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I remember my soldiers gave me a hard time because I always carried this little green notebook around with me. That’s because I had so many things to do. Some of these things helped to save lives, like ensuring backup satellite communications on a mission to try and spot an IED being put in. Some of them were just for convenience, like helping someone with a software glitch or installing a printer. It was easy to get your head underwater. Whenever I was asked (or told) to do something that was not a high priority, I would write it down and say “It’s on my list. It’s not at the top, but it’s there. And once it’s there, it shall be done.”
The art of time management is one of the primary skills that I took away from the Army. I once read a definition of a military officer as “an expert in the art of managing chaos.” This serves me well as a Dad. Yes, I have become a Zen master of multitasking, an innovative engineer of time, and a kitchen ninja who can deftly prepare meals while helping the kids with their homework, washing a load of dishes, and any number of other things that must constantly be done.
One of the main ways I manage time is by keeping lists. I reflexively keep my mind organized with lists. I have multiple lists, which sometimes overlap, but for the most part are autonomous. Some are digital and some are written by hand. Not only do I use the Microsoft Outlook calendar to keep my work organized, but I have a white board in my office that I update at least weekly, and a calendar with important dates circled. I go through sticky notes like no other. I also keep hand written lists of my goals and plans for the next couple of years. Ironically, my passion for keeping lists and defining my goals so clearly is fuled by the deeper desire to achieve a state of living in which I can ignore the clocks. I love to let an afternoon or an hour or a week get away from me, as it were, and just be present in the moments that make up my life. But I have to plan for something like that or it will never happen. It has to land on my list.
I see a list as a sort of challenge, a comedy of an attempt, a race against fate, and a cause and effect fiesta to watch how much your list drifts from the actual happenings that make up your day. It would be interesting if we all went back at the end of the day (for our daily lists, as opposed to monthly, short-term, long-term, and master) and revised them to show what ended up happening at a given time, as compared to what was planned. I imagine a future full of more lists. True, everything will be so automated that the list is replaced with personal reminders we earn by simply speaking our appointments and plans into the air, but there will still be a list of some sort in the circuitry of the computer - a line of code, perhaps, but a direct heir of that scrap of paper torn from a notebook sitting near someone's hand when they decided to write fruit, dish soap, toothpaste, ground beef, and beer on it.
A thousand years from now, our lists could be archived in museums as ancient relics, historical research tools. Picture it: A worn piece of ruled yellow paper with a genuine 21st century coffee ring stain near the top right corner:
In these futuristic museums, our lists will appear the same way hieroglyphics do to us now - symbols etched on paper or reproduced from Microfiche. Lists are not only important organizational tools, then, flag posts at which we can shoot the azimuth of our days, but they are timeless relics, documents of period study for future enthusiasts of the past. A simple list is a bit of free verse, a look into the age and mindset and priorities of an individual in a given time; but it is also a cross-section of that society, that age, that era, that social class.
Yes, the list is a powerful document that is taken for granted, when it should be cherished - an instantaneous historical reference point. Like now, I can turn off my computer and line through "write a new blog post" on a list that has four entries scratched out, two circled with stars next to them, and one highlighted, then scratched out. As I said, the Army gave me some solid time management skills, but here now as a Dad I believe I have taken it to the level of living art. I often feel like a master conductor of the complicated, inspirational orchestra of my life.
And like life, I know that my lists will change, but at least nothing is blowing up around me. At least I’m here to experience it all, alive and able to change. I create the kind of days that I desire. I can put whatever I want on my lists and the very act of doing so makes it possible.
I say come on people, try to keep it together. Keep typing away on your spreadsheets or scribbling away in your leather planners, or on your dirty napkins.
Challenge the inertia of possibility - go ahead and write your lists
Phone: (435) 272 4618. Email: lee@desertsunwriting.com
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