Show Notes:
Tired of your endless to-do list? We’ve got the best tips for productivity for parents!

Find out why skipping a task might be the most productive thing you do all day.

Key Takeaways

• Embrace a Flexible Mindset: A traditional, linear to-do list doesn’t work for getting organized in the unpredictable life of a parent of a child with a disability. The goal isn’t to get everything done perfectly, but to find flexible productivity and a sense of accomplishment in the midst of daily chaos.
• Give Yourself Grace: Don’t beat yourself up over undone tasks. This is part of finding peace in chaos. Intentionally “skipping” a task is a powerful tool that helps you remove mental weight and focus on what’s truly important for the day.
• Celebrate Small Victories: The more you break down your tasks, the more progress you can see. “Gamify” your to-do list to make sure you’re celebrating what you did accomplish, not just focusing on what’s left to do.

As a parent of a child with a disability, your to-do list is a living document, constantly rewritten by unexpected challenges. But what if you could find peace and a sense of accomplishment right in the middle of the chaos?

In this episode of Water Prairie Chronicles, host Tonya Wollum talks with Jen Anderson, the creator of the innovative to-do app for parents, ACCOMPLIST. Jen, who is on the autism spectrum and has been a foster mom to a child with complex needs, shares her unique perspective on finding a flexible approach to productivity for parents.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• How to shift your caregiver mindset from a rigid, linear approach to one that embraces the unpredictable nature of your life.
• The emotional and psychological benefits of the app’s “skipped” feature.
• Practical ways to delegate tasks and involve your child in the process.
• How to “gamify” your progress to celebrate small victories and feel more successful at the end of the day.

Learn more about Jen Anderson and the ACCOMPLIST app, designed to help imperfect humans like us stay productive without the pressure of perfection.

• 💻 Website: https://www.accomplist.app

Work with Tonya as an IEP Coach: If you’re looking for personalized support, a trusted partner, and expert guidance through the IEP process, I would be honored to be part of your team. Find more information about my IEP coaching services here: https://waterprairie.com/iepcoach

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Music Used:

“LazyDay” by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://audionautix.com/

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Episode #136: Mastering To-Do Lists as a Parent is EASIER Than You Think!

Tired of your endless to-do list? We’ve got the best tips for productivity for parents!

Find out why skipping a task might be the most productive thing you do all day.

(Recorded August 6, 2025)

Full Transcript of Episode 136:

0:00 Finding Peace in Chaos

Tonya: When you’re a parent of a child with a disability, your to-do list isn’t just long. It’s a living document that gets rewritten every single day. One minute you’re on a roll and the next a crisis hits and your perfectly planned day falls completely apart.

So how do you find peace and a sense of accomplishment when chaos is your constant companion? That’s the question we’re tackling today.

Welcome to the Water Prairie Chronicles, a podcast for parents of children with disabilities. I’m your host, Tonya Wollum, and I’m glad you’re here.

00:26 Meet Jen & the ACCOMPLIST App

In this episode, I’m sitting down with Jen Anderson, the brilliant mind behind the to-do app, ACCOMPLIST. Jen is a master at helping imperfect humans like us stay productive without the pressure of perfection.

We’re going to talk about shifting our mindset, embracing a more flexible approach to productivity, and why skipping a task might be the most productive thing you do all day. Let’s get started.

Jen, welcome to Water Prairie.

Jen: Thanks so much for having me.

So today we’re gonna be talking about tips on how to stay productive.

And we’re gonna be referencing, or at least when I’m asking questions of Jen, I’m gonna be referencing an app that she’s developed called the ACCOMPLIST App. So listeners, so that you know what we’re talking about, I’m gonna put links in the show notes so that you can go to her website, or you can look at the, the apps themselves, and you can download a free trial of them.

So if you wanna try them out. You can. That will be in the show notes, on the webpage, and in the description of the video. So, wherever you’re consuming this interview, it will be somewhere in those notes. But before we get into the questions,

Jen, share with us a little bit so that our listeners know where your connection is with the disability community.

