Return of the To Do List

If you ask me to do something, I'll immediately write it down on my To Do list. Every single thing. Sometimes, I break it down to the tiniest level reasonably possible so that it feels great to be able to give a nice tick or cross the task out when it's completed. When people see me writing the task down or when they see my To Do list, they usually comment on how organised I am. I don't actually see it that way. I see it as deteriorating memory failure! If I don't write it down, I will forget all about it and it won't get done!

For the last month, I went without a To Do list. I thought I'd trained myself enough to mentally store, prioritise and remove the tasks upon completion. Obviously had too much confidence in my mental ability. If I could draw out the mental To Do list, it would have been a messy and scrambled picture because priorities were (continuously) reassigned depending on deadlines, tasks and severity of consequences. I couldn't remember what the previous priority was and which had higher priority than which.

So now, I've started my To Do list again and it's sitting there happily with 30 tasks. Does it depress me that it looks like I've got lots of work with such a long list? No, sadly, it actually makes me feel better. I don't have to keep reminding myself of all the tasks and priorities. My brain cells (the last few are very precious!) are free to concentrate on other things. After penning my To Do list at the start and end of every day, I actually feel a sense of relief. No comments on how sad I am please. It gets things done, ok?

Task 18: Update blog - done!