Getting Clear About How You Process To-Do’s & Ideas

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Are you clear about what you do with every to-do or idea that comes your way? 

Not how you actually do the thing or use the idea – just how you process it?

i.e., Do you have a system that helps you take in that to-do/idea, process it, and then bring it to life?

It’s a basic question perhaps, but one that I don’t think we always get clear on. And clarity here helps us in our day-to-day lives, where such much is flying at us all the time.

So, let’s talk about it.

Full transcript:

[Upbeat Intro Music]

Kelly Nolan: Welcome to The Bright Method Podcast where we’ll discuss practical time management strategies designed for the professional working woman. I’m Kelly Nolan, a former patent litigator who now works with women to set up The Bright Method in their lives. The Bright Method is a realistic time management system that helps you manage it all, personally and professionally. Let’s get you falling asleep proud of what you got done today and calm about what’s on tap tomorrow. All right, let’s dig in!

_________

Kelly Nolan: Hey, hey! All right, so today I want to dig into something that is a pretty simple-sounding question. I think at first glance it sounds like, “Well, yeah.” But I think if you really slow down and really think it through, it could be pretty profound and pretty game-changing for you if you would trust it.

And the question is: Do you know what you do with anything that pops into your head or flies at you or is asked of you throughout the day? Do you have a game plan for any action item or an idea about a work project or an idea about your personal life? Any of those things that pop into our heads or are asked of us or, who knows what, an email comes in, all that kind of stuff. When these things come at you, do you have clarity around, “This is how I handle that thing”?

And I think it’s a pretty basic question, but it’s almost so basic that we don’t even ask ourselves that. We just kind of assume, “Yeah, I know what I’m doing with that,” and then if you really think of all the different contexts that things come at you, you might not (and it’s okay if you don’t) have clarity around, “This is what I do with that thing. This is how I process that thing. This is where I hold things until I process that thing.” And when we don’t have clarity around kind of the process of how we handle things, and we don’t have clarity around the substantive nature of all the things, like whether we’re gonna do something, how we’re gonna do it, all that kind of stuff, that really can compound our overwhelm because without clarity of a system, that gives uncertainty. And then also the work itself, there’s uncertainty in that and overwhelm in that and stress in that in and of itself.

So that’s what I really want to talk about today because at least for past me and I would even say more recent me as I worked through The Bright Method, even though I had my Bright Method system of how I use to calendar, it didn’t always expand into earlier. For a while it kind of was like, “This is how I use my calendar.” But I didn’t really understand how to process the to-do’s and things like that before they entered the calendar, if that makes sense. And so, you might be in a similar spot, and I just wanted to talk about that today because I think one thing you could do to help really alleviate your stress and overwhelm is you’re still gonna have all these things coming at you, right? You’re still gonna have all of the substantive stuff in your life, but if we can get clarity around the process of how you handle those things and evaluate those things and bring those things to life, then we can reduce the overwhelm at least on that element of all this, and I think that that has, obviously, an effect on our overall feelings of overwhelm and stress or clarity and peace of mind.

And the reason I bring this up now is that I get questions like, “I feel like there are a million tiny things always living in my head, like what do I do about that?” And that is such a fair and understandable place to be, especially during this time of year. What I want for you is to know what to do with those things and also have those things, the way you process it, not be in your head. There’s no holding in your head anymore. I basically want you to have clarity, if you can almost imagine and even write it down if you want, of a flow chart, essentially, of, “This is the process of, when things come at me, how I handle them.”

And it actually might be helpful, honestly — I know it sounds weird, but it might be helpful to actually write it down. Take a piece of paper and a pen and write down, “What are all the ways that things come at me, and what do I do when those things happen? Each thing — just to be really clear, each input does not need its own special-way process. If you have a couple groupings of things that can be handled a similar way or even one grouping, although I don’t know if that makes sense. And then from there what I want to see you do is just kind of, like, how would you handle this? It doesn’t have to be a methodical step-by-step. I’m gonna walk you through mine as an example. But I just think it’s really helpful if you can take a step back and think, “This is all the things that come at me, that typically do,” and get clarity and create clarity if you don’t have it around this is how I handle those things. So I’m gonna walk you through mine just because I think it’s helpful. It does not mean it’s the right way to do it. I just think it’s helpful. It’ll bring this to life a little bit more.

