Death By List

I don’t know about you, but I LOVE lists. To-Do Lists. Top Ten Lists. Avoid These Things Like The Plague Lists. You name it. I love it.

I love to start lists and add to them. I love to write down things I’ve already done just for the pleasure of crossing them OFF.

In fact, why don’t I give you a list of my current lists? OMG. I LOVE THIS IDEA.

• Home Improvement
• Blog Topics
• Items Borrowed
• Items Lent
• Christmas Cards/Addresses
• To Sell
• General To-Do
• Christmas Presents
• Missing Toys
• Essential Oils To Buy
• What I Want My Kids to Learn
• What I Want to Learn
• Several grocery lists by store
• Photo Books to create
• Go Bag/Emergency Disaster
• Things I need to get done by Year End
• 2014 Goals
• 2015 Goals
• Taiwan 2015 Packing List
• Books I Want to Read
• Books I’ve Read
• Shows/Movies I Want to Watch (all queued up on the DVR)
• To Clean

Fine fine fine. Most of these are To-Do Lists – but true fact. I often turn “Top Ten” lists into To-Do lists. Especially when they involve reading books. I CAN’T HELP IT. It keeps my scatterbrain semi-organized.

The only problem is, that despite the fact that these lists help ease my mind in the sense that I won’t forget stuff, it is also a burden weighing on the back of my mind. I constantly feel as if I am under the gun or wasting time. And then, when I finally do have time, I “waste” it by doing the easy things first. (eg: Watching TV or Reading) Oh, let’s be real. I squander my free time by browsing Facebook and Huffington Post.

Of course, I then feel even worse.

It’s not that it is a heavy burden. I know that most of these items, in the grand scheme of things (and besides groceries because OMG FOOD IS VITAL), the world will not end if I don’t get them done. It just feels like I need to get them done and since I love completion, this unfinished business nags and annoys me like I nag and annoy Hapa Papa.

Gosh, I’m irritating.

Anyhow, I thought I’d just get it out there. I know that I must not be the only anal retentive one, right? (Albeit, a somewhat procrastinatey type.) How do you keep the lists serving you versus the other way around? (I’m not really looking for special apps or To-Do lists. Mostly, I just wanted to complain. And cross off an item on my “To-Blog” list.)

Happy Cyber Monday!