Does anyone else organise their life with lists?
Discussion
M4cruiser said:
A genuine question from someone (me) who's feeling overwhelmed by the sheer number of things I need to do.
I've been making "lists" for a while now, to try to put some structure and organisation on these things, but recently it's all got out of hand. I realised there was a problem when the first thing on one of my lists was "re-organise my lists".
This may sounds a bit mundane, but it's getting to me! If this isn't your thing then please feel free to ignore this thread, I don't really need sarcastic advice on this one.
Just to clarify - it's not the tiny, instant jobs (e.g. eat a meal), nor the huge life-style things (change the car, move house, get married etc) but the middle ground.
Things like: fix the rear wiper motor in my OH's car, patch up the rear fence after last week's storm damage, get the car serviced, get the gas boiler serviced; fix the chair in the living room, etc etc
Any advice appreciated!
Does anyone else organise their life with lists?I've been making "lists" for a while now, to try to put some structure and organisation on these things, but recently it's all got out of hand. I realised there was a problem when the first thing on one of my lists was "re-organise my lists".
This may sounds a bit mundane, but it's getting to me! If this isn't your thing then please feel free to ignore this thread, I don't really need sarcastic advice on this one.
Just to clarify - it's not the tiny, instant jobs (e.g. eat a meal), nor the huge life-style things (change the car, move house, get married etc) but the middle ground.
Things like: fix the rear wiper motor in my OH's car, patch up the rear fence after last week's storm damage, get the car serviced, get the gas boiler serviced; fix the chair in the living room, etc etc
Any advice appreciated!
1. No.
2. Get MOT sorted.
Edited by Gandahar on Friday 16th August 21:51
paulrockliffe said:
I use Google Keep. Best feature is that you can set a recurring notification on a list, so you get the list dropped into your notifications every morning.
Currently have one for my loft conversion project and for work, makes it much easier to flip between both frames of mind.
Sharing lists is really good as well, have a pinned joint shopping list with the gf after both of use buying multiples of the same thing (usually milk) on the way home from work.Currently have one for my loft conversion project and for work, makes it much easier to flip between both frames of mind.
Keep becomes more useful if you use a smartwatch as it makes it more seamless, the phone app is ok but I wouldn't recommend using Keep if only using the pc browser as you then forget to add things to it.
Making lists has been proven to make us feel better. They bring order to the chaos. But it’s important that if you do make lists, to actually do what’s on them. Procrastination is a bad habit in list makers, and can actually become quite debilitating if you get into a habit of making lists simply because the act of making a list made you feel better.
Ok, thank you for all the genuine replies.
In reading these and updating my lists (!) I have realised that one of the main causes of my angst is how much I have going on at work just now. Not just "work" but the surrounding bits and bobs that are messing up my work lists and tangling them with the home and car lists.
So I'm adding a marker to each item (Work, Car, Home) and will sort them by this to see if it provides more structure.
In reading these and updating my lists (!) I have realised that one of the main causes of my angst is how much I have going on at work just now. Not just "work" but the surrounding bits and bobs that are messing up my work lists and tangling them with the home and car lists.
So I'm adding a marker to each item (Work, Car, Home) and will sort them by this to see if it provides more structure.
M4cruiser said:
Ok, thank you for all the genuine replies.
In reading these and updating my lists (!) I have realised that one of the main causes of my angst is how much I have going on at work just now. Not just "work" but the surrounding bits and bobs that are messing up my work lists and tangling them with the home and car lists.
So I'm adding a marker to each item (Work, Car, Home) and will sort them by this to see if it provides more structure.
Have a read of Getting Things Done by Dave Allen (I think that's his name, and no not the deceased Irish comedian) - he outlines a system of using lists organised according to context (at desk, in town, etc). It sounds like your system is evolving towards something like this already.In reading these and updating my lists (!) I have realised that one of the main causes of my angst is how much I have going on at work just now. Not just "work" but the surrounding bits and bobs that are messing up my work lists and tangling them with the home and car lists.
So I'm adding a marker to each item (Work, Car, Home) and will sort them by this to see if it provides more structure.
I keep trying to implement GTD and falling off the wagon, I'm going to give it another try though.
I used to have lists of lists and be obsessed with them. Only the same colour pen and type of paper. Looking back I was completely mid breakdown.
Now I’ve got a child I don’t do lists, forget everthing and rely on the good will of friends to remind me and auto renew reminders. I don’t use the library as the fines were getting ludicrous.
Now I’ve got a child I don’t do lists, forget everthing and rely on the good will of friends to remind me and auto renew reminders. I don’t use the library as the fines were getting ludicrous.
Lord.Vader said:
No.
Just gives you more stuff to worry about / do.
Chill out, do stuff when you can, I’m one for walking past a job and thinking ‘that needs doing’, do it then and there.
