to which holiday has the best candy. As we're in the final week of the blog, we're having a bit of a throwback to some nostalgic necessities (that is a reference to the most devoted reader of the blog, and the only person to my knowledge who has been here since the beginning), and so I'm going to do one last GTKY Sunday, and we're going to do it by talking about one of my favorite topics: the to do list.
If you're describing me in real life, you'll probably use words like "movies" and "politics" and "travel"...but you'll almost certainly throw out the word "list" into your description. I am a man of a thousand lists. I once tried to count all of the lists that I am working on, and it became a bit disconcerting, and possibly something that I should take up with a therapist, so I decided to just keep that information private. But there are a lot of them, and they are always on the top of my mind. Not a day goes by where I am not marking off some sort of list as I try to get through & make my mark on my world.
I think the biggest thing that people get hung up on when it comes to do lists is that there is an insane pressure on yourself to complete the lists, and at one point that was something that I struggled with too. Years ago, I'd look at my to do lists as something daunting, as a sign of failure of what I hadn't done that day. That feeling can sneak up on me in my weaker moments now, but it's not something that I consider a hallmark of my attitude toward lists, and that's because I try really hard to make sure lists aren't things that are short-term issues.
I don't put things on lists that I do without thinking. Brushing my teeth, getting eight hours of sleep, catching up on texts...these are things I do naturally & so they aren't duplicative. But I also make a point of not putting things on lists that are really urgent or that have a deadline in front of them. My to do lists are almost exclusively things from my personal life-work to do lists function differently, and honestly are more about email maintenance than the art of the list. Anything that has a deadline attached to it, one where "you have to get it done today" I make a point of just doing-not giving myself time to procrastinate. The things on my lists are things that I have time to do-that the world isn't going to end if I don't complete it right away.
Lists are also a godsend for a lot of my projects. Take the Oscar Viewing Project. This is a gargantuan, multi-decade time investment that it's only possible to finish if you are diligent and constantly keep winnowing your list. It's not something for the faint-of-heart, and it's something that I need to make a point of knowing how much time I have to achieve it if I actually want to complete it. All of my movie & book lists, in fact, are stored in a running Excel document where I check everything off and know exactly how much time I have left. I recently finished the DisneyNature films (see my Letterboxd for rankings), and am working toward seeing all the AFI 100 Passions sooner-than-later. I have a pretty high bar at this point to get onto my movie/books lists (we sadly don't get to choose when we leave this mortal coil, but I do actually want to finish all of these lists before I do, so I am critical at expanding already an Everest of a group of projects), but when it's on the list...it becomes a part of my daily routine to ensure it happens.
Otherwise, the big thing I do with lists is break them up into daily, monthly, yearly, & lifetime to do lists. The daily is simple-it's stuff that I just want to do around the house, errands I need to run or things I need to fix & appointments for which I need to do prep work. I am a single homeowner, and so while this might seem a tad indulgent, it's honestly the only way that I keep track of anything. It is very easy with no one else in your house to do the bare minimum, but that's not what I want out of life, so I make a point of doing more than that.
Monthly is larger-term projects. It can range from "cleaning all of the weeds out of the backyard rocks" to moving all of my OVP ballots to Letterboxd (not a hypothetical one-I plan on continuing to do the OVP on Letterboxd after the blog is retired, so if you're devoted to that make sure & follow me). Like how the daily goals are not meant to get finished every day (that would be impossible), the monthly ones are really more a guide for the month, and mostly my goal is to end with less than I ended the previous month with rather than trying to get rid of everything on it.
The yearly is different. This is a longer process, one that I do in June for my birthday, and I call it the "30 @ lists," where I pick thirty things I want to be true about my life a year from now. They are almost always things that are going to take time, potentially a full year, and the intent is to truly do them all even though I've never actually been successful in that (my second goal is to always make at least some progress on all of them...that I generally do). They are built off of my bucket list. This is a real list (not one I speak of in the abstract), one that I made the day I turned 25, and the intent here is to finish all of it before I die. Since that's not a day I know, I am always trying to pluck things from it since I do truly want to complete it, and usually finish at least 1-2 things a year off of it. The bucket list is intentionally grand-the Oscar Viewing Project, for example, is just one item on it-but that's because it's a lifetime list. It's supposed to be filled with true accomplishments.
This all sounds daunting (or possibly certifiable), but it's honestly something we all do. We all have our ways of getting through the world...just for me, it's something that I like having written down. Organization is my hallmark, and as long as you ensure the lists are a source of inspiration (not a crutch or a source of constant obligation), which is how I operate, they can be a useful tool for achieving your dreams.
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