In praise of lists (State of Chaos- part 3)

Have I told you I’m not very organised? Well, I’m not. Using diaries, calendars and address books doesn’t come naturally to me. But last year, I discovered lists. I’ve written the odd one in the past, felt the benefit, but that’s been it.

We are still in the middle of building work. Today the builders are lifting the kitchen floor tiles. They’re doing well. By the end of the week, the kitchen will be a well-lit, sanded and plastered empty space. However, it’s supposed to be three weeks before our new units arrive. I’m on hold to IKEA at the moment to see if we can change the date. (We couldn’t- Oh well. Worst case, we have takeaways for that time.)

The electricians finally completed the rewiring last week. I think our bed was about the only piece of furniture in its normal place. My priorities were feeding people and getting them off to school.  To keep the children out of the way, we went for hot chocolate so often, they started to complain.

I couldn’t find the list of resources the dyslexia teacher had recommended. I wasn’t even reading with my son. How could I ask school to make sure their bits were covered, when I couldn’t get round to that?

For every one thing I could think I needed to do, I had a vague feeling there were six or seven others, but couldn’t remember.

And that’s when I wrote a list. Ahh! The relief.

Those with excellent organization skills won’t understand why I didn’t write one in the first place. And others can keep everything in their head. But with one item on a to-do list, I remembered the others, and writing them down, realised I wasn’t as far behind as I thought. It was all possible.