A Good To-Do List Is More Revealing Than a Journal Entry
I’d be mortified if anyone read my daily tasks from the past year
A lot of people despise the tyrannical, never-ending nature of to-do lists. I am not one of them. To-do lists have always imbued a sense of order into my world. To-do lists keep track of things I can’t. In my life, to-do lists are a friend, not a foe.
About a year ago, I switched back to a paper and pen to write my daily list. Life in pandemic shutdown was simply too overwhelming and too dominated by screens to continue using my phone’s Notes app to keep track of each bizarre day. Each night, I would grab my spiral notebook and sit down to write what I hoped to get done the next day in roughly chronological order, amounting to a kind of brain dump before I attempted sleep.
As the days of the pandemic got weirder and more repetitive, my paper to-do lists became ever more florid, detailed, and granular. A catalog of my biggest tasks, but also my smallest, measliest wins. A 20-minute walk in the morning. Tick. Writing 500 words. Tick. Washing my hair. Tick. Two minutes of planking to help my withering core. Tick. Call mom. Tick. Follow up with sources. Tick. Order stamps. Tick. Prep slow cooker dinner. Tick. Email accountant. Tick. And on and on.
