Years ago when I was new to juggling family and work, I spent
much of my time desperately trying to get organized.
Years ago when I was new to juggling family and work, I spent much of my time desperately trying to get organized. I reasoned there had to be a way to squeeze the maximum 60 seconds out of every minute. After all, there were hundreds of books written on “getting the most out of life.”
Being a reader, I devoured many of these books. Before long a common theme stood out – lists. To be a truly organized person you had to have lists.
One book suggested keeping lists in a binder, checking off items once they were done. Another author said index cards were the way to go. One set would be for frequently repeated tasks such as household chores. Another set would be for seasonal tasks like spraying fruit trees. The last would be for things that needed to be done right now.
The author noted that our lives are often filled with repeat tasks and instead of wasting time writing done the same things over and over we could keep the index cards in files. Once a job was done the card could be re-filed for the next time it was needed.
Like most people, filling up the lists or cards was no problem. But it would have taken Superwoman and all her friends to complete the agenda I’d set out for myself. So back to the books I went, this time reading past the first few chapters.
The binder author noted that we need to weed out the piddly garbage that takes up a lot of our time. This particular author was a throwback from the ’50s who said a woman should make her “husband list” a top priority, then do the things important to her. After laughing hysterically I continued to read.
I liked her ABC idea of prioritizing lists. A’s were the most important items, B’s the next and C’s that piddly stuff. Unfortunately, most of my C’s were fun stuff and A’s dreams, so I ended up doing a lot of B’s, which wasn’t too satisfying either way.
So I switched to the file-card method. I spent days going through my schedule, organizing the cards to make my life run smoothly. File box in hand I was ready… or so I thought. But raising four kids is rarely smooth. Cleaning up after four sick children put me back a full week on my file box. In my enthusiasm to put everything in order, I’d forgotten about spontaneity, something I truly enjoy. Soon I was a miserable mess so I tucked the file boxes away as an experiment gone sour.
That’s when I decided if I simply kept my lists on binder paper, without a binder, and made new ones when the old got too messy, I’d do fine. So without fail I kept my lists out for everyone to see. They became a badge of honor. One page soon became two, three, four. I ignored the fact that my Superwoman cape was wrapped around my neck. All I saw was the adoring eyes of my fans who read my lists in amazement. No woman could possibly do all that and stay sane. But sanity was not my goal. Martyrdom was.
But somewhere in time, as my kids grew older, I was no longer seen as heroic for my long lists. Instead, they became something to dread. My children hated seeing a new list out because it meant they had an unreasonable amount of chores to do. It also meant fun things like going to the beach would be skipped. The list ruled our lives.
Still, I forged ahead bravely – until the day a friend started to laugh at my lists. In a kind way she let me know how ridiculous they’d gotten. She started teasing me about them and others joined in. They questioned several items on my lists, pointing out that the world wouldn’t end if these things didn’t get done. Maybe I should just put a couple of daily things on my list, instead of a couple of hundred.
But habits are hard to break, and it took some time before I stopped making daily lists altogether. Now I rarely make lists, and when I do I try to keep it on the sane side of reasonable – not an easy task when you have a vivid imagination and lots of energy.
But recently I’ve been thinking about going back to daily lists. My life is still very busy and occasionally I forget to do something very important, so I need to write things down. So I bought some brightly colored post-its for my memory helpers. How big can a list be on a 3-by-3 post-it? It just depends on how small I can write.
