Back To The List

I love Christmas. I use the whole holiday season as an excuse to abandon my master to do list. Not that I don’t have an extra busy holiday list, but there is no way to do Christmas and worrying about cleaning out the garage at the same time. Christmas is the best excuse ever.

Since today all of Christmas stuff moved up to the attic with the exception of one small pile of things I need to buy a new storage box for, I guess it’s time to get back to my regular list of things to get done. Actually now I have to add buying that hinged top box to the list.

I like lists. I am married to someone who likes lists. I am just too old to remember everything I need or want to do without a list. If I don’t put things on my calendar nothing would get done. If I forget to look at my calendar I almost certainly will miss something important I was supposed to do. I did not used to be like this, it is certainly a symptom of aging.

Currently I have a lot of things on my list that are carry overs from last year’s list. You know that means I really don’t want to do them, but feel like I should. Or they are things that other people have asked me to do and I said I would put them on the list. That may mean I am never going to do them.

My dream would be for my to do list to be full of all fun things I want to do and nothing that makes me feel bad about the fact that I am not doing it. I know this seems like an impossible feat since to do lists are really mostly chores. But most chores don’t even go on my list. I know I need to do laundry every couple of days. I don’t need that on the list. Garbage has to go out Monday nights. I don’t need that on a list, especially if Russ is home. I also don’t put working out on my list since I have to do it everyday.

In order to clear out my to do list I could spend the next month or two doing nothing but all the horrible jobs I have on the list and see if I could clear them out for good, or at least until I messed the garage up again. I love this idea, but then I have some time sensitive things that need to be worked on, like planning the spring break college visit route or writing my next Durham Magazine column.

I guess it is unrealistic to think that I could have nothing but fun on my calendar to look forward to, but boy it seems like the right goal to work towards. For now I am going to just keep praying that no one asks me to do any horrible chore so maybe I can make some headway. If you don’t hear from me for a while it is because I am cleaning out the attic — the one thing that has been on my to do list for the last twenty years. The only problem with that job is I know I will run across so many old things that will add to my list. There is no way to win this game.