The (Dreaded) “List”
November 30th, 2011, posted by Aimee
If I were to make a list of the top ten signs of a great vacation, at the very top would be “No To-Do Lists” all week. Which is why I would easily deem the past seven days in Maui as downright heavenly in this Womo’s book. Not because of the turquoise blue waters, warm sunshine or successful family surfing adventures. But primarily because not only did I leave my watch in the bag and my Outlook calendar reminders turned off, I actually refrained from opening that dreaded little daily notebook even one time in seven days.
Might not seem earth-shattering to some, but I am willing to bet that more than a few of you Womos out there can relate to list-making mania. In fact, in the trailer for the recent Sarah Jessica Parker flick, “I Don’t Know How She Does It” the working mom heroine attributes her nightly insomnia to tortuous list making as she tries to hold it all together. The movie may have been crap (not sure, anyone seen it?) but the concept is frighteningly familiar.
Not only does every night for me end with the drawing up of a list of tasks and priorities for the day ahead, but also an accounting for all the items on the current day’s list. If not marked off in red or crossed off in black, an item must be moved to the next day. And so it goes … even for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays when I am supposedly “off” the clock. Those are the days the list fills with the mundane, “Buy groceries, pay bills, do laundry, pick up kitty litter, call friends.”
For the inveterate list maker like myself, there is rarely a break from the familiarity of this routine. When I was on maternity leave, even in the haze of sleep deprivation and borderline post-partum baby blues, I was still obsessed with listing every single one of Tav’s “pees” and “poops,” along with the never-ending list of silly errands like “buy Ergo, wash pump valves, send thank you notes to Aunt Pat.”
The fact that my husband – the original single-focused “Mantasker” (see earlier post) – does not share this list obsession can be infuriating to me. How does he know what he needs to accomplish each day? How does he know if he got everything done? And why does he always seem to “lose” those “Honey Do” lists I hand him most Saturday mornings?
That’s why this past week, in which the most important things on the agenda every day was simply fitting in a single beachfront run, was such pure bliss. No clocks, no red pens, and as much sleep as life with a four and a half year old permits. Ahhh. Now it’s back to the grind once again.
Comments
Unfortunately it may be in your DNA…I’ve making “to do and call” lists on yellow legal pads for the last forty years. Even sadder is I still have almost all of them as a reminder of both how much and how little I’ve done in that time…sigh!