Catching Up
Having been without internet has been great for my house, but not so great for the myriad of things I usually do on the internet each day. I’ve spent the better part of the time I’ve been online for the last 24 hours just catching up on the basics. Banking, forums, emails.
As a result of this unscheduled internet outage I have finally got around to setting up my banking to be almost fully automated. Way to look at the silver lining right?
So it’s time to drag out my soon to be trademarked* monster lists. Where I write down absolutely everything that I have to do between now and a certain date and then allocate a few things to each day so I’m not overwhelmed. Except this time most of the housework is done, so the list is noticeably less. In fact only one page of them (usually it’s around 4-6 pages). And most of them aren’t time sensitive. This is unchartered, and dangerous territory for me. A list without a deadline is a list that can be ignored as far as I’m concerned. I can start it when I get a deadline. Of course it will be bigger and almost impossible by then.
So I’ve decided on mini deadlines. My to do list can be categorised as falling under 4 main categories:
Blogs
Uni
Course (will post more later)
Miscellaneous
My personal favourite is the miscellaneous category, cause it only has 2 things in it, and should only take me about 2 hours all up. So, I’ll set those the following deadlines:
Blogs: Sunday 24 August to be caught up (approx 34 tasks)
Uni: Sunday 31 August to be caught up (approx 20 tasks)
Course: Sunday 19 October. This is a long term project with approx 8 things, so almost one a week
Miscellaneous:Sunday 24 August. Like I said, 2 things, so no great drama.
Actually looking at those deadlines it might be worth my while to do daily lists. They are certainly do-able, but I will need to push myself to achieve them, which is a good thing. If I’m motivated enough I might even post my progress.
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I’m wondering how long it takes you to compile these lists, how long it takes you to update them? Wouldn’t it be better spent doing some of the items?
You are right, It does take a while to compile the lists. Last night I spent probably 2 hours doing it. To be fair I could have maybe got one task done during that time. My problem is when I have massive lists like this that I’m so overwhelmed I can’t focus on what needs to be done first and what the priority is. Well, clearly uni is the priority, but I don’t want that to just cut out everything else if you know what I mean? And even with uni I have a hard time knowing where to start.
This way I took a couple of hours, a cup of tea, and went through everything I wanted to do. I have to do lists up to the 9th September (my first assignment’s due date) that shouldn’t need much adding to it apart from those things that come up (make dr’s appts etc). I can look at my lists and see clearly what needs doing today, and took the time to work out when things need to be started, broken up into daily chunks so I can get on top of where I want to be.
I could have just listened to a lecture last night, that would be one less thing I would have to do, but I still wouldn’t know where to start today.
Good luck with the lists and welcome back to the internets!
My comment was a little tongue-in-cheek, Kin. I’m a list maker myself. At one point I had a list on my fridge the first item of which was to check and update a previous list. One day I gathered all my lists, threw them out and sat down to compile a new “master list”. I could have cleaned my entire tiny unit in the time it took, but making the list was so much more satisfying somehow.
I’m a multiple list person too! Like you I have to set myself deadlines because tasks without deadlines can sit on my list for *ahem* years…
Also like you, I get overwhelmed when I have so much to do (like now) that I need to make a list to get started. It also helps me sleep better otherwise I have everything running around in my brain.. Once I brain dump to paper, I can put them out of my mind..