I am a list guy. I keep several lists on my phone that I refer to on a regular basis. Here are some examples:
- Blog Post Ideas – I review this whenever I sit to write (and often the day) before to see if I’m interested in writing about any of these potential topics.
- Groceries
- To Do’s – Short projects that might slip my mind if not written down: small maintenance repairs, make appointment for car inspection and get dog’s nails trimmed.
- Projects – Individual multistep projects that involve research, planning, purchasing and more than an hour. Moving my gym, staining my cabinets and making more extensive home repairs.
I have others that I keep as reference for occasional use:
- Neighbors – Names and contact info for people I encounter on a periodic, semi-regular basis including neighbors, vet staff and dental hygienist.
- Ace/Home Depot – Hardware items I thought I would use but have no immediate need. If I’m not specifically going here for an active project, I let these stack up to buy everything the next time I’m at the store (if I still need them). It includes items like paint, caulk and small tools.
These lists help me not keep forgetting to take care of something only to be reminded of it later and then forget about it again if I don’t handle it in the moment.
It’s not a lot of lists. Nor do I have many items on any of them. Typically they hold 1-10 items, with the exception of Neighbors, which has about 50 names.
Easy peasy. It removes a surprising amount of frustration and inconvenience since I’m not relying on remembering all of the small details. I’d rather save my brain cycles for more productive contemplation and stuff I’m actively focused on in the present moment.
Here’s another key strategy I use. I delete anything on my list that lingers there too long.
If I have a future project sitting there for months, I either take action or remove it because I realize I’m not going to do unless forced to by an emergency. One such project is dissembling my clothes dryer to determine why it’s been squeaking. I’ve been looking at this list item for 2 months. I was about to delete it today and then thought, “No – go do it today and fix the problem. It will only get worse and when you have a dryer full of wet laundry you’ll want to bang your head against the wall.”
Other ones are things I’ll never get to. I often don’t realize it until it sits on my list, staring me in the face for weeks or months. I don’t need a daily reminder of my failure to take action.
I’ll I tell myself, I ain’t doing that and remove it from my list.
Problem solved.