For starters, I’m on the autism spectrum and anxiety and depression and, and all that jazz. And, um, about 10 years ago I was a, a foster mom to, um, a tween age girl who had, oppositional defiance disorder and attachment disorders and anxiety and depression, and it’s just constant crisis mode.

And so I, I, I know how, you know, how difficult it is to just get anything done when there’s just so many more obstacles between A and B.

Absolutely. And it speaks even more your authority and being able to talk about the topic that we’re gonna talk about here. I have some questions I’m gonna ask you,

before we get into that, I just kinda wanted to share where I am. I use, and our listeners may, may relate to this as a mom who has for all points and purposes, ADHD. I don’t have a formal diagnosis, but I have so many of the behavior characteristics that, my family says that it’s pretty much there.

 I’ve found ways to keep myself from having the 50 different projects that have one piece done. And part of that is I have a calendar app that the family uses.

I have a scheduling app that I use for my coaching calls. I use the scheduling app for guests for the podcast. I have personal goals where I work through fasting and tracking my eating and my exercise patterns just for my own personal health, but trying to develop healthy goals.

I use apps for that, and I’ve just started using one that actually I think is gonna be the game changer for me, and that’s helping me get those 50 projects that are always inside my head onto an app so that I can separate them and all. And in looking at what ACCOMPLIST is, I think it’s doing probably a little bit of all of these things.

So I’m really excited about hearing how you’re gonna interweave this as, as, as I learn along with our listeners with it. Um, so I don’t know, listeners, if you’re using different apps, um, tell me in the comments. What you’re using it for. I’d love to see kind of where are you leaning into technology already.

And if you’ve never done it before, leave a comment on there. “I’m a pen and paper person.” So that’s kind of where I’m starting from, Jen, to give you an idea of where my chaotic brain has found a little bit of peace, but it’s always fun to chase after the next thing.

So, so I, I, I am, I am a true squirrel mind, if you wanna look at it that way.

A lot of our listeners are parents who have children with disabilities. Some, some of our audience is not there. They’re actually support family or, um, professionals who are working with them. But the group that, that I’m usually trying to talk to in the podcast are those parents that are out there.

And I know right now we’re, we’re recording this at the end of the summer. You can be listening to this right after school goes back. And parents, you probably have a to-do list that’s a mile long right now. Because you’ve got all the back-to-school things going on. If you haven’t done your back-to-school shopping yet, you’ve got to get the Lysol wipes and the tissues and all those things that your child needs to take back to school.

The backpack, the lunchboxes, and that’s on top of your normal daily list that has a ton of things. And our parents not only have all those things that every parent in the world has to deal with, but they have a lot of unexpected interruptions that come on. It might be a tantrum that just happened, or, you know, their, their child needs more hands-on help to do things, so they have to stop and drop that list as they’re working on it.

04:52 The Power of a Mindset Shift

What’s a good first step that. That that stressed out mom or dad can take to kind of shift their mindset from a traditional linear view of things where they have to do from point A to point B to point C, and now they just got disrupted, so throw it all away because they can’t do anything else. Is there a way to change your mindset so that the unpredictable part of life doesn’t get in the way of trying to make progress?

Absolutely. It, it’s, and it’s a little flippant, but. You probably end the day feeling like you didn’t get enough done and all you’re seeing is what you didn’t do, and that that’s not helpful. That because you’re putting all this extra energy into feeling inadequate when in fact you did 10 times what anyone else did today and you’re doing fine.

Um, so if you have a paper system for a to-do list, don’t just cross things out because that’s just done or not done, and then all you see at the end of the day is what’s not crossed out. If instead of crossing things out, you put different codes like you would if you used the app where you could mark something skipped or completed or delegated, or you can just, you know, defer it.

One thing that I really like about the accomplished app is there’s no such thing as overdue. There’s no overdue, there’s no bright red. You know, you’re not getting, you didn’t do it. It’s fine, but it will, it will show up on your automatically generated today list and it will stay there until you get it done.

