Marion Williams is the founder of the website 50ThingsandBeyond.com and the author of Beyond Adam and Eve: 50 Things You Need To Know Before You Get to Heaven. Marion finds the to-do lists featured on her site a lifesaver in balancing the responsibilities of family and business. Marion has a BS in Finance from Virginia Tech and a MBA from Columbia Business School. She was a Finance Manager for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals in New York City before moving to Atlanta, Georgia. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and two wonderful daughters.

Are you a big keeper of To-Do lists?
Yes, I have always found to-do lists a good way to stay organized. When you are bombarded with so many different tasks during the day, it is easy for things to fall through the cracks, and my to-do list helps me keep focused. I constantly rework my to-lists during the day, checking off the things I have done and rearranging my priorities as needed. I find my to-do lists provide the structure I need to accomplish most of my daily tasks, but are fluid enough to allow me to respond to the unexpected things that come up each day.

Have you always been organized?
Well, probably not always but in most of my adult life I have been pretty organized! After all, just to make it through the day, we all have to be organized to some degree. I find that making lists helps to accomplish the mundane chores that all of us adults have to do. By getting them done, it helps to alleviate worrying about things and frees up more time to enjoy life in general.

What other organizational tools do you use to make sure things don’t fall through the cracks?
Ihave tried some of the electronic alternatives such as a palm pilot, but find I like being able to write things down. For me it seems faster and easier to change. I’m constantly using 3x5 cards – one for the day’s tasks, one for grocery items, one for upcoming events and so on. There are reminder cards tacked on the refrigerator, cabinets, and the back door!

How do you incorporate these tools into your family activities?
When the girls were young, I pretty much kept all the schedules, but now that they are getting older, we have started to share the responsibility. In a way, my to-do lists become a way of goal setting – they help me get things accomplished. I think the girls see that if we tackle the boring tasks in an organized fashion, we finish them faster and have more time for the fun things. It also gives me a sense of confidence that the basics are being covered, and in that sense it is very liberating.

Why did you decide to develop a website? How did you come up with the idea?
Among family and friends I have always been known for my to-do lists, and have shared them selectively over the years. Once I started thinking about developing a website, it seemed like the perfect way to share the lists with a broader audience.

Why 50 to-do lists?
I recently published the book Beyond Adam and Eve: 50 Things You Need to Know Before You Get to Heaven and felt that the concept would also work for my website which is called 50ThingsandBeyond.com. My feeling is that by identifying 50 things you should know, or 50 things you should do, you can break any pursuit into a manageable size, and build it from there.