The never-ending fucking to-do list
And how I've stopped considering it to be a list of failures.
Hey nerds!1
Growing up my brother and I were each given a carpeted stair.
This stairwell ran from our front hallway up to bedrooms on the second floor of our 1970s middle-class home. Our “stair” was a collection of strewn stuff my mother would gather for us to take upstairs.
On my stair I’d find things like the 2B pencil I was missing, my walkman (always), one pink bauble earring, a library book I’d read and discarded in a corner of the house.
My brother’s step was always overflowing. There would be pairs of tube socks, a giant pile of space lego, a Calvin & Hobbs book, random pieces of crushed paper that were likely very important and not important to my brother.
Perched on top of each pile, like a deflated eagle on its nest, would be THE LIST.
Elizabeth,
I’m out for the morning. Please complete these chores before you leave.
Empty dishwasher
Put away your art stuff in the dining room.
Take “your stair” and put it away.
Love Mum
This was my assimilation into list making. My mother presented me with accumulated things and tasks that needed to be put away, thrown away or completed. I would trudge up the stairs, the burnished brown bannister skipping under my fingers, while the shiny shag rug skimmed my feet: Now what do I do with all this shit?
The List of 47 Years
At 47 my list NEVER SEEMS TO END. It hovers in my brain, lives in my lower back and whispers with psychotic joy as I’m trying to fall asleep…don’t forget to order the cat food…hee hee.
My current list stands as:
Go to meet the teacher interview this afternoon
Maintain a strict budget at the school book fair, although my 10 year old knows I’m a sucker for that bookfair smell
Order pizza before I go
Pick up pizza on the way home
Get ready for a night out with friends - ie do laundry
Book the cat into the vet for annual wellness check up
Finish staining the new front deck, even though it’s bucketing with rain
Clean the kitchen floor and try to get rid of those weird stains that arrived in the summer
Check in on my neighbour, his wife died last month
Remove the candle wax from the dining room table
Meal plan for next week
Sew new laundry bags and get hooks to hang on the bedroom wall so the cat stops peeing in them!
Pick up for cat food
Start sewing my winter projects
Purple knit dress
New pants - make muslin first
Repair friend’s daughters pyjama pants
Coordinate playdate for Pro-D day
Clean up sewing room of fake fur from Halloween costume creation
Put away the duvets that are air drying, before the cat pees on them again!
Finish picking the apples on our tree and stop wasting food
Take old clothes stuffed into the airing cupboard to value village
…I’m going to stop now before you start panicking about your own to-do list.
How Did My List Get So Long?
I’m not sure when the never-ending fucking to-do list began. Most caregivers I know (90% mums) have a constant and nagging never-ending fucking to-do list.
Is this what happens when we grow up? We become responsible and get gifted a list?
As a responsible adult we do the things we’re told like:
Keep a tidy yard.
Be polite to your neighbours.
Put a bra on before you leave the house.
We’re firmly putting other people’s expectations ahead of our own needs, so we can be:
A good wife
A good neighbour
A good mum
A good woman
A good citizen
Jesuse, I don’t want to be good anymore.
Taking A List Break
The week before Christmas we went away on a tropical holiday (see I Have Fucking Pool Mum Thighs). And apart from the White Lotus guilt I felt sprinkled across my days the list went quiet.
Believe me the list did try really fucking hard to get my attention, but I was firm, “Hey, we’re on holiday. You’ll be there when I get back.”
And what surprised me is that it fucking worked! The list, the weight - it just lifted. And honestly I felt the vibe of being 23 again, staying in a backpackers on a remote Fijian island. I had no list to complete. It was just being.
Now I cannot LIVE IN A TROPICAL HOLIDAY, as much as I’d like to try. So here were are back in my daily grind (oh, christ is this really what I think of my life).
I’ve realized two things:
My list is always going to be there.
I can’t stop the list.
So….I can’t stop the bloody list, but I can reframe my never-ending fucking to do list.
In 2024 my list is NO LONGER A LIST OF ALL THE WAYS I’M FAILING. Did you hear that LIST?
Honestly, this is what my list had become. Each item on that list was reminding me of all the ways I’m not good enough.
It was a list of unfilled expectations and failed experiments.
It was a list that suffocated me when I went to sleep each night.
The Lighter List
It’s been two days since I realized I was using my list as an evaluation for my life grade: D-.
Already my list feels more helpful and less, you’re a fucking terrible person why do you even bother list. I’m emboldened by this lightness and hoping I can continue to re-frame the list throughout the year to come. Is this a horrible experiment or a genius insight?
Hope January is off to a safe and balanced start. Oh and fuck all the weight-loss resolutions out there.
Love,
Elizabeth.
Ps. I’m curious how you manage your never-ending fucking to-do list?
I’m using nerds in the best possible way. Nerdship: How we love a thing with such verocity that we annoy others, and then one magical day we find other people who feel the same way about the thing we love. That is nerdship.
Love that you found a way to feel lighter and lift the list a little! ... Not sure if you've ever tried bullet journaling proper, but at it's heart i find it a simple way to quiet the noise of a million things in your mind and keep separate lists where I know I won't forget anything but don't have to look at it every single day... Just every month or so think through how many of each type of goal I have I should move from my 'collection' page to my active list of things to do that month.:. I have separate collections for health, home, family etc etc... ... Anyway my motto for 24 is to do a little bit more or a little bit better, no big declarations for me this year I don't think... Oh and I also drew a therapeutic doodle page to remind me if things I want more of and things I want less of in 2024!
Hoping for you to have a successful and happy and healthy and loving and funny year ahead 🥰
So funny and very relatable. I am also a keeper of lists. This past year I found a new approach that makes me less crazy. I look at the week ahead and the month ahead. What do I want to accomplish in that time? I make sure those are high priority and typically not that many things. When I get into my daily list, which I do, every day, I’ve already clearly stated my goals for the week/month, so as long as I get those things done, everything else just feels like extra credit.
Reflecting on what I HAVE done has also been a fun practice.