So, it’s been a while since I updated my To Do list. It used to be, I had a spreadsheet with a simple list of all the things that I needed to do that were coming up, with due dates (or no due date if it was indefinite deadline but something I needed/wanted to do eventually). Somewhere along the way – probably not long after I closed my computer consulting business, I stopped doing it and moved to having all my upcoming tasks as emails in my inbox.
At work, I do approximately the same thing, but I sort the emails into project folders, etc. And I actually distill that down into a spreadsheet – which was necessary at work because I’m tracking a large number of projects with a large number of external dependencies – of all the things I have to work on at any given moment, most are on hold waiting for someone else to do something before I can proceed.
In any case, the email method of To Do lists works great at keeping my email inbox small – as I only like to keep things that have a concrete action item in my inbox. So I’m usually very good about reading and filing emails that I don’t need to take action on but need to read, responding to emails that are awaiting my response so they can be archived, and deleting all the spam/advertising/offers/etc. I mean, I even empty my trash – I have a GMail account – this is completely unnecessary.
The problem with this method is that it doesn’t automatically handle adding items that don’t have an associated email. I have to send myself an email to remind myself to do things that didn’t come in via email. I used to be pretty good about this, but the number of things I needed to do and wanted to track track got very large at some point. And rather than actually keep up on it, I kinda just…stopped.
Some of it can certainly be blamed on the changes in my life from having kids, and some of it can certainly be blamed on my getting lazy/complacent. Being tired all the time (a side effect of my weight) certainly didn’t help either. And honestly, this winter was NOT good for my mental health. I already do pretty poorly in the winter – my moods are always worse. I’ve always chalked it up to a mild form of SAD (seasonal affective disorder). I’ve never actually bothered to go get it diagnosed officially, but it cycles pretty well with the seasons – I’m considerably more depressive during the winter months. I prefer being upbeat, cheerful, and funny. I just feel like none of those things when the days are shorter and colder.
I reached an especially low point this past winter. I felt like a lot of areas of my life were spiraling out of control and I didn’t have things handled well. (Spoiler Alert: a lot of areas of my life were spiraling out of control and I didn’t have things handled well.) I had burned out on many of the things that I agreed to do, putting them off as long as possible. And guilt over not doing things that I needed to do was preventing me from doing other things that I would enjoy doing, or things that were maybe not important to do, but were important to me to do. Instead, I would just do…well…nothing. And that’s approximately how I started 2016. It took sitting down and looking at things more critically and recognizing I wasn’t enjoying life very much to start being willing to make some changes.
Bear with me. I’m going somewhere with this. More tomorrow.