An early-stage entrepreneur recently shared that being present with their friends and family can be a challenge because they’re thinking about work. This is something I’ve heard many times from many entrepreneurs. I had the same issue. When I wasn’t at work, I was thinking about all the things I needed to do and running through everything in my mind to make sure nothing had fallen through the cracks.

I found a simple hack to help me with this. I kept a list of all the “projects” I was working on in the notes app on my phone. Under each project, I listed all the “next-action items” I could take to move it forward. The important thing is that they were clear, tangible actions I could execute without putting tons of thought into how to complete them. On Sunday or Saturday, I’d go through that list and update the next-action items for every project.

One benefit of this approach was that it gave me the time to think about everything I was working on. Even though it was a ton of stuff, it made me feel like I was on top of everything, which made me feel like I was in the driver’s seat. Second, it gave me a hit list of actions I’d take when I got into work mode. This helped eliminate time wasted on context switching or trying to figure out what I should do next, maximizing what I could get done during work hours.