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I Am Not My “To-Do” List - Or Am I?

I fear for my life when the to do lists take over. Notice plural. I can’t live without them and I can barely live with them. Of course, there’s more than one. They grow, they multiply, they spawn themselves into more. I write my lists to capture all the stuff of life. I write lists of ideas that tend to fly. I write lists for the maintenance projects or new ideas for the corner garden I recently ripped out. It’s the chaos corner of the property planted with impossible roses. I’m about to give up on them. So there’s a list of replacement ideas. Then there’s the food shopping list that usually includes the drug store, drycleaner and hardware store. For groceries, I wonder why I bother to buy anything let alone make a list about it. I’m out in the world a lot for meals or I forget to eat what I bought. When I do finally get some groceries in the house I overbuy and so that doesn’t work either.

This list making thing started when years ago my Mom gave me this little red booklet in the midst of a personal crisis. The booklet was encouraging making a list of all the things you wanted for your life. Start writing and at the end of the weekend, and not before, she said, will we talk about it. O.K. Mom. I wrote lists, more lists, edited them, threw stuff at the page with great fury and exuberance. I wrote and edited in a storm. The next day those things that seemed exactly what I wanted stayed on the list. Other things that seemed great yesterday and now seemed ludicrous or totally alien to anything I would ever consider doing or being went away. By the end of the weekend, I had a handle on the immediate crisis and the beginning of some Light for a long term picture. I had run the marathon of non-stop list making.

What’s the difference between writing a vision for one’s life and making a grocery list. Little difference except the vision list needs more detail and the grocery list can be in shorthand. The point is to write it down; to be get on the page, to take the time to think about what we see for ourselves. Someone said to me the other day, I think we should all walk around with a wish list.

I meet unexpected people in unexpected places. In these meetings answers to questions get answered. Theses social moments often bring the very person I need in answer to a wish. And I believe having been clear on the page I am better able to recognize who this messenger is, that indeed, this is the person who can help me or who will lead me to where I want or need to go. I like this process.

I don’t remember Mom being a list maker except for groceries but she got this bee in her bonnet that sure turned me into one. I have noticed, once made, if I put it away I barely look at the list again. Things seem to take care of themselves. Do these lists have life? They seem to in my household.

Jill Butler is an author, illustrator, designer and creativity coach. Her product designs are specific to France as are her first three books. Jill now writes for women in transition and how the home and the personal transformation work hand in hand in her latest book, Create the Space You Deserve. For more, visit: Jill Butler.

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