Living Listfully

Lent is a time for confession, but this is ridiculous.

It's one thing to confess actual sins and be assured of forgiveness. You get no such consolation when you confess that you've spent the past month eating your own words.

I've never liked lists or schedules. In fact, I've been pretty emphatic about it. In writing, no less. So I've been understandably reluctant to admit how I've kept things running smoothly these past three weeks or so. Reluctant to admit how much I've enjoyed doing it.

Reluctantly, I admit I've been using a daily to-do list.

It all started at the end of last month. I was talking to my good friend Debra (a diagnosed List Person) about how I had a class to plan for co-op, and no large chunks of time to do it. I honestly didn't know how I was going to get it done. In the course of the conversation, I realized that life probably wasn't going to conform to my needs. I'd have to find a way to plan for the class in bits and pieces.

So every day I wrote out a few small things to work on for the class. The bigger projects I saved for evenings when Darren was home. Within a week, I had it all done. Accomplished. I was ready for my first class without breaking into a panicky sweat even once.

I was hooked. Secretly, sneakily, I began writing out a daily list of what had to be done. I just hated how well it worked, but finally let myself have pleasure in crossing off items. I'm not one to put something on the list just to cross it off. Instead, I include things that I know I'll do anyway, like: Breakfast. School. Quiet Play. Check, check, check!

What turned me into an openly-practicing list person, however, was when I brought my dana out again. A word about my dana: I love it deeply and passionately. It's been on a shelf collecting dust because I haven't had any large chunks of time to take it out and write, but my love for it is unchanged. And now I can appreciate the fact that it has a calendar and to-do list built in. Perfection plus!

Now I plunk down my dana on my kitchen counter every morning. It sits there, waiting patiently, as I refer to it throughout the day. I check my list, make notes, or work on emails and blog posts in short bursts. My dana reminds me (in gentle, dulcet tones) to make that phone call or look up the title of that book. With its help, I've carved out "Fifteen Minute Fun" several times a week, when I devote fifteen minutes of entertainment to only one child at a time.

So, anyway. I confess. Daily to-do lists have improved my household life. I guess you could call me a List Person. But maybe (she says, hugging her shredded dignity to her hurting heart) maybe it's just the season of life that makes lists necessary.

That sounds plausible. Yes. When I marry off my last child, I'm totally tearing up the lists and dancing on the remains.

-- SJ

* write blog post about to-do lists: check*