7/29/2011

She's making a list...

I am a rabid list maker.

Well, at least, I used to be.

When I was working a full-time plus job and trying to maintain a house and, oh yeah, raise a couple of kids in my spare time, my life revolved around lists.  Lists at work, lists at home, lists of things to do, lists of people to talk to, lists of things to buy, lists of things to get rid of, lists of places to go, lists, lists, lists...

Over the past year as I've adjusted to a much different, slower-paced life, I've gotten out of the habit.

Oh, I still use my cool Grocery Pal app on my iPhone for my grocery list, but really, that's about all.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled - literally - over some fabric that I had purchased nearly a year ago with the intention of recovering my dining room chairs.  In a sudden fit of inspiration, I decided to do it RIGHT THEN.  And I did.  And they look great. And it took me all of an afternoon to complete.


So why had put it off for so long?

Who knows?

Probably some mixture of a) it wasn't a priority b) it was something I wanted to do; therefore it took a back seat to the kids and their everyday wants and needs  c) nobody really cares about the dining room chairs except me and d) it wasn't ON A LIST so I could MARK IT OFF and feel a great sense of accomplishment.

When I was done with my little project, though, I DID feel a great sense of accomplishment, and I realized that is something that has been missing from my life lately.

So I decided to start up with the list making again.  I'm definitely a person who functions better with a timeline, a deadline, and a specific goal in mind.

I'm still working out some of the details.  Where will my list be? Will it be on my blog? My iPhone? The back of a napkin? How will I measure success? Will I keep one master list or will I divide it into categories like personal, house stuff, etc?

My friend Dianna uses the 3 in 30 approach to accomplishing her goals, and I'll admit that I'm intrigued by that concept.  However, since most of my goals are grand projects that require one black of time, I'm not sure how that would work.

But for now, I'm going to start with this:

MJ's To-Do List:
  1.  Create List

I'm just gonna start there and see where it leads me.


4 comments:

  1. I've heard Evernote is a great app for that sort of thing. I downloaded it ages ago, but have just never gotten started with it. I really need to, since I have about a half-dozen spiral notebooks with various lists lying around the house.

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  2. Don't forget that the lists must be:
    Specific
    Measurable
    Attainable
    Realistic
    Timely

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  3. D'oh. Natalie beat me to it.

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  4. I've had evernote on the desktop for years .... seriously like since R was a baby.

    I just write lists on top of lists, on top of lists. It works, and I'm somewhat organized and sucessful. Just not as much as Angie.

    ReplyDelete

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