Where I Reveal the Depths of My Geekiness

I've been a list freak as long as I can remember. I recall as far back as 7th grade that I always had a small Mead notepad that I would mark pages "Monday", "Tuesday" and so forth. I would write down the things I needed to do in school and at home each day. I would take great joy in marking each list item off.

Fast forward a "few" years to today. My life has certainly gotten more complicated with two kids, a husband, a dog, a home, a business, volunteer obligations, friendships across the world and probably many more obligations that aren't coming to mind at the moment. Likewise, my "to-do" list has gotten more complicated too.

Currently I am using Remember the Milk. Since it is available from mobile devices such as my Palm Treo I have it available to me all the time. So, just like my old Mead notepad from 7th grade I can add tasks and projects as I think of them because heaven knows I won't think of it again until it blows up in my face.

The advantage that RTM has is that I can make things show up on certain days and in different ways. For instance, I have fine tuned several different lists. Since school started I have started waking up at 6am (an hour before anyone else) to knock out things that I do everyday. For instance, every day I check the bank account balance, the credit card balance and record any activity into Quicken so that I'm up to date on my budget. I also make entries for Twitter and Facebook for Legacy Travel. I dispatch as many of my emails as possible. I also have the kids vitamins on my morning list as well as my daily inspection of each kid's rooms so that they don't get buried under in mess. I also walk the dog every morning, and water the yard, and scoop the lawn.

Anyway, you can see that there are many things that I do in the morning that I don't want buried in the main list for the day. Separating them out means that I can look very easily and see if there are any morning tasks left undone.

Likewise there are tasks I do every day that can only be done at home in the evening. These include things like "Pack Lunches", "Make sure the alarm is set for tomorrow", "Family reading time" etc etc. I also program in the nights I want to be sure my son bathes. (Don't judge unless you have a 9 year old boy!)


I've found that really fine tuning my lists every day allows me to keep all of those balls spinning in the air!