First Part of My Process: Capture – 

When I sat down to write mine out, it was less about the different places things come at me, but yours could be that if you want it to be, and more about what are the types of things that come to mind, whether it’s they bubble up in my own mind or from somewhere else. And for me, the main things come down to action items, which I talk a lot about here, and just ideas. Ideas about something I could write content on or something I could do for my program or just general ideas that maybe are less action oriented but, like, “Oh, this piece of information that I want to hold onto,” or “This potential content thing. I’m not really ready to do anything about it yet, but let me just capture that idea,” or even “This is an idea of something that I might want to do in a couple years, and I just don’t want to lose track of it,” all of that kind of stuff.

And then within that I would say the overlapping, I don’t think it’s its own third category necessarily, but it’s the asks that are made of you, other people asking you to do things. Obviously, what can flow out of that are ideas and action items, but it almost feels like a little bit of a standalone category because the first two to me feel like things I can do on my own and I have to also account for the asks that come at me.

And for me, I’ve talked a lot about this in previous episodes. I’ll link it in the show notes. I’ll cite to the number in the show notes of the podcast episode that’s about capturing to-do’s that come at you. But essentially, what my system is is the first step is capture, no matter if it’s an idea, an action item, an ask, anything like that. I just need to make sure it’s captured and by that I mean written down. Now, if it’s already written down, like if it’s in an email, great. That’s sufficient. It just needs to be not in my head. We cannot be relying on my head to remind future me, even in five minutes, to do something. So capturing things is really important.

And as I explained in that episode that I’ll, again, cite to in the show notes, I just have to either rely on — if I’m on the go, I use Siri plus Reminders to be like, “Siri, remind me in half an hour to do this.” And it might even be an idea. It’s not even like, “In half an hour I’m gonna do something.” It’s really for the reminder. I could even just say, “Remind me to do blah, blah, blah,” and it’s just truly a way to capture the idea or the to-do in a place that’s not my head.

So that’s the first part of my process. Priority number one is capture. The other element of that, I should say, is when I’m not on the go, it’s paper and pen. I’m still just a paper and pen user. That’s my go-to place. If I can use a paper and pen, I’m gonna do that. If I’m on the go or watching a kid or something like that, it’s usually Siri and Reminders to have me capture those things.

Second Part of My Process: Bridge Action Items To Their Home – 7:35 

And then as I explain in that episode, from there, once it’s captured, I need to bridge it into the place that makes sense. Now, for me, action items go into the calendar (not a surprise there), and ideas go into a place that makes sense. So in that regard it’s like if it’s a content idea, I have a project management board that’s just content ideas, and it goes there. And if it’s — I’m trying to think of other ones — a backburner idea, it goes on a different project management board. I think I’ve talked about the bird’s eye view before, that I have a column in my bird’s eye view of backburner ideas, and there are dozens of potential ideas there. I like to park them there, but it helps me with the shiny-object syndrome, so I stay focused on what I actually need to do. But I can let it go because I know things live there. Those are just examples but those are places where things land.

Another example I will say is if it’s something cute my kid said, the place that it lands is I have Apple Notes for each kid of funny things they said. I used to try and do it in cute notebooks, and I just never was around the notebook. By the time I got to the notebook, I totally had forgotten what the cute thing was. And so, now I just have Apple Notes, and it’s like, “First kid’s name; quotes.” “Second kid’s name; quotes,” on each of their own Note, and they’re pinned to the top. 

I digress. But I’m just giving examples of where things land for me can be different. But the important thing of my process is idea hits, action item hits, whatever it is. I capture it, and then I need to somehow get those captured things into the right home. And there are kind of two components to this.

The first is timing. I do not expect myself, in real time, to take all these things and put them in the right home. I think it’s not realistic. I think we’re too on the go. I think we want to be able to — you know, ideas come to us when we’re really trying to focus on something else sometimes. And I don’t want you being like, “Now I have to go to the perfect home and put this thing there and get distracted all along the way.” I think you just capture, and then at a different time, bridge to the right home so that you can get back to focusing on what you were trying to do, whether it was work or being present with kids, or I should say being present with friends or anyone. Because work ideas are gonna hit you when you’re with friends or family, and if you can just say, “Give me just a second,” and capture that in a place that works and then get back to them and not worry about, “Am I gonna forget this thing? Am I gonna lose track of this thing?” things like that, that will give you the freedom to capture it and then give you, it’s really the peace of mind to then turn back to them and be able to own your focus on what you want to focus on without stressing out about that other thing.

