As anyone who knows me knows, I am a list maker. We are, as my mother puts it, a list making people. And moving abroad has brought me many, many opportunities to make lists.
But things have gotten a bit out of hand.
Right now, I have lists of lists, meta lists, primary, secondary, and tertiary lists, lists with sub-lists, lists in notebooks, on post-its, on the backs of envelopes, and on the refrigerator, beside my bed, in my purse, and under my books, stuck to the computer, typed on the computer, and sitting next to the computer...you get the idea.
It's a bit of a joke, really. When I started this process, I had dreams about finding the perfect notebook/binder/folder combo, with pockets for collecting odd sized receipts, both a notebook and loose leaf lined paper I could take out and put back in, lots of divided sections for keeping everything straight, big enough to do the job but streamlined enough I could carry it in every bag I use right now...and I found it, the holy grail of notebooks, exactly what I was looking for, at my local Target: the Mead Five Star Flex Hybrid NoteBinder. And it was awesome! And I carried it around for days in August while I was getting started on all this work. And I even wrote two whole lists in it, one for categories of things I should be working on (for the divided sections, you see) and one for my then upcoming parent/student/teacher conferences before J started Kindergarten.
And then I put the glorious notebook binder hybrid down and started writing on whatever was handy and that's where we are today. It's not that I'm not organized, because I really am, in the ways that count: everything that needs to get done does in a timely manner without forgetting important parts. However, that organization comes mainly from the act of writing, a lot, all over the place, to remind myself constantly what to do next. And for a while, all I had were lists that spawned new lists and I never got to cross anything off the first lists and it was all too demoralizing so I think I shied away from the notebook in an attempt to avoid being overwhelmed by the exponentially increasing workload.
Of course NOW, several months in, I make lists and then just as quickly cross things off them, as per usual, and I really should get back to my lovely notebook of loveliness...but instead it's going into one of the to be shipped boxes and I will see it, along with 95% of my possessions, in 8-10 weeks in Qatar.
But things have gotten a bit out of hand.
Right now, I have lists of lists, meta lists, primary, secondary, and tertiary lists, lists with sub-lists, lists in notebooks, on post-its, on the backs of envelopes, and on the refrigerator, beside my bed, in my purse, and under my books, stuck to the computer, typed on the computer, and sitting next to the computer...you get the idea.
It's a bit of a joke, really. When I started this process, I had dreams about finding the perfect notebook/binder/folder combo, with pockets for collecting odd sized receipts, both a notebook and loose leaf lined paper I could take out and put back in, lots of divided sections for keeping everything straight, big enough to do the job but streamlined enough I could carry it in every bag I use right now...and I found it, the holy grail of notebooks, exactly what I was looking for, at my local Target: the Mead Five Star Flex Hybrid NoteBinder. And it was awesome! And I carried it around for days in August while I was getting started on all this work. And I even wrote two whole lists in it, one for categories of things I should be working on (for the divided sections, you see) and one for my then upcoming parent/student/teacher conferences before J started Kindergarten.
And then I put the glorious notebook binder hybrid down and started writing on whatever was handy and that's where we are today. It's not that I'm not organized, because I really am, in the ways that count: everything that needs to get done does in a timely manner without forgetting important parts. However, that organization comes mainly from the act of writing, a lot, all over the place, to remind myself constantly what to do next. And for a while, all I had were lists that spawned new lists and I never got to cross anything off the first lists and it was all too demoralizing so I think I shied away from the notebook in an attempt to avoid being overwhelmed by the exponentially increasing workload.
Of course NOW, several months in, I make lists and then just as quickly cross things off them, as per usual, and I really should get back to my lovely notebook of loveliness...but instead it's going into one of the to be shipped boxes and I will see it, along with 95% of my possessions, in 8-10 weeks in Qatar.
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