Leaders are readers. I can’t think of anything more important for personal development than reading. And there’s certainly no lack of great material available. The problem for most people boils down to time.

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The answer to this for me has been to do most of my reading via the Kindle app on my iPhone. Don’t get me wrong—I love a good ol’ fashioned paper book. I’ve purchased a bunch. Yet I’ve narrowed down my actual physical library over the last few years just due to space.

Life has changed so much over the years. We find our hands almost permanently connected to a smartphone, tablet, or laptop. All of our contacts, calendars, to-do lists, notes, games, social media connections, conversations with people, etc. are all wrapped up in one neat little package. Our whole life is contained on our smartphone or computer. The results of our devices crashing would be devastating.

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But technology itself can be devastating without the crash. Can these devices which so efficiently organize our lives and keep us on a productive path actually become detrimental? I believe we all know that they can if we don’t intentionally keep them in check.

Most of us automatically make a list whenever we begin a project. It might be a simple grocery list, a plan for a child’s birthday party, a packing list for an upcoming vacation or business trip, or your to-do list for today. We naturally know the value of getting endless lists out of our heads onto paper or an app.

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But there is an even greater potential value than this one-off simple list-making process. It’s taking it a step further to create checklists and workflows for anything that is recurring.