So when to bridge if it’s not in real time, when is it? And this can vary by the person. For me, my weekly planning session is a big time that I bridge action items to my calendar and/or information to their other homes. So that’s really, really my main one. You might work in a more fast-paced environment where you’re like, “If I have an idea on Monday, I cannot wait until Friday or Thursday,” or whenever you plan to bridge to the calendar. So you might need to build in some other ones, whether that’s daily, whether it’s twice a week. Whatever it is, just know yourself, know your industry, know what you’re working with, but calendar time so that you are not putting the pressure on yourself in real time to bridge those captured things to the right home. Just have a time — if you leave work at, let’s say, five o’clock, at three o’clock, have some time where you protect time to go bridge these things into the calendar or the project management board or the paper file or wherever they need to end up that you put them there.

The second element of that is the where, and I already kind of touched on that earlier than I meant to. [Laughs] But basically that is, to me, where do you put your action items. To me, that’s the calendar. That’s The Bright Method. But it really can be up to you. It’s just have the clarity, no matter whether you use The Bright Method or something else, of, “Where do these action items live, and let me build them out in that system at this time. When the timing hits, this is when I go do that, and during that time this is what I do. I put those things in my calendar,” or wherever you put them. As I said, that could be a project management board. It could be a document, and you could have a master document for every project you work on. It could be that.

And also, during those calendared times to do this, feel free to spell it out for yourself. This clarity that we’re trying to create right now you’re not always going to remember, and I don’t want you to remember it just in your head. So calendar the time when you’re gonna do this, and then tell future you what to do, help her out. Tell her, “Hey, if you have any client notes, this is where we put those. If you have any project management notes, this is where you put those. If you have any action items, this is where you put those,” and just really spell it out so that she’s not doing that logistical lift on top of actually putting the things in the homes and thinking about them.

Now, one thing I want to note here because I’ve seen it trip some people up is there’s almost a tendency to think, “Well, this is information,” let’s say about a work project, “So I’m gonna put it in the work file or the work board or the work document,” or whatever it is. And I want to nudge you that it might be information, it might need to end up there, but it might instead, or in addition, be an action item, and often it is because, as you heard me say a thousand times, everything comes back to time. So if you have this information that you’re thinking is just information, why is it important? What do you want to do about it? And often what comes out of those questions are action items.

So, for example, if I was showering and I had a really great idea about — let’s pretend I was still in my lawyer days. I had a sudden click moment of, “I think we could make this argument in this case, and I think it would be about — we would do it in this type of motion, and I need to think about this kind of stuff.” I would probably be like, “Hey, Siri. Remind me in half an hour to think about making this argument in this case,” and just drone on for a little bit and see what she captured. 

That’s me capturing it. And then I’m gonna bridge it into my calendar. I think some people might be like, “Okay, that’s information that we’re gonna make in a motion,” which is true. But also why is it important? What do I need to do about it? I might need to think about it more. Sometimes I have great ideas in my shower that I realize later aren’t that great. [Laughs] And so, I might need to think about it another time when I’m sitting down at my desk and can look at information. I might need to run it by a partner or a client or a colleague. I might want to talk it out with a colleague. I might need to do some research. I might need to do some research and then talk it out. There are a lot of different things that could come from this.

But those are all action items. So don’t bury that thing away in a file because I think your brain knows that, that there are all those action items, so you put it in the file and then you have this general sense of unease still because you’re like, “Well, now it’s just in the file, and I know I need to do things for it, and I’m worried it’s gonna get lost in there.” And so, feel free to put it in the file, but in addition, pull those action items out and calendar them. Calendar time to think about that thing, time to go talk to that partner you need to talk about. Obviously, this is a legal example, but it could be anything. Even draft it out. That could be one.

