How I Use Lists to Stay Sane During a Renovation

More than once, in previous posts I’ve mentioned that I’d be lost without my lists. So I thought I’d give you a quick rundown on my system as a useful tool during your own architectural project.

If you’re partway through a build or renovation with your own household to run alongside it, I suspect some of this will feel familiar. If lists aren’t your thing, skip this one and we’ll chat more next month.

Why lists matter more than you’d think

A renovation asks a lot of your attention. On top of ordinary life, there are now a new set of approvals and decisions to be made.

Your brain can get overwhelmed a lot quicker than you might think. Did you know, your conscious brain can only process around 40 bits of information per second while your subconscious mind can process a whopping 11 million!  When your conscious brain is trying to remember even a few extra things, it loses the ability to critically process additional information and you have less capacity for good decision making and creativity.

In a study by Stanford University professor Baba Shiv two groups of participants were asked to remember a number while deciding if they were going to have chocolate cake or fruit salad. One group was asked to remember a two-digit number and the other a seven-digit number. Two digits is easy to remember but in previous studies seven digits had been shown to be the upper limit of working memory. The participants with the two-digit number were more likely to make the healthier more rational choice of fruit salad, while the group remembering the longer number fell back on their subconscious impulse for the chocolate cake . – a small, measurable sign that when your conscious mind is full, you fall back on impulse rather than considered choice.

A renovation is full of exactly this kind of decision fatigue. The fewer things you’re trying to hold in your head at once, the more capacity you have left for the decisions that actually need your judgement — things like whether that joinery finish is really the one you want.

For me, my list is where I keep everything I need to do and remember so that I don’t have to remember. It frees up my brain and lets me concentrate on the task at hand. It helps me to prioritise and make sure I’m making progress on the tasks that are the most urgent. On days when I feel like I’ve struggled through, it gives me a sense of achievement, because it’s a visible reminder of what I have managed to get done.

Get everything out of your head first

The first thing to do is write down everything. I mean everything, for every aspect of your life. Don’t worry about sorting it yet, just get it out of your head and onto paper. Don’t gloss over big overview tasks with one item, break them down into steps so you can tackle one step at a time. I like to keep tasks small enough that I could get them finished in a day.

Group things so you can act on them

Once it’s all out, group similar items together. This could be into categories – renovation decisions, business, personal tasks, family tasks, things that need doing around the house. Or you might want to group them by the type of task they are – phone calls, deskwork, errands. Use whatever grouping actually matches how you move through your week. If any big overview items are still lurking in there, this is the moment to break them down further.

Where I actually keep mine

I split my system across a few places, and this tends to work well for renovation clients too:

– A paper list for the here-and-now. For day-to-day tasks, I still prefer pen and paper — there’s something about physically crossing something off.
– A digital tool for the bigger picture. Project overviews, longer-term milestones, and ideas that don’t need daily attention live in Asana for me — for a renovation, this might be where you track the overall program, key dates, and decisions still to be made further down the track.
– Reusable checklists for anything repeatable. A site-visit checklist, a moving checklist, a “questions to ask the builder” list — anything you’ll need again is worth building once and reusing.

A weekly reset

Every week, I sit down with a coffee and rewrite my list from scratch. It sounds excessive, but the act of rewriting naturally drops anything already finished and forces me to be honest about what actually matters for the week ahead. For a renovation, this is a good moment to check in on where the project sits — what’s waiting on you, what’s waiting on your builder or architect, and what has a deadline attached.

Don’t skip the celebration

Finally and perhaps most importantly, there’s never much time to celebrate small goals and achievements so when you’ve finished something, get a big fat texta and cross it off your list. Take a moment to feel good about getting something done.

If you’re in the thick of a project right now, I hope some of this helps make the load a little lighter. And if you’re just starting to think about one, this is exactly the kind of thing we help clients manage from day one — get in touch, and let’s talk about what a well-run project could look like for you.