commit to being super hyper-focused, which is oftentimes what we need to do.

Lani Jackson: Here's the next step that's oftentimes the hardest is doing the thing. Commit, take action and tweak it as you go. Uh, if you've ever bought a day planner and done it for like just the month of January and then quit in February or forgot where you put it. It's not the fact that the planner was not a good system. It's you? It's all you, you didn't commit to keeping up with it. You didn't take action every day. You didn't create a new habit. You didn't adjust how you're using that product. So I personally love Trello. I, I teach my entre- My-, so I personally love Trello. And I teach that in my groups, in my mompreneur society. Um, in my group coaching program to my one-on-one students, we use Trello. And then sometimes I get the feedback of, well, Trello didn't work for me really. It's not that it didn't work for them.

Lani Jackson: It's that they didn't work Trello. They didn't work the thing, they didn't put it into action often enough and keep at it and not give up and tweak and customize for it to do the job needed to do so. I can I'm testimony to myself in this. I can share my story about how, when I first got into Trello, I was like, so excited. Like, this is amazing. This is everything I've ever wanted and set up a ton of boards and did nothing with them. It was great. All the boards, all the organization you could want. And I did nothing with it and I wondered why it wasn't working, but that's because I wasn't working the system. So I went back to my old habit of making the long to-do list, where my brain is constantly thinking about everything I need to do for the next seven days, month, year, quarter, all of the things.

Lani Jackson: And there's just no way I can handle all that. So I sit at my computer and I would open it up when I did have time to work. And it would take me almost an hour just to get a groove going, okay, what am I going to do? What's most important? Um, Oh, I used to do this and I needed to do that. And I get super distracted and all over the place. And then when I closed my laptop and, uh, for four hours, I felt like I had accomplished nothing. And I had moved nowhere closer to my goals than I had before I opened my laptop. And that is really defeating as an entrepreneur who is really trying to grow a business or to meet a dream or to have a goal of quitting their job. It's super discouraging. So I don't want that for you, but you're going to need to do the thing for this to work. Um, avoiding, let's talk about avoiding, you know, that task that has been on your to-do list for three months. And every time you just write it down, you move it over, write it down, move it over, move it over, move it, it just keeps moving over. Uh, and you're, I'm going to drag my face over here.

Lani Jackson: Okay. See it's words

Lani Jackson: You realize. I just don't want to do that. Let's let's talk about that. Let's acknowledge the procrastination. Let's acknowledge why we have been avoiding something. Self-analyze why that task you've been half halfway doing or why you've been sending, spending 7,000 hours a week on Tik Tok, instead of those actionable things that could move you forward. I find that when something is really overwhelming to me or when I don't understand it, or I'm scared of it, I avoid it. And I will do anything, anything to distract myself from it. And that's how that task stays on your list every day. Because one, you think you can't do it. You don't, you aren't sure you aren't confident. Um, you think it's going to take a lot longer than what it probably will. And I just talked to one of my clients yesterday and she told me, as soon as we got on the call, guess what?

Lani Jackson: That task that I've been avoiding took me 15 minutes. It wasn't that hard. I have, we both kind of chuckled and she's like, I don't know what was holding me up, but I just kept thinking this is going to be way harder. But when I actually just sat down, set a timer said, I'm going to do this. I got it done in no time flat. And now it's off my plate. I am so proud of her for doing that. And we cheered on that moment because sometimes we are all up in our head and we are scared of things that we shouldn't be scared of, or we're overwhelmed by things that we just need to just try, just do it, just hit the live button and go for it.

Lani Jackson: So what are the results of all of this eliminating the, the, to do list. Number one, you're going to see results from consistency instead of sitting down at your computer and trying to figure out what to do first on your to-do list. You're going to know exactly what to do on the day that you want to do it. And you're going to know what's going to bring you income. You also can start timing yourself and saying, okay, how long does this task takes me? Especially the routine ones that we do every week at our business. And you will see so many results from sticking with a system that plugs in your task and your, the things that you want to do in your business. That will take you closer to your goals. And because you are doing them consistently, guess what else happens? Your income increases.

Lani Jackson: It's amazing. Um, when, when you do the actions that will result in clients and contracts and all of that, money-making things, uh, it's awesome. How your zeros increase in your bank account. The next thing that results is audience growth. You're showing up consistently in your business. You're showing up to your people. You're pouring in, in a way that is, um, obvious and sustainable. And it's not going to be like, Oh, wait, was I following her before? Okay. Now I am not. I'm not, I don't know. Did she disappear? We get this crazy back and forth because we are inconsistent. We don't have a plan, but when you show up your audience notices, and then my favorite is you put the stress in the trash. Um, when I really committed to doing this system of dishing the to-do list and creating a schedule and a routine and reading through my task and being realistic with my time, the stress level went down, down, down, down, down, and it was amazing. I love it. I love seeing my clients have that same feeling when they're like, wow. I actually felt like when I was all over and I was derailed by something happening, I knew I could come back and immediately pick up where I left off because I knew exactly what to do and what would make things happen in my business, which is so powerful and amazing. And I want that for you too.

Lani Jackson: So now it's your turn. You got this, you have your notebook full of amazing notes of downloads and printables and opt-ins and courses, and the power pack that Shannon offered. You have all of this, and you can do something amazing with this information in your business, but I don't want you to turn it into a to-do list. I want you to turn it into a new routine, a new lifestyle, a new pattern of success. This is going to make all the difference in your business, in your bottom line, in your sanity, in your overwhelm, in your family, syncing it all up together. I hope this has inspired you to take those steps and get rid of the fluff, get rid of the things that are going to live on your to-do list forever, or that you want to do. And because you are distracted and you don't know what to do, you never get to them.

Lani Jackson: Let's take out that never ending to do list. Let's plug in the system. If you would like to try the Trello system, go ahead and grab that opt in, copy the board, sign up for Trello. Let's start it. I also have a free masterclass where I show in live action, putting this together. And I also have a group coaching program for mom entrepreneurs who are ready to create a system that focuses them in, helps them meet their goals, double their income without the overwhelm, the mom guilt, and take back their time and make their dreams of bringing money and income for their family come true. I love being here with you today. If you have questions I'd love for you to hit me up DM me, Lani J.Jackson on Instagram or at Brilliant Mompreneurs on Facebook, or the Brilliant Mompreneurs Society, which is a free group for moms to come in and network encourage each other to support, share, do market research. Anything you need. We're here to support you as a community of mompreneurs. Just like you appreciate you so much. And I look forward to talking to you guys and getting to know you better have an amazing rest of the conference and you got this. You can do it. You're going to do this side hustle. One more thing, head over to lanijackson.com/sidehustle to learn more about one-on-one coaching, the group coaching program or the master class. You can get all of that information over there. Thanks so much guys.