How to Tear Through a To-Do List
When all that needs to be done is too daunting
Bullet journals. Post-its. Everyone has their methods.
I’m one of those absurd people who makes weekly, color-coded, master to-do lists, segmented to different aspects of my life: work, home, volunteer. I feel untethered without my lists, and without the tidy columns and bright colors, the gush of small and large tasks ahead can drown me.
I think I need the lists. The colors make the climb feel fun, break each mountain into a slightly more cheery hill.
When my life feels like chaos, it’s a means of organizing myself, brightening the mess, pretending I can impose order.
My list for this week could break me.
I’m in what I keep calling Act II of a three-act drama centered on emergency and long-term care for my parents. This has involved a hospital stay for one, respite care for the other, and now rehab for both. It featured me dropping away from a busy professional life for a week, hitting pause on my small town city council re-election campaign before it even properly started, and having a multi-hour fight with a bat in my parents’ home.