If you’re thinking about something you want to do for a presentation, sometimes for me at least, deciding whether something’s a good idea takes putting it in a presentation and trying to play it out. And sometimes I’m like, “Yeah, this isn’t gonna work. This is a terrible idea.” But sometimes it takes that to really develop it. These are all things that I would love to see you calendar because I want you to have, one, the ability to see if it works and bring it to life and not let it get buried in a file, but two, also let it go right now as you calendar it, between now and then, knowing you have the time to do it in the future and you don’t need to keep thinking about it right now. Because as I’ve said, I think so often we ruminate on things, and we let things live in our brain and spin there because we don’t trust that if we let it go we’ll remember to do it, or it’ll work in a way. And so, by using — I’m just biased. I keep coming back to The Bright Method. By using the calendar in the way, or whatever way you bring your to-do’s to life, by putting them into this system to run it like that, you let your current brain (today’s brain) relax about it because you know future you will be reminded to do it, will have all the information. I mean, as you calendar these things, feel free to write notes to future you about what you’re thinking in the calendar description so that future you has that information and current you can really let it go until that time.

So the main point I want you to hear on that front is challenge yourself. Whenever you’re putting something just as information somewhere, challenge yourself of, “Is that sufficient? Is there an action item coming out of this?” And to me, that’s usually answered of, “Why is this important? Why am I holding onto this? What do I want to do with this information?” Usually there’s more action involved, and then I calendar it. So that’s just the part here I wanted to really emphasize, that more is time related than we sometimes realize, and to me, everything comes back to time. So my guess is if you’re keeping something it means there’s a reason, even if you’re like, “I’m capturing a conversation I had with a client. Here are my meeting notes, and I’m just putting them in the client file,” what do you want to do with that? It might be nothing, which is totally fair. But were there things you need to follow up on in a week if you haven’t heard back, or do you just want to reach out to that client again? Did you wrap up things and you just want to reach out in a month and see how they’re doing? Calendar that. There’s usually just something that will spin in our brain a bit if we don’t get it out and get the clarity around, “Why is this important? What do I want to do with it?” And let me calendar that out, so that I’ve really helped my brain close that loop and let it go for now.

And then from there, once you’ve done that, decide. Have the clarity around what do you do with information. Like, if you put a piece of paper in a file, obviously it’s been filed. But if there’s a remaining thing that’s outstanding, sometimes I just toss those things. It’s up to you, but just have clarity around that.

So hopefully that gets your wheels turning. Even if you don’t use a process like mine, I want you to have the clarity of what is your process. If it’s not mine, great. But what is yours? And as a reminder, it’s kind of like what are your inputs? You can think of them as the types of inputs coming at you, you know, Slack, email, meetings, whatever it is, or it might be just what are the kind of buckets of things that come at me (ideas, action items, asks), and what do I do in those moments? For me, the first main thing is capture. For me, that’s writing. That’s Siri and Reminders or writing down on paper and pen. And then I bridge. I bridge to the home that those things need to go to. Action items go on my calendar. Information goes to other homes. But I challenge myself on is this information important, what action items do come out of this, and how do I make sure that I’m calendaring the things that I need and not just putting information in homes. And then I tend to lean on the side of tossing, if I don’t want to keep, the paper file.

Qualities of a Good System – 19:02

Taking a step back, because I hope that helped get your wheels turning. But if you’re starting this from scratch or just kind of getting clarity around your own system, some things I want you to just keep in mind, and you can evaluate whether these are important to you. I think of requirements of a good system as the following, but again, you can totally differ in this. I just think it’s helpful to kind of be like, “What am I even aiming for here?”

#1: Aim for Simplicity – 19:25

For me, I really lean towards simplicity. Now, that doesn’t mean that The Bright Method is simple, necessarily. It’s pretty complicated. That’s why it takes, like, eight weeks to set up, and it can be hard. I mean, we’re managing a lot. But because of that in this sense, I lean towards simple. I use a project management tool but almost to just organize true information, capture thoughts, that kind of stuff. I don’t use it as to-do lists and then I tag things and I prioritize things and all that kind of stuff. I just find that it gets too complicated.

Lean towards simplicity, when in doubt. Whenever you’re in doubt, as you create your own system, I would encourage you to lean towards simplicity, remove a lot of bells and whistles, and just get down to the basics. Your life is plenty complicated enough. Your life is probably very complicated, which is why you’re here, you’re listening to this. And you’re the type of person I love working with. You don’t need your system to also be complicated and then just add to the complication in your life. If we can, we want to simplify as much as possible on the systems side of things as long as it can keep up with the complications of your life, and just bring some ease into the equation as much as we can by leaning towards simplicity.

