I keep a To Do List on my phone. It started out as my new year’s resolution for 2011. My goal was to complete 100 items on my To Do List. I didn’t start out with 100 items on my list. I started out with about 40 and added more throughout the year. I could put anything on the list with the only requirement that each item had to be something that would take more than 20 minutes to do. Things on my list included books I wanted to read, projects I wanted to do to our house and our rental, items I wanted to make, get passports, etc. I did complete my goal for 2011 in the last part of November, but I didn’t get rid of the list. I have just kept adding to it since I created it. In 2012 I didn’t want to keep track of how many items I completed so I am not counting them. The problem is that I currently have 101 items on my list and I find even thinking about my list overwhelming. I think last year my list helped me get a lot of things accomplished, but I had more time on my hands since I was not going to school.
What do you think? Do you keep lists, and if you do how do you be productive and not get overwhelmed with the list? I am hesitant to delete my list because everything on my list is things that I do want to do or accomplish. How do you keep the rate at which you add things to your list in line with the rate at which you actually accomplish individual items? Do you think it is obvious that I am too concerned with keeping my list and I should give up and chuck it?:)
Actually, what I do is I make a bucket list, so leaving it to me to complete in the lifetime, instead of doing it year by year- although I do admit I'd identify some goals to do in a year That helps me avoid 'pressure' which would leave to a sense of failure.
ReplyDeleteOn one note, I do have my bucket list on a old blog, might move it to my blog and update it, check completed goals and add goals- that tend to make me feel that I'm doing good at my own time and space.
That's my feedback for you- don't expect to do everything- add things that you know you can complete easily, things that you can complete in a month, three months, six months, year and more so... So that'd be no pressure, no sense of rush.
Hope that helps.
I keep mental lists long term, because otherwise I am overwhelmed. Occasionally we'll write "house maintenance lists" which we did recently, and it was so depressing/hard to do/expensive that we've tried to forget it exists I think! I do have a "to-read" list (on Goodreads), and we have a mental list of "places to visit" over the next ten years. I don't give myself time limits though. Too much pressure! (Maybe it would help us get our house maintenance finished though.)
ReplyDeleteAs I approach an advanced age (ending in a 0) this year, I'm thinking I need to do a bucket list!