The last couple of weeks, I have been diligent in creating a to-do list to guide my days since my contracts have gotten a little thin or gone into remission, and if left to my own devices, I’ll doomscroll and refresh job boards (professional doomscrolling) and end up with nothing done.
So I’ve started making lists of discrete tasks to accomplish throughout the day. Sometimes, they’re chores. Sometimes, they’re repeated tasks.
I’ve been using the free giveaway notepads that various charities send me as part of fundraising pitches. For the most part, the charities get nothing because 1) If they’re big enough to buy my name on a list and send me monthly come-ons with little printed gifts, they’re too big and 2) Runnin’ on a lean mixture, man.
So I end up with a list, and I cross out some things (but too often carry them over to the next list). Currently, in heavy rotation, I have St. Jude’s Research Hospital, who has me on their Whale list either because 1) I ran a (less than) 5K supporting them in, what, 2021? It was the weekend I then drove over to Poplar Bluff to help my brother remove the shingles from his roof–pretty sure it was after his first wife died or 2) because my sainted mother supported them (she met Danny Thomas once and interviewed him, perhaps at a fundraiser for St. Jude’s). Or 3) Because my name is out there as a Whale from the before times.
So, the current notepad has something extra in the footer. The word hope.
Yeah, thanks, no, that is not on my to-do list, thanks. Please do not add things, generic tablet designer.
Also, note: Since beginning this a couple weeks ago, I have actually used up one of these notepads. Which is amazing, honestly, as in the past, I’ve jotted later-inscrutable words and phrases on them before they get pushed under a printer or pile and get exhumed later with little comprehensibility, only to have the top sheet removed and the pad put back in the set of recent unused arrivals.
My goodness, if I keep this up and can use up one every week before a new one arrives, perhaps I can start making way on the backlog or even the drawerful that contain my sainted mother’s name on them (and maybe some with my long-departed aunt’s) which I inherited almost seventeen years ago and could not discard then and cannot discard yet (because if I open that filing drawer, I might not be able to close it again.
Oh, and if you’re keeping track, the number of to-do lists I’ve actually completed? One or two. Maybe more, but I would not take the over on that bet. Potatoes, that is, roasting a double batch of oven-roasted potatoes, has been on the list for most of January, the Whole 30 era. Fortunately, the more perishable eggs has been on the list a couple of times and has been removed as I’ve actually cooked them.
