To-do-do-do, To-da-da-da... It's meaningless. I know...

"A List" from Frog and Toad Together by Arnold Lobel

My bio only tells a little of the truth.  Not only am I an artist, writer, producer, and teacher, I'm also an art marketing guru, webmaster, bookkeeper, shipping department head, inventory manager, mom, unschooler, and partner (business and life) to my best friend. 

So how do I keep track of everything?  A lot of deep breaths, chocolate, and a little bit of genius software, called Evernote that I learned about from Alyson Stanfield of ArtBizCoach.com. It works amazingly well to keep track of my to-do lists, goals, every bit of inspiration I find online, notes, ideas, book and video outlines, and blog post (I'm writing the draft of this post on it right now).

It's cloud based so whether I'm on my Mac, iPhone, or iPod, I have everything with me everywhere I go, and it works perfectly almost all the time... Until this morning.  It's usually smarter than me and won't sync an old note over a new one, but I kept telling my phone to sync, and it finally took me literally, taking a week of tasks off my to-do list. 

What to-do?

Well, first I panicked, then I reconstructed the list as best I could.  I remembered all the urgent stuff, but I also took advantage of the mistake as a way to restructure my day the way I woke up wanting it to be instead of the way I went to bed the night before thinking it ought to be.

Freedom!!!!

Well, mostly anyway.

It turns out Evernote really is smarter than this user.  Recognizing my insistence that it override a newer version of my task list with an older version, it saved a back up copy of the newer one to my Mac, which I didn't see until the next day.  Much to my delight, not only did I have a more pleasant outlook on my day, I hadn't really let anything important slip through the cracks.

I am so often a slave to what I think I ought to be doing, but while 85% of it is absolutely necessary, living that way is a creativity killer.  This little glitch made me realize the importance of waking up to a clean slate occasionally.

Studio time?  Check

Shipping DVD/book/tool orders?  Check

Troubleshoot my son's Mac game issue?  Check

Answer my son's Photoshop questions on one of his projects?  Check

Writing time?  Check

Time to draw for the shear joy of it.

To-do-do-do... to name that tune...