So thinking of mine, it’s like capture, bridge to calendar or bridge to place. That’s kind of it is my system when it really comes down to it, and I would love for it to be for you as well instead of — I can’t even think of an example but just some really complicated, multi-step process. I just encourage you to air on the side of simplicity. Your life is plenty complicated. We don’t need your system to be as well.

#2: Allow it to Help With All To-Do’s – 21:15

I also want it to really help with all of the to-do’s. So we’ve been talking about capturing to-do’s and ideas, and a lot of the examples I gave were work related. But I want it to lighten your mental load. So as you think of things like — I’m just gonna use an example from my life. I have Strep right now. My kids have Strep right now. As antibiotics enter your house, that’s like a random, one-off, mental, personal to-do that is added to our plate. That’s the type of thing I want your system to cover as well. You think about winter, and you’re like, “We need to switch out winter clothes each Monday and Friday at school,” or whatever it is, that’s the kind of thing I want you to capture and add to your system. I want you to have — I guess it comes down to having the home eventually. You capture those things, even those types of things you don’t let live in your brain. You capture them in writing, and then you have homes for those things.

Obviously, The Bright Method handles that kind of stuff. But if you don’t use it, just make sure your system does. The real thing I want for your system, as I mentioned at the top of this episode is, remember, we want you to have a system and we want that system not to be your head. And so, so much of us as women, what we manage can live in our head so easily because it doesn’t feel like something worthy of landing on a to-do list or in your calendar. But it shouldn’t just live in your head. It’s too much mental load, and it weighs us down. And so, just make sure that the system you’re using helps you capture all of the to-do’s, even the things that tend to just typically be mental load.

#3: Flexibility – 22:51

There are other components of this that I wrote down that I’m realizing as I talk maybe aren’t as relevant to the system I’m talking about. I feel like I went off on a little bit of a tangent as I got fired up writing my notes before this. But there are some other things I mentioned that I want this system to be flexible. I don’t want you to feel like, as you put things into your calendar or wherever you keep action items, it’s rigid. I think flexibility is very important when you’re creating a system because, you know, as I said, life’s complicated. We have a lot of curveballs, and we have different energy patterns. You may wake up and be like, “I don’t want to do that thing.” And so, flexibility is really important to a system that will serve you for the long run.

Along those lines is the system needs to account for curveballs and fires. We don’t always see them coming but we know they’re coming. And so, just make sure your system, at least when it comes to managing those action items, and this is really that home component of wherever your action items end up, remember that home component for action items needs to be flexible, needs to allow and build in time for and acknowledge the curveballs and fires that are coming your way.

#4: Allow for Imperfection – 23:57

And the other component of this that does go back to the system — I got on a little tangent on that other one. But really make sure that your system does not require you to be using it perfectly all the time. And by that I mean going back to my own kind of workflow when things come my way, my system is not every time an action item comes in, open up your calendar and find the right home. Every time you get an idea, open up the right home and put it in. It’s capture and then at a certain time, that’s when I go and bridge it in. And having that calendared time to do the bridging and get the ideas into the right home, kind of compiling when I do that, batching when I do that, whatever you want to call it, that allows me not to be perfect in my system in a sense, as I said, get the calendar out and find the perfect right home for things, all the time. And that’s really important.

Again, whether you use my system or something else, you need to be able to not live in it perfectly all of the time for it to work because I just don’t think that’s realistic in our life. I also don’t think it’s what we want. It’s not realistic because we have too much going on, and then we can’t pull out our calendar all the time. But as I said, we don’t want it. If I’m really in the zone on something and I think about something else I need to do, a good solution is not me pulling out my calendar, getting distracted by my calendar, getting distracted by my computer or my phone, all that kind of stuff. A great solution is jot it down next to me and then get back to focusing on what’s important to me, whether it’s work or home, and then I can do the real processing side of it later.