But it’s not going to be bright red or overdue or anything like that, and you can mark it skipped and you know that that’s fantastic because you are trying to do too much. And so that, that’s. The, um, actually that’s the idea behind the, the app is that it is going to retrain your brain so that you learn that yeah, you are trying to do too much.

And just to normalize the idea that you’re not gonna get to everything. You have dreams and ambitions, and you have standards and you know they’re always going to be higher than what you can achieve.

We, we, we talk a lot on the podcast about how disability parents specifically have a mindset shift that they have to do as soon as they get a diagnosis, but then it’s continuously shifting as their child grows.

Because when you, when you start out, whether you got a diagnosis of Down syndrome when your child was born or maybe even before they were born, you made a shift then from what your expectation had been to what you think it might be, but you don’t really know yet ’cause you haven’t met the child yet. As that baby starts showing you what they’re capable of doing, because every child’s not gonna be a textbook case.

They’re going to be their own unique little bundle of, of joy that’s coming through. Um, you’re shifting again. We have other parents who, for all points and purposes, they had a traditional child that’s, you know, they’re meeting all those milestones, everything’s doing fine, and they get into second grade.

And now they know they have dyslexia and dysgraphia and, you know, DD different issues that are going on and anxiety’s creeping up now because of all these other conflicts that they have. And, um, so they’re having to shift now. So our parents are used to shifting, but I think you, you hit something there that looking at our child and shifting those expectations are difficult, but we don’t do it to ourselves.

We keep ourselves on that straight and narrow, that we have to do this, we have to look like this, we have to, to accomplish all of this. And you’re right. At the end of the day, that checklist that has actually more things on it than what you started the day with. By the time, even though you’ve marked off a lot of things, you’re still adding more things to, and the more you try to break it down into micro steps, you just have a page full of paper of, of written things on it.

That is, it can’t even be deciphered anymore. So then you start tomorrow rewriting that entire list and not getting anything else done. I like the idea that you’re mentioning that it just defaults to tomorrow, and I think that grace and forgiveness that we need to give ourselves. That. Alright, so we did today what we had to do and what we had to do was we had to take care of ourselves and give ourselves some, some, some grace and some peace.

We had to love our family and take care of our, our kids ’cause we love doing that anyway. And that those things that we did were what was important for today. Tomorrow, whatever wasn’t important today might be more important tomorrow. And, and, and, and I like that, that we’re not, we’re not beating ourselves up at the end of the day.

We can actually close the to-do list and spend some time with our family before we go to bed at night.

Yeah. And the thing is, is that we tend to forget that raising a child is a project. It’s a long-term project. It’s just like knitting a sweater, every little stitch matters.

And if your tension is a little off or whatever, fine. It’ll actually, when you wash it, it’ll all even out.

Raising a kid every time that you stop everything to deal with their needs and a meltdown or whatever that is part of that project, you are being very productive there.

And you don’t wanna miss the joys in the day. You know, if you’re, if you’re so focused on this list that you have to get done, you’re gonna miss the sweet little moment when they wanted to come and give you a little hug.

You know, because you’re, you’re so focused on this. So parents, you, you have permission to take a moment. And enjoy life as it’s happening right then, and then the list is still gonna be there. It’s, it’s your, your, your dishes do have to be done eventually because you’re gonna want to eat again and use those dishes.

So, Jen, one thing that I noticed when I was looking through the website, you have a feature on the app that I haven’t seen on any of these other tools that I’m using and it’s the skipped feature.

Yes.

10:38 Understand the “Skipped” Feature

So we have parents who have tasks that get left undone. Um, it might be as simple as changing that light bulb in the lamp on the counter.

That is just one more thing. ’cause you’ve gotta go to the store, you’ve gotta get the bulb. You’ve gotta do all these things. It might be a five minute job if you actually could focus on it, but by the time you get to it, it’s all done. What are the emotional and psychological benefits of actually skipping a task instead of letting it sit on that list and never get done?

Well, if you skip it, it’s just this weight off your shoulders. That you’ve decided, you know what, I’m not doing that. And sometimes it’s something like, okay, I need to download, um, some sample wills that we have to do, uh, which yeah, you should actually do that. You’ve got, you got kids, you do your will, but it’s something like, okay, I need to call this, this frenemy who I don’t really like talking to.

