When settling for less might be the best

 I hate that feeling at the end of the day when I re-read the to-do list I optimistically wrote that morning and realize all the items I can’t check off. It seems there’s usually some story I didn’t get written, some person I didn’t go see, a phone call I didn’t make, a meeting I forgot to attend, etc., etc.

I’m a genetic list-maker. It’s in my blood. I not only have to-to lists and grocery lists, I have lists of books I hope to read, favorite words, prayer requests, priorities, and on it goes. It’s how I stay organized. But I’m finding the system doesn’t work for me as well as it used to. Especially that to-do list. After I write it, I sometimes forget about it for the rest of the day. Then in the evening I wrestle with frustration at all I didn’t do.

Hal is even more intense than I am. His to-do list is impossibly long and his end-of-the-day laments more soulful. Some evenings we make pathetic music.

OK. I’m exaggerating a little. But only a little. Frustration with not getting enough done is part of life these days.

In my younger days, I took pride in all the stuff I got done in a single day. I was a master multitasker, juggling all sorts of balls—education, family, job, writing assignments. I even put free-time on the list. People would ask me, “Nancy, how do you manage to get so much done?”

It’s a cultural theme, something built into our society, something rewarded and recognized. I have a book on my shelf actually titled Getting Stuff Done. It presents a rather rigorous system that even I couldn’t faithfully follow, although it did help me get my files organized. Time management has become a cultural science, almost a religion to some.

Somewhere along the way, I seem to have adopted the slogan “Never settle for less than your best.” The “best” includes, of course, getting that to-do list all checked off. And every task completed with excellence. Of course.

Just writing all this down makes me tired. I find myself doubting the wisdom behind it all.

Actually, I’m not as rigid about getting stuff done as I’ve portrayed myself here. The two sides of my personality—the left-brain analytical get-stuff-done side and the playful, intuitive, poetry-writing side—are fairly equally balanced. It’s the playful side that’s kept me sane. I need to remember that now. And value it.

I’ve suggested to Hal that if he had a shorter to-do list, he might be more satisfied at the end of the day. I’m realizing that I need to heed my own advice. I think what I’m going to do is make a list (here I go again!) of all the things I would like to do and that I could work on when I have the time and inclination. I’ll post it above my desk. And then I’ll keep my daily list short. As short as possible.

In the case of to-do lists and pressures to get stuff done, maybe settling for less is the best way to go. This sounds like a good idea now in the retirement phase of life—to loosen the ties of the lists and relax the pressure to perpetual excellence.

Long ago I discerned that God has given me three priorities in life. (Here it comes—another list! But a short one.) My priorities are prayer, poetry, and people. Simple. (The fact that they all begin with the letter “p” helps me remember them.) These are more an orientation toward life than a to-do list.

I won’t stop making lists, not with my current tendency to forget meetings and deadlines unless I have a written reminder. I’ll just try to make my daily list shorter and more playful. Maybe add to the list stuff like “laugh-out-loud at least once” and “hug Hal more than once.” How about “enjoy my morning coffee” and “look attentively at something beautiful.” Yes. I could check those off every evening. Happily. That doesn’t seem at all like “settling for less.”