I'm obsessed with making lists, planning my life, and tracking my
goals.
This is evident if you follow me on my personal Instagram account
(@izzaglino). I make a list for almost every area of my life. A list of things to do, a project list, a skincare routine page, etc.
Writing things down help me remember better.
It helps me have a macro understanding on what’s about to happen
tomorrow. Making lists promote progress. Just the mere idea of tracking and
checking-off items along the way make me happy and satisfied.
I start and end my day, week and month with a list. And although there
are things on my list that gets undone or cancelled, I still feel good. It
becomes easier for me to reflect on things because I keep a list in advance.
I use a combination of digital and pen and paper when it comes to lists.
There are lists I’d rather type on a new Google Docs for easy access. This includes bloggers I love (and their links), passwords and time management tips I learned around the web.
For personal lists, I rely most on a notebooks. By taking time to hand write my list, everything seems clearer and more doable.
Today on the blog I will share to you the seven lists I recommend for anyone to make at least once. These lists have helped me in so many ways and I hope it helps you too. Let’s begin!
Bucket Lists
A “bucket list” is also called a list of “things to do before you
die”. This list consists of your greatest ambitions in life - everything that
you want to be, to do, to have, and to experience in life.
Here’s a link to my own life bucket list which consists
of places I want to go, things I want to do, things I want to learn and so much
more.
To date most of the places I want to go from my bucket list have been
checked off already including my first trip abroad, South Korea. Isn’t it nice?
If you still haven’t made your own bucket list, I highly recommend for
you to make one.
Some resource links about
bucket lists:
Also here’s my financial bucket list
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| Bucket List spread from my 2017 Bullet Journal |
Goals
Unlike a bucket list, goals are specific, measurable, attainable,
relevant and time-bound.
Traveling to South Korea could be part of your bucket list but it
involves plenty of goals to achieve such as:
● Visit South Korea by 2019
● Save Php 30,000 travel fund by December 2018
● Apply for Korean Visa next week, etc.
There are two types of goals:
● Short-Term and
● Long-Term
Short-term goals are achievable within 1 month, months to a year while long-term goals takes
3 years, 5 years, 10 years longer to
achieve.
Also goals are based on important areas of your life. I personally
maintain a list of spiritual goals, finances, personal, mental, work, blog,
etc.
Prayer List
I once struggle in praying consistently and effectively until I found
out about prayer list.
Having a list of prayer helps:
● us to pray regularly.
● us to remember what we prayed for.
● us to be more specific about what we want to
pray for.
● us have the attitude of gratitude as we see
items on our prayer list get answered.
Start with areas of your life or people around you, you want to pray
for.
Currently I divide my prayer in days. I have a specific prayer list
for the different days of the week.
● Sundays - nation and church community.
● Saturdays - my future husband
● Mondays - family
● Tuesdays - friends and relatives
● Wednesdays - work
● Thursdays - personal goals
● Fridays - others’ prayer list
If you happen to find it hard to make prayer a habit I highly recommend
to list your prayers down.
Gratitude List
Back when I was still using a bullet journal for my overall planning I
include a gratitude list on my monthly pages.
It’s so nice to have a record of good things, big or small, that
happen on that particular day.
The simplicity of a gratitude list is what makes it extra special. The
fact that what you only need to do is record what you are thankful for for that
particular day is enough.
Keeping a gratitude list improves self-esteem. It’s like a stop sign
reminding you to see that good too, not just the bad.
Whenever I do my morning pages, I start with a thank you God for. It has been an automatic response to me and I
love it. It keeps me grounded and in the position of victory over every
situation.
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| A Gratitude Log from my 2016 Bullet Journal |
Books to Read
Always when a new year starts I create a list of books I want to read.
It’s an automatic collection for me and something I enjoy doing.
Reading books has always been a fun hobby for me. I enjoy being in the zone,
traveling through my imagination and more.
What I do is I set a target number of books to read for the year as a goal and
then on a new page I write down the titles. As I read, I mark off what I
finished.
Related read: August 2018 Books To Read and July Book Wrap Up
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| Books to Read and Movie/Series to Watch List from my 2018 Bullet Journal |
Movies/Series to Watch
This is another list I maintain on a yearly basis.
Aside from reading, I also love to watch movies, TV series and Korean Dramas. I keep myself
updated on the latest releases and what’s already available on Netflix. :)
Related read: 9 True Crime Documentaries On Netflix
Routines
My Word for the Year 2018 is “routines”.
I thought long on what word is suitable for my 2018 mantra and I
realized how my I crave for systems, processes and routines in every aspect of
my life.
I really wanted to structure my year, my
month, my week and specially my day for excellence.
I am not looking for perfection. It’s just
that I want to ensure I’ll be ending this year with a better perspective on time and project management.
And so one of the list I made was a list of routines. I created a
spread for each of the routines I want to track for the year. This may seem
tedious but I am telling you it’s helpful if you want to adopt good habits.
Here are some of the routines I have a list of:
- Morning Routine – includes activities I should be doing upon waking up on a work day.
- Evening Routine – includes activities I should be doing as soon as I get home.
- Weekly Routine – includes the specific to do list for each day of the week. Like every Saturday I should be taking photos for blog and my Instagram. Or every Tuesday I should be attending the church service and Victory Group.
- Monthly Routine – includes the specific to do list for each week of the month. Like every second week of the month I should be paying for my phone bills and adding fund on my investments.
- AM Skincare Routine - includes my step-by-step skincare routine in the morning as I get ready to work and the products I use for each step.
- PM Skincare Routine - includes my step-by-step skincare routine in the evening as I get home from work and the products I use for each step.
And more!
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| All the routines I try to adopt for my life |
Needs vs. Wants
This is also a great list I highly recommend.
In this list you basically write down the items you need to own and the items you want to own. From makeup,
clothing item, a type of shoe, gadget, etc.
What’s good about having this type of list is you can easily
differentiate your needs vs. wants. It helps you think first about your need
before impulsively purchasing what you want.
It also motivates one to save.
I differentiate the items that I needed versus items I want to own. My
goal is to focus more on those I needed which will help me improve the quality
of my life, my blog and my business. The wants, on the other hand, could wait.
They are items I can buy if and only if I have the extra money to do so.
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| Needs vs. Wants Page |
To Do List
Last but definitely not the least of the lists is the “to do list”.
I call this as the mother of all to do list and something that has
always been present since day 0. This is the best list to make if you want to
start a product day, week, month or year.
To do lists are more of an action plan. Thus, what gets written in
this list, gets done.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to making a to do list. Some
prefer a massive brain dump, other like me do it on a monthly, weekly and daily
basis.
Through the years of making list I find that the perfect to do list is
the one that works for you. Just like budget, it has plenty of room for
mistakes and improvements. What’s important is you act on it.
Overall
I hope you enjoy reading this post. Will definitely include more
organizational tips in this blog soon. Have a happy Sunday!
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