Oh, I gotta call my mother again and listen to whatever. Yeah, maybe you’re not gonna do that. I’m not going to dust the baseboards. It’s a lovely thing to think that I would be able to do that, but it’s not gonna happen.

So, you know, you can just sit, let it sit there. But if you skip it, then yeah, you’re punting it for, you know, out the window. You just.

Right.

And maybe I’ll do it eventually. Maybe I’ll want to do it again. Eventually. It’s just not gonna happen. And it’s just this one last thing that you need to worry about.

I, I think we all do that in some way, but we don’t usually think about it until we’re at our wit’s end at the end.

Right.

And then, you know, we’re so exhausted and exasperated that it’s like, well, you know, I’m just not gonna do this. Where I, I like that peace that can come from saying, you know. It’s okay if I don’t do this or, or maybe you were talking about delegation.

Maybe I’m going to call and, and have, have my brother go and do such and such instead. Um, or may. Maybe it’s something the kids can do. Maybe it’s a skill that you need to teach your child how to do and they can take the trash from the bathroom into the kitchen trash can or something, something that’s within their, their range of doing.

But it’s one less thing for you to have to do. So, um, so parents, we just recently had an episode where you learned about how to help your child become more independent, and I’d encourage you to think about what you learned in that one and how you can manage your to-do list with this delegation feature of it.

Um, you know, it’d be an easy way for you to start working on training your child with some skills that you want them to learn as you look at your to-do list, maybe there’s something you’ve been controlling that you can let them do to, to allow you to have a little bit more and use that, that delegation option with it.

Absolutely. And even something like, like changing that light bulb in the kitchen, you know the reason that you keep putting it off is because it does require a trip to the store and you do need to remember. You know, okay. Which, what’s the style light bulb you get to the store and there’s just so many light bulbs. Right.

Right, right.

So, yeah. You know, assign a kid to that. Figure it out. Okay, we’re gonna go to the store. Okay. Find the light bulb, let them do it, and make it a more of a fun trip to the hardware store, but also one thing.

Well, and now you’re teaching them a life skill.

Exactly. But any project is gonna be a lot bigger than you think it is, because it’s all these little steps that you forget.

And so there, there’s a lot of different ways you can track that. You can make that big, messy list on paper you were talking about, but do that for separate projects. Make the messy list and then figure out, okay, what order can I get this done in? What are the dependencies? And then make a list that is in order so that it is actually orderly because you started neat and you get messy and you get overwhelmed.

But no, you can neaten that up there. That was actually an important step in the process. Is figuring out all the little things that have to get done and that that five minute task is like half an hour. It depends on how far the, the, uh, the hardware store, it’s.

Right, right. But, but you had a car ride with your child.

You had some extra conversation time. You, you, you got something out of it at the same time, if you involved your child with it. I’ve watched on your website, the, the video that you have that kind of walks you through the different features of the app.

Um, and I’d encourage listeners to go and look, look at that, just to get you an idea of what the app looks like. Right now, I probably have easily 20 projects that are going on at one time. Um, and so what I typically will do is, so I I, I’m at the point where I need to do a major cleaning in the house.

So I always have it broken down by room. And so there’s a checklist for each one, and then within that checklist it’s down to sorting the boxes. ’cause there’s always something that’s. It’s been probably two years since I’ve done this. So we’ve got storage things around that just need to be taken out. And then I’m separating between donation and um, if we’re gonna do yard sale or not.

I sell on eBay, so if there is something that would go on that, um, or if I’m gonna keep it. So the checklist for the donation list for taxes, if I’m gonna sell on eBay, the checklist with that. So there’s a lot of lists involved with what I’m doing with this, this whole house project that I’m working on.

And, um, and so on the app, can you so say, say, I’m working on this, just the house cleaning project. Um, so the room I’m in right now is, is the old playroom. I have a curtain behind me because behind the curtain is the boxes. So going through all that, these are the old toys and stuff with the kids trying to sort through, what do they wanna keep?

