People like to make fun of me for my “compulsive lists”. I write down on a piece of paper, usually a sticky note, a list of things I need or want to do this day. The list is never less than five or more than ten. I carry that list with me throughout the day and whenever I get a chance to make a dent into that list I do. As the day moves on I take a sharpie black marker and cross out the item I have accomplished. By the end of the day I have completed my list. Two things come from this practice, one is that I get a lot down every day and two is that I feel empowered at the end of each day knowing I am making a difference, “moving the ball forward” to use a sports metaphor. But outside observers this all looks strange, they complain such a discipline prevents me from “smelling the roses” or being attentive to the unexpected. “I WISH I could do that”, I hear, “if only my life was so predictable.”
My life is not predictable and I don’t have much free time. I would argue that having these lists actually frees me to be present to the moments that arise, I don’t need to be worrying about all of the other commitments, I will get to each of them and thus I can focus on what is at hand. If I need to interrupt my activity I will, making sure to save my work and because it is not yet crossed off the list I know I will go back to it. In fact many times the interruption is such that something in that experience prompts me to address the unfinished work I left temporarily with a new lens. The interruption sometimes can be a blessing in disguise, it offers a new slant on the matter I am addressing.
I constantly hear people complain that they start something and then new things crop up and they don’t finish what they intended to accomplish. It leaves them frustrated and often the result is they blame the interruptions and the demands that seem to build. There is a defensive “I can only do so much” that creeps into every conversation, people around them are reluctant to ask for assistance knowing the stress that is building. There is no joy in Mudville, as the only expression goes.
There is a reason why people ask busy persons to do things. If you can handle the load chances are others will pile on your load and make it bigger. That’s OK with me. But I think reality is important and thus I want others to know the reason my pile can get bigger is not that I have lots of free time but the manner with which I organize my time. To let that opportunity pass and not say anything is to leave the impression that the reason you can always say yes is that my work is too easy, that my job is less demanding than yours. “That “ain’t so.” I remember once when a colleague, who was highly skilled but lacked stamina and organizational ability, asked me to do part of his work my response irked him and others. I said, “Sure I can do that, I don’t have any free time but I can make it work.” Saying otherwise or saying nothing would have left the impression, which he wanted to leave, that I had less to do than he. That was not so and everyone but him knew that.
The temptation in all of this is to become self-righteous. I know how limited my skill-set is, I know how fortunate I am to have someone at home who can attend to all of our household and parental demands, and I know I am blessed with an unusually high energy level and stamina. BUT I also know people have choices and we can choose whether we want to totally and completed live in the moment or we can try to get ahead of this accumulating litany of challenges. People mock my strategy, and that is OK. I occasionally mock others when they complain about the same last minute flurry of activity they go through every week. But if you see a smile on my face when you say to me “It must be nice to have all this free time to go to Value Village or watch documentaries or sit in coffee shops” you will know why.