The Self of My To-Do List

If I were the self depicted in my to-do lists, I’d have already done a morning yoga class rather than be sitting here at mid-day in thermal-underwear pajamas, my husband’s cast-off flannel, tartan-plaid robe and fuzzy slippers with pom poms.

My dog would be well-trained and well-behaved, wouldn’t pee in excitement when people came over, wouldn’t pull like a maniac on his leash, wouldn’t bark and growl at passing small children and strollers. He’d be an agility dog and a therapy dog.

I’d have taught myself French long ago and be fluent in it.

Ditto Spanish.

Also guitar.

And piano.

I’d do triathlons, be able to do all the poses of yoga and weigh quite a bit less.

My house would be organized. At the very least, I’d change all the burned-out lightbulbs I’ve been ignoring. And my closets would be so organized, like the ones in magazines, that they’d look like little shrines.

I’d have a kitchen garden. Also, I’d know all the names of the things growing in my yard and they’d all be flowering, which is good, because I’d also have a hive of bees. Well-behaved bees.

I’d have more dogs, all rescues, and they’d be well-behaved too.

I’d be wildly successful in some sort of creative field. I might be a little famous, in a beloved, low-key kind of way, and I’d have made gobs of money. I’d have a pied-à-terre in New York. (I have one picked out: a certain teeny-tiny room on the top floor, in the corner, of the Beacon Hotel). I’d also have a summer house at which I would, indeed, spend the entire summer.

Too bad my to-do list is complete fiction. ☹

And P.S., I thought I was being so efficient this morning, but turns out it’s “fall back.”

To Do Lists

Nutty.

I have ridiculous to-do lists. 

I am trying to be organized.

But even my lists are a mess. A day’s list for me is really several lists written on a Google calendar page. There are arrows, stars, exclamation points. Some things are circled, others underlined, some, but not all, numbered. This is what it’s like inside my head.

Still, I think it helps to write it down.

I work on my own. I often have several long-term projects going with lots of deadlines. And somehow, I managed to become the scheduler for our entire family.

I went through a phase where I read a lot of what my husband calls “productivity porn.” While reading a book about how to be efficient might feel like you are being efficient, spoiler alert, you’re really not.

However, once in a while, I would come across an idea that appealed. I’ve incorporated these into my to-do list, which might explain some of its complexity. I’ve written about this before.

I even read books about how to clean your house (really) and figured out how to do the least amount possible as quickly as possible to avoid ending up on the television show Hoarders.

Interestingly, one of the guys who wrote a book I liked, Tony Schwartz, turns out to be the guy who ghost-wrote The Art of the Deal for Donald Trump and is now abjectly sorry.

Another idea I like: Julia Cameron, who wrote a number of books about being creative (I liked her first such book the best), recommends, not a to-do list, but a ta-da list: Think about what you did get done, after you’ve finished your day. More often than not, although I feel like I didn’t do squat, I realize that I did do quite a lot. Yay!

Hey, whatever works.

Keeper of the Calendar

Image courtesy of

Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It was major for me, when I figured out how to sync my computer calendar with my phone calendar.

How sad is that?

I know when my husband is on call, when our daughter goes back to college, when our son’s driver’s ed class starts, when everyone’s dental check-ups should be.

You know when military leaders in a war movie pore over a map spread out on a table? That’s me, figuring out our summer with printed-out, color-coded, cross-referenced calendars, except I’m the only one at the table, with a cell phone to my ear and a laptop open to Google maps and school calendars.

It’s still a bit tricky because one kid doesn’t yet drive and the other is sharing my car with me. I distinctly remember the shock, upon moving from New York City to Houston, of having to shell out tens of thousands of dollars to have not one, but two (and three+ seems beyond ridiculous) 3,000-pound machines out in the yard, just to function.

I supposedly am the one who knows when the AC filters have to be changed and when Lola the dog needs her heartworm pill and when our car insurance needs to be paid. (It’s tomorrow: I just paid it online today. Whew.)

Travel plans, wisdom-teeth extraction, the quarterly visit from the Terminix man, birthday cards and Christmas gifts: it all goes through me.

I know, I know.  I should turn some of it over to my kids, who are old enough to deal.

But, guess what?

I didn’t raise fools: They’re not exactly keen to take it on.

What to Do?

I’ve always had a thing for to-do lists.

My dad had to-do lists and my parents still laugh at how, when I was small, I wrote my own, starting with “Wake up,” which I then carefully checked off.

More recently, I went through a phase of reading about being more efficient. In Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, David Allen suggests putting everything – and he means everything – into the task list and calendar of Outlook. (Personally, I hate Outlook and don’t use it. Does it still have the charming habit of suddenly sending the email you are still writing?)

He’s right, though. If you put all those niggling things – call the plumber, buy those special lightbulbs – down somewhere, where you know you will see them, you can put your mind at rest.

In The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working, Tony Schwartz points out something that is easy to forget: human beings are not machines and need to take breaks, get enough sleep, move their bodies. A schedule that doesn’t factor that in is worthless.

Because I work at home, I have to keep myself on track. When you go to a regular job, at a workplace, with co-workers, there is structure there that I just don’t have.

I use my to-do list, not just to make sure I am doing what I need to do, but also to prioritize, to stay realistic and to balance things (like time with the kids versus work).

Also, I’m a believer in “A little every day gets the job done.” If you want to do something, like keep a blog, say, if you make time for it every day, even 5 minutes, you will get it done.

This all makes my multi-page, weekly, daily to-do list comically complicated.

Works for me, though.