Day 4 - To Do Lists

I have not always been the most organized person in the world.  I am guilty of not sticking to multiple chore lists, budgets, and schedules that have been made in good faith to follow through with.  But in honor of my new job title, Full Time Wife, I am getting back into the organization saddle!

As I mentioned in my prior post, one of my biggest concerns in this new position of mine is that I find a balance between becoming a soap opera-addicted couch potato and a crazed task-a-holic who complains incessantly of not having a moment to breathe.  The solution?  To Do Lists.

Knowing my own weaknesses, including being great at half-finishing ten projects while not fully finishing even one, I have determined that I need a checks and balances application in my life if I am to stay focused on productivity.  Here is a list of the benefits I can think of to working from a written daily To Do List :

1.  You are working through your mental checklist and someone calls and asks you to do them a huge favor:  fill out a letter of recommendation they emailed to you for their entrance into graduate school.  You say of course, hang up, and forget about the favor until next week when the submission deadline is over.  You apologize profusely to your dear friend, feeling like a failure.  OR, you hang up with your friend, immediately add their request to your To Do List, and put the completed reference letter in the mail the very next day.  Your friend gets accepted, based heavily on the awesome recommendation you submitted, and you celebrate over wine and cheese.  Yay!

2.  You wake up knowing there are a million things you need to get done.  You start on one of the tasks that needs your attention, and get distracted by a knock at your door.  It's the UPS guy delivering a package.  That reminds you that you have a package you need to mail out from the post office.  You leave your first, unfinished project behind, rush to the post office, mail off the package, and decide to do some shopping while your out.  The problem is you weren't planning to shop when you left the house, so you didn't bring your grocery list.  You wing it, starving because you were planning to eat while you were working on your first task of the day, which never got completed, so now you buy a bunch of snacks you don't need and forget toothpaste, trash bags, and almost all of the ingredients for the pot roast you were going to cook for dinner.  At the end of the day, you collapse and feel like you got absolutely nothing accomplished.  OR, you spend five minutes at the beginning of your day planning your To Do List.  There are a few tasks that require you to be away from the house, so you plan those all together, and you start your day with those errands because you know that the package you have to mail out needs to be at the post office by a certain time.  You make sure you have everything you need before leaving the house, check off three items on your list by 1 p.m., and head home to start the next project.  At the end of the day, you look over all of the completed tasks on your list and feel a great sense of accomplishment!

3.  You're out running errands and remember that you had planned to get more dog food at some point this week.  You know you haven't gone to the pet store yet, so you swing by and pick up the food.  When you get home, there is a new bag already in the pantry, and you remember that you had your husband pick up the food on his way home from work two nights ago.  You kick yourself, and now have to go all the way back to the pet store to return the extra food.  OR, your out and remember you wanted to pick up some more dog food this week.  You don't remember going to the pet store to get it, but you check your To Do Lists from earlier in the week just in case.  Sure enough, you have "dog food" checked off on one of your lists, with a side not that says "James picked up".  You remember calling your husband to have him swing by the pet store for you the other night, and you save yourself a trip to the pet store.  Woo hoo!

I'm sure there are a hundred other great examples of how a solid To Do List system can make for much more productive wife work.  These are a few of the recent examples that happened to me first hand.  I'd love to hear some of your To Do List triumphs (or lack of To Do List failures!).  And with that, I'm going to cross THIS task off my list and move on to the next one!