The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Jocelyn Turner
To-do lists are written expressions of good intentions.
Therefore it follows that:
The road to hell is paved — or at least ornamented — with to-do lists.
I’m thinking of putting the lists down.
Except for the good ones, of course. The below was worth my time and maybe worth a reader’s time. Check your spoons. Make mobiles (watercolors, clay pots, blueberry scones… whatever) while avoiding the news. This list also covers one of the few justifications for to-do lists: tracking websites and other references that might accidentally be washed away by time without some physical reminder.*
But the list that says “return sink strainer, buy beach towels, find blue shoes?” Do you want to waste minutes staring at screens of Amazon strainers, rummaging through closets, or wandering plumbing aisles? Wouldn’t you rather bake cookies? I have found that when I don’t sit down to make a list, somehow the critical items happen anyway, and I don’t end up with superfluous, turtle-covered beach towels. More importantly, when I do sit down to make the list, I often run out of time to make cookies.
*A last thought: Yes, you can put lists into your phone, even repeating lists with alerts. Personally, I find it too easy to ignore my phone’s good intentions. I strongly recommend journals instead. To paraphrase J.R.R. Tolkien, “You must understand, young Hobbit, it takes a long time to say anything in a paper journal. And its best never to say anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.”
Zombie phrase of the day: I like to listen to Stephen King novels. Ahhhhhh luhhhggg auhhh ihhhhdehhn duhh deebehn gingg dahhhbuhlz.
