Battle the Frazzle with list making

Somewhere I read just a while ago something along the line of: "Stop making lists and start life." I think I understand what it is meant to say, expressing that if we are too focused on listing our goals and wants, we are not working on actually achieving them. At the same time, I am an avid list writer, always was and so is my mother. The difference here is probably in the type of list, condemning a list of goals, but surely not a to do list?

The past few weeks things are starting again to go crazy with me trying to juggle working, family, volunteering, friends, exercise, music and writing. I tried juggling one summer, I think it was in '88, and I gave up relatively soon. I am not good at juggling, may it be balls or different aspects of my life. In the past days I have been getting so frazzled, that I started getting into a hysterical panic and started thinking I should just stop Everything instead of trying to do Everything. I think I was actually whining - urgh - and started listing the 200 things that need to be done outside of work and family to my husband. He told me to just write it all on a list to get it our of my head and get to it later. Now that is exactly the advice I would give somebody and usually I do exactly that. When I get frustrated though and desperation is set in motion through too much stress and too little rest, I can get lost.

I think making lists is a wonderful thing, it organizes our thoughts and it takes pressure of a mind already over burdened. But, often I find that even though I try to put things out of the head and on the paper, I did not transfer them, but merely made a copy and now I have it in the back of my head and on paper as well, just to remind me in case I manage not to think about all the things to be done. So in order for the lists to be more effective, I am trying to link my items with time planning. What that means is for example, that in order to get ready for my show next week, I only do the most necessary things outside of it, like homework and dinner, but keep the rest for later. The week after my show, I will concentrate on fixing up the guest room, as my mother is coming to visit. The following week will be getting ready for a trip to D.C. and so forth.

I think what I am trying to achieve is a list that I know will actually really be done and is not a conglomerate of lofty goals and vague ideas. Though they have their place somewhere too. There probably should be a multitude of lists and maybe a list to keep track of the lists? Well, I am not anal enough for that. When I worked at Tanner Research in California, we had to keep track of every 15 minutes of our time and we had to write weekly reports about what we did that week and which goals we achieved and what our short term and long term goals and plan for the following week are. At times it was annoying, since it was meta work and did nothing for the project to be done, but it kept things nice and organized. I think I need to apply some of the things I have read. I like some ideas of Covey from the 'seven habits' and Randy Pausch had some interesting ideas in his time management lecture.

Well, enough musing about lists, time to make some :)

“One of the secrets of getting more done is to make a TO DO List every day, keep it visible, and use it as a guide to action as you go through the day.” Jean de La Fontaine