As a consummate planner, it may surprise you that I found a problem with ‘to-do’ lists.
I know! I hear you gasping in surprise. Yes, ‘to-do’ lists are GREAT in many ways. My to-do list each day includes items from “drink coffee” to “plan summer” (the latter obvious must be broken down into several obsessive compulsive sub-categories including plane tickets, hotel reservations, and Facetime conversations with friends so I can beg to sleep on their floors. Love you guys!)
In these to-do lists, I have been able to manage some significant accomplishments:
Example 1: Getting hired at my current job. The to-do list stretched out over almost 6 months and included items like “write own recommendation and give to current boss for review” (life hack-ALWAYS write your own letters of recommendation and give them to your boss to sign edit and carefully review.)
Example 2: Summiting Mount Teide (the highest peak in Spain, 3,718 m). The to do list included finding a guide, dealing with approximately 67 email chains regarding gear and travel, 10 months of waiting for joint availability between our group and the guide service and scheduling travel and accommodations for 4 days for 4 people.
Example 3: Submitting a draft manuscript for my novel. The to do list included…learning how to write convincing adult fiction over the course of a year’s worth of classes, deciding and editing a story line, researching dialogue writing and scheduling writing time into a crazy work schedule over the course of 11 months.
I’m really proud of these accomplishments.
I do think that the to-do lists were integral in achieving each of these things. The problem with to-do lists is, once the stuff is done, I feel like I forget about it pretty quickly.
Because the whole point of a to-do list is to check stuff off so you never have to think about it again, right?
Which leads me to my favorite kind of list. My latest invention:
A “goals” list.
I like to keep some of the stuff I have done, along with some of the stuff I want to do soon (again, obsessively organized by category), in a separate place from my to-do list. Two reasons:
1. Some of the stuff on my “to-do” list stays there for the better part of a year before I’m actually motivated to think of it as a goal.
2. The little checklist emoji is so satisfying and motivating! (See vaguely related post on other emojis I wish existed).
So right now, my hiking “goals” list looks like this:
To be fair, my hiking “to-do” list (like, all the hikes I want to do in my lifetime) is much longer and not as realistic, but Monserrat and Pyrenees National Park are two places I will go this summer, and I planned those trips remembering my satisfaction in the summiting Mont Blanc and Teide. When those shift into checkmark territory, I can start planning my fall adventures….
Pictures from the summit of Teide below. (May 2, 2017)
