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| Fancy List: Whatever Gets the Job Done |
These days, as holidays approach, you, or someone you love, is without a doubt hunkered down with coffee, pen, and paper, making lists. To Do. Budget for Gifts. Invitees. Items to Pack. Groceries Now. Groceries Day Before Thanksgiving.
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| It's OK, I Know What It Means |
Making lists gives us time to think through priorities and task order. On the way to a final list, we cross out first thoughts in favor of better ones, we rip pages from notebooks and start over. Making lists this way is not efficient, but it often helps us to be efficient later.
The payoff for making a good list is not just being organized and clear headed. The payoff is physically checking each item off the list as you complete it. Confession: Sometimes, if I forget to put an item on a list but then I take care of that item, I add it to the list and then check it off. Don't tell anybody.
Here's hoping all your lists are manageable, and that you thoroughly enjoy the upcoming holidays!
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| Obsolete List? Phone Book, 2011 |
I make lists, too, and by hand. I've tried the to-do lists on my iPhone and desktop--never lasts more than 2 weeks, max. There's something tactile about writing what I am going to do (also tactile) and be satisfied with 1. a sense of order at the list-making and 2. the sense of accomplishment when I return to scratch a line across what's done. Can't beat the ability to take my scrap of paper or my mule skin notebook with me wherever i go. That's portability and timelessness. I like finding old lists all over the place--can't do that with electronic lists. They just sit, hidden, in an OS somewhere. Thanks for this, Michele. Got me really thinking.
ReplyDeleteStar, you said it all so well. One thing that haunts me is that I often find old lists that keep listing the same things -- things I never seem to get to. That's eye opening, too. -- MIchele
ReplyDelete