Tuesday 19 August 2014

The beauty of lists

I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts last night and heard them talking to Nick Keller who put together the website Listly. He was talking about how important lists are to people, and it got me thinking.
I love lists, but I've never known why. I started loving lists at about the same time in life when  I realized that if I didn't get myself a bit more organized I just wouldn't manage to make it through each day.

Today is a great example.  I've got a lovely holiday day in front of me, and the spouse is at work, so that means free uncluttered time... or does it?  I have a meeting tonight, and before I get to that meeting I also have to have my papers in order and the final agenda all organized.  I also need to put out some washing, and bring it in when it is dry, figure out a meal for the evening and make sure we have the food to make it and that it will be on the table before I have to leave for the meeting.
I also booked  in a chiropractor appointment for today (since I would have nothing to do).

 Apart from that, I need to finalize a few things for work, a couple of phone calls to make (and ended up taking a couple too) and I wanted to get this entry completed for the day.

I just know the if I didn't start with a list first thing this morning I wouldn't get to the end of this lazy holiday day with things organized enough.

And the most annoying thing is that the one thing on that list this morning which I put there just for my own enjoyment will not get crossed off today -but I will transfer it to tomorrow's list  :)

I love that I can cross each one off of the list as I complete them, and at least at the end of the day I can look at my list and know that I didn't do  nothing all day.  The catch is that I will not allow myself to tick it off till it is totally completed.  Sometimes this means that I have to break my list down to sub-lists just to allow a satisfying tick off to occur.

Apologies for my lousy handwriting. Here is my list for today with 4 more jobs to be ticked off today, and 2 to be transferred on to tomorrow (barring the expected).


So if you haven't tried making a list may I recommend it as a great tool and source of satisfaction. 

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