To-do Lists. It’s in the 3×5 cards.
This was me last Saturday.
I debated whether to post this pic. Full disclosure — In cropping out my thighs, my beer also disappeared from the photo where it rested a few inches from my left arm.
This is what I do well. Sit in the sun while reading. A reformed magazine-o-holic, my mother brings me all hers and the few I do get pile up. Then when I get away, I binge read Good Housekeeping, SELF, Oprah, Country Living, Southern Living — the assorted Anything Living magazines.
Part of me likes to think it helps me write a smidge better since I write for print. How other writer’s handle interviews and home redo stories interest me.
The other part of me likes to veg. Check out. And a good magazine helps.
When I see a recipe, self help or house idea I like I rip the page out old school as in the days before Pinterest.
Like this article on to-do lists in Martha Stewart’s Living. Which is ironic to me, since every issue of her magazine can be considered one big TO DO.
Martha Stewart does. And she does whatever she does well. Dang, she even did her stint in prison better than I did some 5-year-old birthday parties.
Not that I don’t try with the to-dos.
Just like the beer was in my wingspan out by the pool, this stack of 3 x 5 cards stays at my right elbow on my desk.
I recently purged the piles on my desk but that said, these were the to-do cards I found scattered about his morning.
Just looking at the photo, I can already tell the chance of that swim happening are about nil.
Also the write for an hour. On my book. That needs to become a priority and here I blog.
The Living article stated the point of writing things down is to get them off our minds. To make things less overwhelming.
It also said to find a system that works for you. I need visual reminders or I run to the brightest, flashiest object and forget the dull, yet extremely important task — like pay the water bill before it gets shut off. Who remembers that stuff when there are posts to write and seeds to sow?
There are the tasks, I move from day to day. Mail off my racing medals to Medals-for-Mettle. And tasks that don’t seem pressing but need to get done or it will be too late, like putting in my summer garden.
Am starting to get a little antsy because I need to draft a column for magazine. That needs to get done today. But so does a trip to the bank, and dinner and I want to pick strawberries with the kids this week they are out of school.
The article promises to help us “get control of our to-do list — rather than the other way around.”
I’m not sure that applies to me. How can I be controlled by a list when so much is left undone each day? The only thing it controls is my stress level by causing it to skyrocket.
What about you and to-do lists? Help.