Planning / routine / predictability make me feel ill!
Try a different approach and see how you get on
Interesting.Just gives you more stuff to worry about / do.
Chill out, do stuff when you can, I’m one for walking past a job and thinking ‘that needs doing’, do it then and there.
Planning / routine / predictability make me feel ill!
Try a different approach and see how you get on
I'm exactly the opposite.
Making lists enables me to visualise everything and have an aerial view of what needs doing. Then I can prioritise tasks in terms of size, urgency, etc. and undertake them in the optimum order to ensure that everything gets done and small jobs are fitted into gaps of time that crop up during larger jobs, meaning everything is completed in less time overall.
Planning / routine / predictability make me feel better by removing the stress caused by ambiguity and things unexpectedly cropping up, disrupting my life and needing completing more quickly that I'd ideally like.
Horses for courses, I guess!
My wife and I have a WhatsApp ‘shopping list’ group which works well. I also recently discovered we can add each other to lists in iPhone ‘notes’ which has been handy for longer term stuff.
Other than that I used to have various job lists but found I was adding far more than I took away so they’ve gone!
Other than that I used to have various job lists but found I was adding far more than I took away so they’ve gone!
MitchT said:
Lord.Vader said:
No.
Just gives you more stuff to worry about / do.
Chill out, do stuff when you can, I’m one for walking past a job and thinking ‘that needs doing’, do it then and there.
Planning / routine / predictability make me feel ill!
Try a different approach and see how you get on
Interesting.Just gives you more stuff to worry about / do.
Chill out, do stuff when you can, I’m one for walking past a job and thinking ‘that needs doing’, do it then and there.
Planning / routine / predictability make me feel ill!
Try a different approach and see how you get on
I'm exactly the opposite.
Making lists enables me to visualise everything and have an aerial view of what needs doing. Then I can prioritise tasks in terms of size, urgency, etc. and undertake them in the optimum order to ensure that everything gets done and small jobs are fitted into gaps of time that crop up during larger jobs, meaning everything is completed in less time overall.
Planning / routine / predictability make me feel better by removing the stress caused by ambiguity and things unexpectedly cropping up, disrupting my life and needing completing more quickly that I'd ideally like.
Horses for courses, I guess!
The Wisdom household runs on OneNote.
We have lists for everything and it syncs to all our devices (phones, tablets, home PCs).
Brilliant for planning holidays, Shopping lists, Interesting recipes, Pictures of decent wines we have drunk (labels not glasses!), notes for just about anything we stumble across anywhere - I personally couldn't live without it!
We have lists for everything and it syncs to all our devices (phones, tablets, home PCs).
Brilliant for planning holidays, Shopping lists, Interesting recipes, Pictures of decent wines we have drunk (labels not glasses!), notes for just about anything we stumble across anywhere - I personally couldn't live without it!
Spreadsheets and Google Calendar in our house as lists just don't work for me. Any big expenses such as work on the house or car, holidays and so on, all get a separate spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are shared with the wife via OneDrive. I'm sad enough that I have a standard template for holidays.
Any tasks that I have to do go on the calendar. Stuff like car tax or MoT go on as a recurring reminder. All events also go into the calendar. Only way I can not forget to do things. Calendar is shared with the Wife and kids and they more or less keep theirs up to date.
Any tasks that I have to do go on the calendar. Stuff like car tax or MoT go on as a recurring reminder. All events also go into the calendar. Only way I can not forget to do things. Calendar is shared with the Wife and kids and they more or less keep theirs up to date.
Back in the paeleolithic period, when I became an undergraduate at Swansea, I found myself (for the first year) living in digs in the Uplands and sharing a room with a lad I had known from school. In some ways he wasn't so bad - he had a Velvet Underground album, for example - but much too dedicated to the work ethic for my liking.
One day, when he wasn't in, I found myself looking through all his stuff, like you do, and I found a little book in which he had written a list of all his possessions, right down to the last bloody sock. There was also an inventory of his day to day spending, everything from a tube of wine gums upwards.
I really started to fear for my safety, but search as I might I couldn't find any reference to switchblades on his list, although he did possess a geological hammer.
As soon as I could, I teamed up with another bunch of guys I had met and we rented a house in The Mumbles, where we all lived in an alcohol induced haze and considerable squalor for the next couple of years.
One day, when he wasn't in, I found myself looking through all his stuff, like you do, and I found a little book in which he had written a list of all his possessions, right down to the last bloody sock. There was also an inventory of his day to day spending, everything from a tube of wine gums upwards.
I really started to fear for my safety, but search as I might I couldn't find any reference to switchblades on his list, although he did possess a geological hammer.
As soon as I could, I teamed up with another bunch of guys I had met and we rented a house in The Mumbles, where we all lived in an alcohol induced haze and considerable squalor for the next couple of years.
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