Making a list...checking it twice...

I love lists. Checking things off my list is one of the purest satisfactions for me. I write lists daily to remind me to do small things like buy stamps, drop something off at my parent's house, or get something specific I've been needing for a while but continuously ignorning. For example, I had on my list for the longest time that I needed to buy a new mattress. I finally put it on a sticky note list next to my bed and I got it done in the next 2 weeks.

I have long-term lists and short-term lists. The long term ones are typically on my Gmail Task List or my Iphone Notes (Oh, I love technology.) But I do also have a method for adding short-term tasks to both of these lists in case I don't have pen and paper readily accessible. The short-term tasks, or just tasks I want to complete sooner than the other ones, go on top of my Gmail Task List. In my IPhone, I have a separate note for long-term things that need to be done but aren't pressing, and then one for short-term things I need ASAP. I usually add groceries to this list, and write them down as the ideas come to me during the day. Because otherwise I inevitably forget the sugar when I'm at the grocery store, since my mind is more likely to be on shrimp or dinner foods when I'm at the store, and not so much on the bare necessities (Jungle Book, anyone?).

From this you can probably tell that I'm a goal-oriented person. My lists are crucial to me achieving my goals, be they small or large. I recently signed up to take the GRE test. That had been on my list for probably a year, I just couldn't decide if I really wanted to do it and was procrastinating signing up because well, it costs like $160 bucks.

It's similar to when I shop online. I always find tons of things I want or need, so I add them to my cart, but then I usually save and exit so as to not make any rash decisions. (Sometimes I just buy it, but this is the more common approach.) I'll go back on a day or so later and if I still REALLY want the things in my cart...I'll buy them. But I tend to delete most of them the next day, deciding that I don't really need them or it's not really the highest thing on my priority list for spending money.

Back in College, I made lists even more than I do now. It was probably my biggest source of stress relief, second to the bar or eating. (How was I not fat?) I'd often get anxiety over all of the papers I needed to complete, tests to study for, etc. When it hit it's peak, I'd pause from my work and start to write out everything I needed to do, and numbering them from most important or earliest deadline, to the least important or latest deadline. I'd do this not only while I was studying, but on the margins of my paper in all my classes. It was like my packed-schedule therapy. I'd even add in the social things I had in my mind to do, to remind myself why I needed to complete the other tasks. Separate margins, of course.

It helps me soothe my mind to make lists, even if I end up making a new list out of old lists because they're too messy, because it gives me an outline of where to start and organizes the unruly thoughts in my mind when I have a ton of things to do.

And that is the essence of how my mind works.