As you may know, I love lists. I've written a lot about my lists: my Fear list, my Summer Reading list, my hot blog post lists, my books read lists, and a bunch of random lists! And even that previous sentence was just a list of lists that I've posted on this blog... So today I thought I'd write about my most used list: my Things-to-do list. I'm sure we all have them, but mine is especially complex, and it's taken years to perfect, so that's why it deserves its own post. First of all, it is divided into two separate documents. One is an overall list of repeating tasks, separated into daily, weekly, and monthly lists. The second document is one that I re-write every week, and it is separated into daily, weekly, and general lists. Every week, I copy over the daily and weekly lists from document 1 into document 2. Then I choose one or two items from my monthly list and add them to my general list.
The second document (the one I write every week) is prioritized like so: The first priority of every day is my daughter and attending to her needs. (I don't have to write that one down!) The second priority is my daily list. This includes dishes (they add up so fast otherwise!), my devotions, and making the bed (among other things). If I can get all my daily chores done in a day, then I can feel good about that day. The last priorities are the weekly chores and general tasks. The general tasks are ones that do not need repeating, like making a doctor's appointment or painting the bathroom. Each night before bed, I highlight what I'd like to get done the next day from my weekly and general lists. If I can get all those things done, plus my daily list, then I can feel really good about that day! (That's very rare, I tend to be overly optimistic about the amount of time and energy that I'll have.)
Have I sufficiently confused you? Let me assure you, that if you love lists, and find yourself writing a new things-to-do list every night before bed, you need to start using this system! I have found it highly effective, especially since my daughter was born and I found that on many days, it was hard to get anything done!
So that is my things-to-do list. I'm sure I'll come up with more lists for future posts, but this one needed to be shared so you could be witness to how far my love of lists has come since my very first project post on this blog.