What, what, what can I get rid of now? Um, is there a way to, to make a list and then to make a checklist with that, within that list so that at the end of the day I can look at it and see, all right, so I’ve already checked off two things in the living room. One thing, you know, while while the rice is cooking in the kitchen.

I can go and go through one box in the playroom and I can check off that section of what I had on my list. Is there a way to kind of like nest the list?

Yeah, there’s a couple of ways that you can do it. Um, you can create separate lists entirely. So you could have one that is just list is for cleaning the house and then maybe have a different task for each room and then subtasks within those tasks of, of.

Within the rooms of things you do, or you might wanna be like, okay, make a list of things for donations, and then the sub tasks are living room, bedroom, bathroom, et cetera. And so you could do it either way. Um, but yeah, there’s sub tasks you can actually make, um, make as many lists as you want.

For me, I need to see progress.

So the more I can break down a task. The more I see progress as happening because the, the list is getting shorter. And, um, and on yours, whenever you mark off an item, does it disappear or does it just have a check mark in it?

It’s, it stays there. If it’s a subtask, it stays there. Checked. I’ve possibly crossed out.

Um, if it is on your today list and you mark it completed, then it stays there. But it shows up as crossed out. And there are, there are automatic lists for delegated and. Completed so you can see what you finished. When you finished it. If you need to follow up on things that you delegated, you can go to the delegation list and see what’s what’s in there, and you can mark that completed if it is actually completed.

So we can gamify all the things that we do throughout the day. And we can, at the end of the day, we can see all this progress that was made. So parents, whenever you, whenever you’re at the end of the day and you’re exhausted and you’re thinking, I got nothing done, this is gonna be a way that you can go back and look and see, look at all these things that I did.

And the more micro you make your steps, the more success you have.

18:23 The ACCOMPLIST Habit Tracker

Yes. And also there is an integrated habit tracker, which I, I just love.

Oh, nice.

Those little habits, those 10 minutes of mindfulness or your, your meditation break or whatever. If it’s not on my to-do list, I’m not gonna remember to do it.

So having on the list may, you know, reminds me to do it. And then the habit tracker is just by, it’s like a report you see by week whether you did something or not, and it just, it shows up as a repeating task and you just mark it that track it as a habit. And maybe you do it today, maybe you don’t. You know, one of the major reasons that I created this app is that with other, to-do apps, if you have something that is a, a repeating task, if it’s daily or weekly, whatever, if you don’t do it, it will carry over and be red and overdue.

And let’s say it’s, we wanna do something podcast related every day. And if you do it four days outta the week, that’s fantastic. And you’re, you know, if you didn’t do it yesterday, you’re not gonna do it twice today.So the app treats, repeating tasks as separate things so you don’t have this, okay, I didn’t do this for like a week, so I have to click.

You know, did it, did it, did it, did it and lie to the app to get it off my back. It, it’s not, that’s not an issue here.

Yeah. And, and, and, and it’s true. ’cause you know, ’cause developing a new habit and that’s a lot of times that’s what a goal is trying to get you to. Um, you’re not gonna do it every day and do it right upfront.

 Or maybe your goal is to walk three times a week, so it’s not an everyday thing. And so on the days, like, like I have on, on my phone, I have an iPhone, it has the walking app that just came with it. And so whatever this number of steps for the day is. I have a lot of orange on mine ’cause I didn’t walk that many steps that day.

And so, so now when you look at it, there’s very few green peaks that are in it. And it just, and the colors that they chose, you know, green is, is like a happy one. And the orange is like, like negative. So when you look at the app, it’s like, you know, well it’s not reinforcing anything good ’cause I’m not necessarily gonna be motivated by the negative part of it.

Exactly. And if you went for a walk for two days, that’s good too.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

I’m gonna move to the day in the life segment. Listeners, if you’ve been with us this season, you know that I’ve been asking each of my guests to describe something about a day in the life, and it’s just a way for you to get to know them better.

What’s a task that you do pretty much every single day that helps you stay grounded or productive?

