The Joy of Checking Off

This morning, I have had to correct a double-booking, and I'm late for everything.  This will, therefore, be a brief post.  But nonetheless significant, as it deals with an important discovery I have made about keeping myself on track.  Of course, as with many such "discoveries," like fire and the wheel, others have been here before me.  So it should come as no surprise--but it does surprise me--that (drum roll, please) I get more done, and feel better about everything, when I keep a written to do list.  


Even though just about everyone who writes and speaks about procrastination and personal organization touts the to do list as an essential practice, I thought maybe I was different.  I tend to think of myself as the exception to many, though not all rules; as a bohemian of sorts.  And I have clung to my self-conception as a "flibbertigibbet, a will-o-the-wisp" (but not a clown, like Maria of The Sound of Music, whose song gives us these descriptions), a spontaneous free spirit who does not flourish under stricture.  And that persona does not welcome the routine of writing down tasks, and crossing them off when completed.  Or looking at a list when the day has passed, and seeing too few items checked.


But it turns out I was wrong.  In the past couple of months, I have been "list-less" as well as listless, for several weeks, corresponding to the time that I was sick and able to do only what was absolutely required while spending all available energy recovering.  I have recently returned, in the past couple of weeks, to keeping a daily to do list in the calendar purchased for this purpose at the beginning of this "year of wonders."  (Not to be confused with the excellent novel of the same name, by Geraldine Brooks, about a community, and one woman in particular, besieged by the Plague in 1666.) 


And guess what?  My mood has improved, and my focus has been activated, and my ability to get necessary things accomplished upgraded!  Who knew?  Apparently, some part of me (maybe the part with the overtaxed memory?  the part who has difficulty staying in my own life?) responds to the discipline inherent in this daily ritual.  


Probably another aspect of the to do list's utility to me is my anachronistic enjoyment of all  things stationery--pens of various styles and writing feel, paper products designed to stimulate organizational enterprise, and the process of sitting down to write.  And then there's the satisfaction of filling the little boxes with check marks--kind of like getting a little gold star.  Ah!  See, I'm good after all.  Or good enough, anyway.


And that turns out to be how I catch the "cloud" that is me and "pin it down."

Calendars, Calendars, Calendars

In my lifelong struggle to get and stay organized, calendars have played the part of useful ally, red herring, and saboteur.  

The first function is pretty straightforward.  When calendars do what they are supposed to do, they remind us of appointments.  They help us to avoid overlapping engagements.  They allow us to plan ahead, and to distribute our commitments sensibly.  They are our friends.

The red herring part comes in when I delude myself that the perfect calendar, and worse, the magical combination of several perfect calendars, will somehow cure my procrastination and allow me to achieve my dreams.  My father, had he known about my predilection for wandering through bookstores, office supply stores, and Target's office sections at all times of the year in pursuit of this quarry, would probably have diagnosed OCD.  There is certainly something obsessive about my quest.  

I continue to be drawn, despite years of disappointment, to the offerings of purse calendars, wall calendars, desk calendars and planners.  Color, size, arrangement of days and weeks, and "features" call out to me from the retailers' displays.  I stand as if mesmerized, picking up alternatives and comparing them, as if I were a calendar virgin.  As if someone somewhere might have "discovered" or "invented" my ideal solution since the last time I'd looked.  

I have spent too much time in this chimeric pursuit, time that might otherwise have been devoted to actually doing some of the things I intended to write in these instruments.  I have even been known to switch horses in midstream, changing calendars in September when a particular product seemed "more perfect" than the one I was already using.  And then, of course, obsessively (or is it compulsively?) copying entries from the soon-to-be-abandoned organizational tool into its replacement.  

But worse than this crazy tail-chasing behavior is what happens when I follow the advice of organizational gurus, who recommend keeping several calendars.  I currently have a purse calendar, which I consult when I am away from home and scheduling meetings or appointments; a planner/calendar, which contains my to-do lists and scheduled meetings and appointments; a wall calendar, on which I record my own meetings and appointments and those of other household members; and two computer-based calendars, one personal and one for the organization I help to manage.   My personal computer-based calendar reproduces a daily agenda on my home page, which should theoretically get me where I need to go by putting it in my face each time I open my laptop.  I have decided not to keep a calendar on my cell phone, partly because of its wayward habits of disappearing and running out of charge.

Of course, the gurus would have me synchronize all these calendars.  And that's the crux of my difficulty.  My failure to routinely copy entries from one to the rest of my calendars is what gets me in trouble, producing the third role--calendars as agents saboteur.  I rely on calendars to reality-test my hazy notion of where and when I should be, and behave as if each calendar holds all the necessary information.  This is hardly ever the case.  So when I check the calendar at hand, I am effectively playing calendar roulette.   This week, the game cost me $50 when I missed an appointment and was assessed the no-show fee.  On a good day, my spotty system might relieve me of attending a meeting I wasn't too keen on anyway.

Today, my purse calendar tells me that I am out of time for completing this post, and need to rush out the door to make a late breakfast with a friend, recently and involuntarily disemployed from his job of 31 years.  I leave for tomorrow the task of figuring out what to do about all my calendars.  But I won't stop at Office Depot on my way back.  

Fun with Post-its

In 1977, 3M launched the Post-it.  That same year, I launched my first child, and my 34-year stint as a mother of minor children.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  But as motherhood has made its inevitable inroads into my short-term memory, the proliferation of these handy little brain cell substitutes has kept pace.  


Over the years, our product options have expanded to include a dizzying selection of colors, sizes, shapes and functions beyond the now-pedestrian square yellow tacky original.  It is now possible to store one's thoughts on a green apple-shaped note, to tab one's file with a magenta arrow, and to nag one's child with an initial-shaped missive.  (Is "Clean Your Room!" better received, and/or likelier to happen, if delivered in purple ink on a periwinkle letter Z than in the more traditional maternal shriek?)  And there are special Post-it To Do list pads, and shopping lists.  Specialty notes with catchy phrases abound, as well.  In my collection are notes screaming SEX! in big red type, with "Now that I've got your attention" in quieter print below; soft gray notes proclaiming that "Writers have the last word;" and "If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done," clearly the procrastinator's choice.


The image above is a photo of my current computer desktop, awash in electronic post-its, courtesy of the Stickies application for Mac.  Along the left-hand side of the picture are arrayed alphabetized notes, color-coded by life area--green for my older teen, pink for his younger sibling, light blue for the nonprofit organization which takes up half my weeks, gray for this blog, deeper blue for personal, and yellow for everything else.  Unlike the non-virtual version, these digital notes never lose their grip and slip mercifully into oblivion.  As you can see, I now need to devote some time to clearing these reminders.  I am similarly in need of unclogging my actual short-term memory.  I am giving way too much conscious RAM to way too many trivial compunctions these days.  Maybe that's why I can barely hold a thought long enough to transfer it to one form of Post-it or another.  Or remember where I put the Post-it!


Like a lot of things we invent to simplify our lives, the helpful Post-it can lend itself to abuse.  If we are prone to overcomplicating, we need to guard against our tendency to co-opt even the simplest item into our crazy schemes to overrun our lives with chaos.  I, for one, am overdue for a Post-it purge, and a stricter diet.  While I tackle that, we can all amuse ourselves with this dazzling display of Post-it creativity, using connected Pop-up notes.  But beware the temptation to follow the You Tube fairy and get lost in the amazing garden of post-it art and pranks!