To Do lists

[Eric Benjamin]

A friend helpfully suggests a "To Do" list and I am suddenly horror-stricken.   My history with them...well, rare success, but most often:

• I begin to make the list and, suddenly I am seized by the urgency of Item 3.  I work on Item 3, with
  the nagging sensation that it is really not quite so important....what was that other thing?  Oh, right...I was making a list...back to the list....OMG!  An email reminding me of something due in ten minutes
  that wasn't even on my list....

• I am making the list....Item 3! I MUST do Item 3 (as before). "There, Item 3 is finished..."back to Item 1
  Item 1...OMG...finish the list!   Item 4, Item 5, Item 6....  Okay...so Item 1....OMG!! There's an Item 7,
  and an ITEM 8...I just remembered....which to do?   Item 1...NO WAIT...Item 8...Item 9.   Okay, enough work, time for a break...
• Wow! That is a good-looking "ToDo" list!  Now, for Item 1...ah...bathroom break and back at it. (....)
  Great!  Where's my list?    Where....oh, come on!!  Where's...?   What did I do with it?  No, I mean what THE HELL did I do with that list?  The bathroom?   (....) Nope... I am SUCH an idiot...this is why I'm
  under-employed...you fool, you effing fool.   You are the biggest effing fool....
  
  Make another list  (and begin reading again at the top of the page...) in between each item insert:
  "Effing idiot."
  
  
• Work on the list, but feel exhausted. Resistance is futile....

[Margaret]

Eric

Have you been spying on me when I make todo lists???? lol. It sounds so familiar!

Of course, the first thing on my list would be to make a todo list, so that I could cross off at least one thing!

I have abandoned to do lists. They were too vague and all encompassing for me. I still have lists, but they are more specific and manageable. For example, I have a list of people that I need to call at work each morning, or emails to send. A list of what I need at the grocery store. I also have a "brain dump" list - not even written as a list, just as free form points all over a page, such is my aversion to lists - of things that I need to do "when  I have time." I try to choose one each day to do. Obviously, these are not particularly time sensitive things! (This is different from my brain dump page of the things I will change when it is my turn to run the world! It is never good when I confuse the two!)

Okay, clearly my Vyvanse has not really kicked in yet - going to get some coffee!

[doug puryear]

eric,

sounds like you are on top of it and have developed a good strategy that is working for you.

doug

[Eric Benjamin]

Thanks Doug. It's actually making the initial catalog of tasks that is the hard part - I would never get to the triage/evaluation/enumeration part of the process.  Especially, before I knew of the condition,  that process would induce the panic I describe above.   Right, I place a boundary around reality and it helps - three to five items, of which one now is clearly the first order of business. A potentially infinite list is no list, really.  What gets omitted will, probably, show up on tomorrow's agenda. Can't do everything in any case.   My friend's suggestion just reminded me of what I used to live with.

[doug puryear]

eric,

 i love the lists, only way i can get anything done. but somedays they seen overwhelming.  i try to limit my main list to 5 items, and to number them in order of priority or of sensible order to do them.  but somedays i do better with a list of one, just like you said.  when you do that one, you feel good, and you can start on another, another ONE - or not, you still accomplished the first one.

and i think yo are on to something else, you have become conditioned to an aversion to lists, so don't use them.  instead, use a goal, or a "compilation", or a "reminder note" or anything except a "list".

and the berating is a bad habit, which you can break.  it sabotages us.

best wishes

doug

[Eric Benjamin]

Now...actually, I have come up with a solution.  Essentially, I have one big goal for the day. Maybe one or two secondary things, but really only one main item.  I write it and a few other things on a dry-erase board.

And I try to remind myself that it's not me...it's this brain I've got.  I'm not such a fool. I just have a condition. And I can be sympathetic to many people who screw up.  If I'm not quite so productive as I wish I might be, it's not as bad as it was when I tried to make lists, and I spend a little less time amd energy (well, a very little less) berating myself and just try to get on with the creative task of living the next minute....and the next.