So no matter what else is going on in your life, you’re gonna do this no matter what.

21:01 The One Daily Task Jen Never Skips

Read e every day. Right now I have. Um, I’ve got several books going. I’ve got one on my Kindle and one audiobook I’m listening to myself. And then one audiobook I’m listening to with my husband ’cause he works from home.

So we have a little time together.

I actually created a shelf called On Deck because it’s books that I, you know, that are up next. And if nothing else, I listen to an audio book while playing some video games.

21:26 Where to Find Jen & The App

Jen, how can they get in touch with you if they have any questions or they wanna talk to you directly?

Oh, well, they can, uh, email me at jen@accomplist.app, and they can go to the website, um, that is https://www.accomplist.app. Um, it’s ACCOMPLIST is “accomplish” with a “T” instead of an “H.” So watch, watch out for your autocorrect because it took me while to train mine.

And, um, on Facebook and Instagram. I am, it’s @teamaccomplist.

All right, so what I’m gonna do, listeners, I’ve got the website. I’m gonna put that link in the show notes. If you click on the help button, then that’s gonna take you to a page that at the bottom, her email is there. And all of the social media links are on the top of that page.

So if you just go to her website, you’ll be able to get to everything including on the homepage for the website are the direct links to the App Store and the Google Play Store. So you’ll be able to get there with everything.

Well, Jen, thank you for sharing this all with us. I, um, I’m, I’m curious what we’re gonna hear in the comments. Um, listeners, if you didn’t go down and leave your comment, I wanna hear whether you use paper or what, what you’re using apps for. And, um, and if you wanna leave any feedback, we’d appreciate that too.

You could leave it as an Apple review or you can leave it as a comment on the YouTube video. Thank you for, for sharing all of this with us.

Well, thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to be looking at my own to-do list with a lot more grace and flexibility after hearing Jen’s advice.

If you wanna learn more about Jen’s work or check out the ACCOMPLIST app, you can find all the links in our show notes.

If you connected with this episode, please share it with a friend that you think might want to hear it, and leave us a review on Apple Podcast to help other parents find us there. And if you haven’t done so, go ahead and hit that subscribe button so you don’t miss a future episode of the podcast.

Thanks for joining me today. Remember to give yourself grace, celebrate the small victories, and I’ll see you next time.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q1. What is the Accomplice app and how is it different from other productivity apps?
The Accomplice app, created by Jen Anderson, is designed for people who feel overwhelmed by traditional to-do lists. It features an “intentional skip” option, no “overdue” alerts, and a focus on small, attainable progress rather than rigid, linear schedules.

Q2. Can you delegate tasks using the Accomplice app?
Yes, the app has a specific delegation feature, which you can use to track tasks you’ve assigned to others, including your children. This can be a great way to build independence and share the workload.

Q3. Why is it important to “skip” a task instead of just leaving it undone?
According to Jen, intentionally skipping a task provides a psychological benefit. It’s a conscious decision that removes the mental weight of a task you’re not going to get to, helping you feel more in control and less burdened by a never-ending list.

Q4 How can I manage my schedule when my child’s needs create unexpected disruptions?
The key is to build flexibility into your plan. Instead of a rigid list, create a master list of tasks and focus on a few key priorities for the day. Use a tool like the Accomplice app to intentionally “skip” non-essential items, giving yourself permission to adapt to unexpected events without feeling like a failure.

Q5. What is the “productivity with grace” mindset Jen talks about?
It’s a shift from a “do it all” mentality to a “do what you can” approach. This mindset encourages you to accept that you’re an “imperfect human” and to stop measuring your productivity by what you didn’t get done. The goal is to feel a sense of accomplishment by celebrating the progress you did make, no matter how small.

Q6. How can I get my child involved in my to-do list?
Jen recommends using the delegation feature in the app to assign age-appropriate tasks to your children. This not only lightens your load but also teaches them valuable life skills and a sense of responsibility. You can reframe the task as a fun challenge, such as going to the store to pick out a specific item, as Jen mentioned in the episode.