The Monday List?

The view from my hammock in the afternoon light....perfection!


As you know, I've been creating Monday Lists for quite some time now. I've been using it as a way to organize my week - both with the things I must do and the things that I want to do. Often times this list takes the place of daily progress reports for my various projects, which is a type of blogging that just doesn't seem to fit my personality well. The lists make it easy to summarize my creative and homemaking activities of the week before, and they allow me to gather my thoughts for the week to come.

After last week's list, though, several people questioned whether or not I should continue creating those lists. There seems to be the assumption that I'm biting off more than I can chew...that my overly-ambitious lists are causing more stress than good....that I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with the things that don't got done week after week.

To be honest, those gentle comments caught me off guard. (And yes, the folks who said something were very friendly and concerned in manner and tone.) I've been a list-maker my entire life, often creating elaborate lists that go on for months at a time. In fact, I used to carry a spiral notebook with me, and as soon as I'd finish off roughly half of the list I would rewrite the whole thing. There were ALWAYS items on the list that I never got around to completing (organizing photos and cleaning out the storage area are two of the more common examples from recent years), and it has NEVER bothered me. My lists are just part and parcel of who I am - and who I am has a bit of the compulsive list-maker in her.

However, I can completely see the other side of this. I do come across as a bit nutso sometimes with my lists, and I do often fail to complete much on the list. Several times, in fact, I've wound up just carrying the entire list over because the week was a wash! I'm sure it can seem like a self-flagellating weekly requirement.

In light of all of this, I'm going to take the week off from list making and think about whether or not I want to carry on with the Monday List. The Green Woman and I shall discuss...and then we'll get back to you.