To Do List

My name is Becky and I have a serious addiction to to-do lists. I recognize that it is a problem, I'm just not sure what in the world I'm supposed to do without them. My brain is not what it used to be for sure, and I forget things at the drop of a hat. Thus, if I don't write them down they are as good as gone until something random happens that sparks a memory deep in the recesses of my brain that starts with 'wait, wasn't I supposed to do something...'. As a result, I've found that I now need to make more to-do lists, rather than less.

At work I have a to-do list, but that is usually sub-categorized into the 'must do' and the 'would like to do' lists, as well as the 'waiting on someone else to do' list, which is necessary because apparently people really have issues keeping their own to-do lists and so I have to remind them of what they are supposed to do for me. The problem is I have paper lists, prioritized e-mails lists, and then the list that is on the wall because me and my intern both need to work off it.

Then, I have my home to-do list, which has a subcategory grocery list, as well as a 'what I need to buy/do when we have the money in the budget' list. G-mail has these handy little stars you can put next to e-mails so I have my starred list of e-mails, which generally means something needs to be done about that, and if it's important enough it gets transferred over onto the paper to-do list.

Now, with my new part time job, I also have a church to-do list, which I tackled this evening. Because I haven't had one of these lists before I ended up just writing anything that came to mind on random pieces of paper, most of which actually made their way into my planner so they weren't lost. Those that were lost, I sat and tried to think of what was on that list, and made a new 'lost to-do list' list. Tonight, I attempted sub-categorizing that list into things I need to do, things I need to plan how to do, things I need to find, and things I need someone else to do for me. It needed to be done and it worked pretty well, but it took me a good 2 hours.

Do you see my dilemma? I have about 18 lists to keep track of, but if I combine them all into one list the 'would like to do at work' item may overshadow the 'have to do within the next week at home' item, and the new church duties that I'm not used to watching out for may be totally lost in the mix. As far as I can tell, it is what it is, life without to-do lists is just not something I want to attempt at this juncture in my life, and I'm not quite sure how to deal with the fact I have so many. I guess I could get a Blackberry, but I'm pretty sure that would just make it easier to have a million to do lists and calendar events, and I would get some kind of new finger disease from typing on a tiny keypad all the time and at the most inopportune time likely lose everything on the entire memory chip. Me and written to-do lists have made it this far, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt that they are coming back into style and that at some point I can minimize the number of them. Not probable, but I can always dream.

Speaking of which, good night. I've been sitting up waiting for my pictures to load onto Snapfish so I could order them during this excellent sale they were running, which ended today and thus needed to be done tonight. Thankfully, due to my lists I realized it just in time about 3 hours ago. To-do lists to the rescue again.