How to Stay Productive When Your To-Do List Feels Out of Control: A Guide for FEC Owners & Operators

Running a Family Entertainment Center is exciting, but let’s be honest, it’s not for the faint of heart.   One minute you’re welcoming a field trip group, the next you’re troubleshooting a redemption game, juggling staff callouts, and trying to find time to plan that big weekend event. Your to-do list? Overflowing. When it seems like everything needs your attention, how can you stay productive and actually move your business forward?

Read on for seven practical strategies to help you keep overwhelm at bay.

No. 1: Understand Your “When.”

In his book “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing,” Daniel Pink explores the science behind when we should perform tasks for optimal results. One of his key takeaways is this: most people experience a daily productivity curve with a peak, a trough, and a rebound.

That means your highest alertness and focus usually come in the morning (your peak), followed by a midday slump (your trough), and a mild bounce-back in the late afternoon (your recovery).

As a business owner, this could mean using your peak hours for tasks that require deep focus, such as planning events, analyzing performance data, or making financial decisions. Save your trough (usually early afternoon) for administrative tasks that don’t require much thought, answering emails, or doing walkthroughs. The recovery period can be a great time for creative brainstorming or team check-ins.

For night owls (yes, we see you, laser tag lovers), this curve may shift later, but the concept still applies.

No. 2: Get Organized.

You can’t be productive if you’re constantly playing catch-up. Additionally, sometimes it can be difficult even to get started if your task list is overwhelming, which just puts you further behind and causes additional stress – a vicious cycle.

If you aren’t in the habit of listing tasks or you don’t know where to start, make a list of everything that needs to be done. I’ve found that numbering this list right away isn’t helpful. Instead, just take a moment to get everything down on paper or a digital list. Once you have the list, prioritize the tasks into what needs to be done first, second, and third. If that’s too stressful, just start with the one thing to do that would make your job easier, or that’s the most urgent and important. Complete that task or those few, cross them off, and repeat.

No. 3: Delegate Like Your Success Depends On it (Because it Kind of Does).

Too many FEC owners fall into the trap of thinking no one can do it as well as I can. That’s a fast track to burnout—and mistakes. Your job isn’t to do everything, it’s to build and lead a team that is strong enough to run without you and proactive enough to move your business forward. That starts with delegation.

But wait, you’ve been handling it for years, you know exactly how it should be done, and training someone else takes time you feel like you don’t have, right? Not in the long run. Every time you choose to hold onto a task instead of training someone, you’re reinforcing a bottleneck—one that limits your ability to focus on higher-level strategy, grow your business, or even take a day off without stress. Investing the time to train someone properly may feel inconvenient at first, but it’s what builds a team that’s capable, confident, and able to keep the operation running smoothly, whether you’re onsite or not.

No. 4: Invest the Time to Create (and Document) Processes and Templates.

You know that when you receive the same guest questions repeatedly, it’s time to address them in your online FAQs and in party emails, for example. Well, the same is true if you’re reinventing the wheel every time you have to train a new team member.

No one wants to read boring employee manuals, but the key is to replace them with something more effective, rather than eliminating documentation entirely. One effective way to utilize AI is to assist in creating and documenting processes. Conversational AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Microsoft CoPilot can help you quickly document SOPs by transcribing manager walkthroughs or converting meeting notes into structured checklists. You can also feed your current processes into them to help you identify weaknesses,  much like you might feed your email draft to your neighbor about his tree limbs falling into your yard into AI to make sure you don’t sound too snarky or passive-aggressive.

More sophisticated AI tools can help you analyze data points, craft training materials and visuals, and more. Just ask Gemini to recommend a few.

No. 5: Ask, “Where Can I Make This Process Faster or More Efficient?”

Use this question as a prompt for AI, or just ask yourself this question. As someone who lives and dies by a notebook to write client and meeting notes, I’ve found that I will sometimes take a long time trying to find information in my own notes. And after leaving my prized notebook in a rental car in Spain and being forced to abandon my flight (and husband) to retrieve it from, I vowed to work smarter by going digital. Now, with the help of digital synching as well as handwriting search features of my new Supernote device, everything I need is always at my fingertips. (PS, one asthma attack and $50 in tips later, and I made it to the gate during boarding only to have it delayed an hour as I was scanning in. Figures, right?)

No. 6: Protect Your Energy AND Your Time.

As an FEC operator, it’s easy to fill your day from open to close with task after task. But if you’re running on empty, even simple decisions can feel overwhelming. You’re probably not going to get more time, so making the most of the time you have is what matters most. So it stands to reason that your energy is the real key to peak performance and smart leadership.

When your energy is low, productivity drops, communication suffers, and the team and guest experience can take a hit. But when you take steps to manage and protect your energy, you’re able to stay calm under pressure, think more clearly, and stay focused on what really matters.

Try this:

• Take short breaks throughout the day—even five minutes to breathe, stretch, or grab a quick snack can help reset your brain.
• Step outside mid-shift, even briefly. Natural light and movement can do wonders for your focus and mood.
• Block 30–60 minutes of “focus time” each week. Use this time for uninterrupted planning, creative work, or tackling those projects that always get pushed aside during the daily rush.

By protecting your energy with intention, you’ll find you have more clarity, make sharper decisions, and be more present for your team and your guests.

No. 7: Manage Your Stress.

Managing your energy can help you manage stress, but it’s so important that we should discuss it here, too. If you’re a high performer juggling ever-increasing demands, it can be so easy to forego stress management activities like exercise, meeting friends, or getting the right amount of sleep in lieu of just getting a little more done today. Sound like you?  Those little thefts can end up stealing so much from your personal and professional life.

When you’re under chronic stress, your brain shifts into survival mode. Your ability to think clearly, make good decisions, and prioritize tasks effectively takes a hit. You may find yourself constantly reacting instead of proactively leading your business.

By actively managing stress, whether through quick breaks, exercise, breathing techniques, better sleep, or simply setting boundaries, you help keep your mind sharp and your body more energized. This leads to better focus, calmer decision-making, stronger leadership, and ultimately, more meaningful productivity.

Running an FEC certainly takes hours and a whole lot of multitasking. But you don’t have to do it on your own. If you’re ready to automate and streamline your POS and operations to help manage some of the chaos, schedule a demo today and discover how much more productive your team can be. Now, isn’t it time you took a little break?