So I just wanted to throw that out there for you, that as you’re building your own system, really, as I said, air on the side of simplicity. Your life is complicated enough. Your system does not need to be complicated too. It needs to capture all of the to-do’s, including the mental load. It needs to build in time for flexibility and fires and curveballs and all of that, and it just really can’t require you to use it perfectly all the time because that’s not really what we’re going for, and it’s not realistic.

What To Do If It Still Feels Overwhelming – 26:08

All right, wrapping this up, just one last point I want to make before I really wrap it up is if you have all this in your system, and you are still feeling overwhelmed, that makes sense to me too. What might be happening there, and what I suspect is happening there, is that if you have all of this and it still feels overwhelming, that still does not mean there’s anything wrong with you. And I say that because past me would have been like, “Well, I’m not doing this right. There’s something wrong with me.”

There are a couple things. One, it might not be the right system. That’s something that we could consider. What I suspect is also happening, though, is that there just might be too much work, whether it’s work life or personal life or how they stack up together. No system is going to make an unrealistic amount of work realistic. None. There’s just no way. And we talk about that while we’re on this podcast, and I can talk to you more about it if you want. You know, let me know. If you want to shoot me an email and ask me to talk more about that.

But I just thought it was critical to note here that if you spend the time setting up this system and it still feels really overwhelming, there are still a thousand things living in your head, and you’re not quite sure what to do with all of it, or the process can’t keep up with the inflow of things, then I just wanted to note that it just might be a workload issue. And we can talk more about that. I’m not like, “And therefore, you’re out of luck.” That’s not at all the takeaway. The takeaway is that’s something that I work on with clients too, is, “Okay, now we can really see using this system, your capacity, your workload. If you can’t even find the time to process all the things coming at you or find a home for all the things coming at you in time, that’s just a flag. It’s nothing about you. It’s just a flag that there is too much on your plate. So what do we do about that?” And we can dig into that together.

Hopefully, for you, creating this system in the way that we talked through does give you the clarity and the peace of mind and all that to understand, “Oh, this is what I do when things come at me. And now I know I have a game plan of what I do with them, and that’s all I need,” and that’s wonderful. But I did just want to mention the too-much-work element that could be going on here because I don’t want you to think it’s something you were doing if you were struggling with that.

All right? Whatever system you use, get clarity around what it is, and really, if you need help creating what the system is, really think through those requirements, at least for me, of what you want your system to be. And you can disagree with me, but really have your own requirements. Get clarity around what does this system need to have, what does this system look like, and I think having that clarity will really serve you well going forward. Even if the work itself is still there, the stressors about work are still there, if you have the clarity of how you process all of that, that will go far to alleviate some of your stress. All right?

Join The Bright Method – 29:18

And if you want to learn my system, which is The Bright Method, my program that kicks off in January of 2025 is open. Spots are limited. And as I record this it’s very early December, there are only about ten spots left, so be sure to jump in if you know you’re in. It won’t open again until September, and it is going to be a bit of an evolution of the format. I’m going to be doing it on more of a rolling enrollment so that starting, I think, it’s gonna be about mid to late September, people can jump in when it’s right for them.

So if you are intrigued by more of going through it as a cohort with the same group of women start to finish, then you want to jump into this next program. Candidly, there’s no pressure to. I truly — you know, in the September one the lessons are going to be the same, you’re still gonna have one-on-one support with me, there’s still a lot in there that you’ll get. It’s just gonna be  maybe an evolving group of women as you move through the program, which honestly is gonna be awesome because more awesome women that you can meet. But I just wanted to throw that out there because if that’s something that’s important to you, I wanted you to be able to make that call and have that information.

If you have any questions, I’m here to help, and I’m happy to. You can check out all the details about the program at kellynolan.com/bright, or you can DM me on Instagram or shoot me an email if you have questions. I’m at ke***@********an.com.

I hope to see you in there! It’s really a fun program. I absolutely love it. I’m really excited to kick it off, and I hope you jump in! But more importantly, whether you do or not, thank you for being here, and I will catch you in the next episode!

[Upbeat Outro Music]

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To take my free 5-day program, the Reset and Refresh, click here: https://kellynolan.com/reset-refresh.

To learn more about and sign up for the Bright Method 8-week program, click here: https://kellynolan.com/the-bright-method-time-management-course-with-kelly-nolan.

I also share actionable bite-sized time management strategies on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/_kellynolan_/. Come hang out with me there!