Unchecked

I’ve always been a list person. My mom is a list person. As is my best friend, in fact, she creates lists of her lists. I add things to my list after they are complete, just so I can cross something else off. I love crossing things off my list; it makes me think I’ve really accomplished something in a day to see the majority of things on a paper crossed off. They’re never all crossed off, but that’s beside the point.

Today, I decided to stop being a list person. At least for the summer. Lists for me have always been a comfort. If I’m stressing about something, especially at night, I capture it on a list, and then forget about it. I mean, eventually I get to it, if I don’t lose the list that is. But it’s also been source of stress, those lists. There’s always so much to do. If I’m idling about doing not much of anything, I’m always thinking about the things I should be doing. So this summer, no lists.

Day 1 has been successful, I’d say. In fact, I got more done today without a list than I normally do with it. I’ve found (in my 1 day sample size) that if something needs doing, I just do it. It means I got sidetracked a lot: I started off putting a plate back on the mast and ended up reorganizing the bin of lubes that we have (not that kind of lube – get your mind out of the gutter). Normally I’d probably put that sort of thing on a list to come back to later, but today I just got it done.

Take writing a book, for example. It’s one of those things I’ve always thought about doing. To tell you the truth, it never has made it on to one of my lists, but here I am, on day one of my list-recovery and I’ve started a book. This is going to be a great summer.

(Side note: I’ve since decided to abandon the book and post my writings as blog posts. Like I would ever finish a book. So I figured I could at least amuse you, dear readers.)