Hi. I’m Susan and I’m a recovering To Do List-er.
For as long as I can remember, my days have been ruled by my To Do list. (With all respect to the recovery community, attachment comes in lots of forms.)
In elementary school, I made daily lists of homework assignments and chores. I regularly put off playing with friends so I could cross things off my list. (My mom and I even shared a habit of putting things on the list that we’d already done to get the satisfaction – and, I now understand, a dopamine hit – of crossing it off!)
The Tyranny of the To Do List has ruled me through school and work and even travel. Three different lists often line my desk dictating what I need do to make a day productive and therefore successful.
This approach served me in many ways. I got stuff done. Lots and lots of stuff. I planned for all contingencies and had every base covered. In alignment with our patriarchal culture, I got praise, approval, love and a sense of safety for accomplishment.
I also found myself feeling like a gerbil on a wheel. I had this idea that I could relax when I got everything else done. Which was never. So I kept spinning.
My work life, in particular, started to feel like I was following someone else's recipe for a meal I wasn’t sure I wanted to eat.
Not long ago, my coach and teacher Tiffany Han suggested a different way. She invited me to let my life values drive my To Dos. She suggested I put priority on how I wanted to feel before what I thought I needed to do. She invited me to follow my intuition before following the Top 10 Ways To Build Your Online Business to the letter.
Then, in August she threw down the gauntlet. She challenged me to stop using a To Do List completely.
Wait…what?
As soon as she suggested it, I immediately tried to figure out how to follow directions and also cheat. How in the world would I know what to do every day? For the first few weeks, I vacillated between the feeling of freedom and the panic that I would forget something and that everything would collapse around me in flaming rubble.
As I start to get my center without the lists, my days are more driven by the things that matter to me most. I choose tasks aligned with what I want to grow, build and energize. I find myself avoiding unimportant busy-work and investing in big, value-driven activities.
Sometimes I take a walk in the fall air instead of writing a blog post. Sometimes I start the scary process of a new project before puttering around in the kitchen. Sometimes, instead of pushing through a friction-filled task, I take my book and a cup of tea out into the sunshine.
In a conversation with my cousin last weekend, she made the observation that some things that she used to love to do regularly didn’t happen at all anymore. She said, “Life absorbed the time when those things used to happen.”
I wonder if those things don’t matter to her anymore and deserve to be let go, or if they DO matter and it would be worth making time for them.
Lately, when I look ahead to my day, I ask myself what matters the most to me right now? What do I feel drawn to do? What would feel great / exciting / interesting / brave? Then I purposefully make time for that.
At the end of the day, I look at what I did (and didn’t do) and compare that with what matters to me. I check in with how I feel and see if it’s in alignment with my values. If something’s out of kilter (it often is) I ask myself if the things that didn’t get done really matter and if the things that did fill my days actually filled me up.
I ask, has my life absorbed the time for something I really want? And if so, I commit to make space and time and energy for it. Because it matters.