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Lesson Learned: List Making Saves Lives

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Ok, lets talk about how Cassie is a crazy person, shall we? Some of the people closest to me would say I’m a chronic/compulsive list maker and it’s something I don’t deny. Lists have saved my sanity on too many occasions to count, which has created a profound love affair for them. I even have lists for my lists, which I know is crazy talk…but here me out.

I’ve got a system for doing things, most of them are really strange. Usually it starts with a hand-written list contained in one of my many list making notebooks. I then divide that list based on priority, this is me basically re-writting the list I just made, but in a more organized fashion. From here, I usually start attacking the tasks at hand, crossing things off as I go. Once I get to a point where about half the items are crossed off, I create a new list with those remaining items. This new list is much shorter and feels super manageable. Such a great feeling! It’s all a mental game anyway…right?

I also keep my list digitally in the FREE online program called TeuxDeux. I use TeuxDeux as my most concrete list of the day. I don’t delete things from it, or rewrite it, or even mess with it all that much. It serves as my final check list for my hand-written lists.  At the end of the day I bring up my list and mark all the things accomplished off and the unaccomplished get digitally pushed to the next day. The nice thing about TeuxDuex is that you can also have long term lists, for those pesky jobs that never seem to get done.

Ok, now that you all know I’m a crazy person with obsessive behavior, lets get back to marking things off our lists. In all honesty, without lists (big or small) I’d be an unorganized mess with frequent panic attack sessions. Keeping list is MY way of keeping my sanity to a normal level. What’s your way??

image by: Scott Peterman

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6 comments on “Lesson Learned: List Making Saves Lives”

  1. NOT crazy! I have lists upon lists and sublists, notebooks FULL of crazy scribblings and I go through a 12 pack of post-its a month just so it’s not all racing around in my already full brain. I’m completely ADD and probably a touch OCD, so it can’t be helped. And I’m okay with that.

    I can’t part with the paper and pen yet though. But I keep hearing TeuxDeux is amazing…should I try it?!

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  2. I am a big fan of lists, i can make a list of anything with great pleasure and i’m afraid i have a slight ocd situation but oh well. though i will always be holding a notebook in my hands, this also looks so helpful! xx

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  3. Oh, I have my crazed methods.

    I use a moleskine planner and limit myself to ONLY three must-do to-do items for each day on the left-hand page; my highest-priority things. Then, on the right-hand page, I list nonessential it-would-be nice-to-do if I get around to it items, plus notes and sketches.

    I don’t necessarily have to complete exactly three tasks a day; sometimes I will shift them around so that if I actually do get five things done on a Tuesday I’ll put the extra two down as Wednesday items–then I get a to relax a little. I do a big weekend sit-down where all uncompleted items get brought forward at the end of every week.

    The other thing I track in my personal planner is housekeeping tasks; every week I write one of six areas of my apartment, on a rotating basis, at the top of the planner page: this week was “clothes + shoes” (meaning repairs, polishing, and dry-cleaning); last week was “bathroom” (meaning a serious top-to-bottom scrubdown). Things like laundry and dishes and clutter management obviously happen more regularly, but my little system insures that every room in my place (plus my wardrobe) gets a hardcore deep-clean about once a month and I never get stressed about it.

    I also use a COMPLETELY separate system for my office-job related tasks (inbox zero + an action method planner).

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  4. Pingback: Lesson Learned: How to Get Out of Your Funk. | thevedahouse

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