a few small things.
namely: stuff for protecting old photos, body oil, and don't-want-to-do lists.
don’t-want-to-do lists.
I’m sure there are technical, even clinical, words to describe what I like to call my little idiosyncrasies but I’ll leave those to the experts and instead say that there are certain kinds of tasks I really do not love doing and am therefore extremely good at avoiding. I got my driver’s license, as an example, a year and a half after all of my friends in high school because I simply did not/could not/would not find the time to actually go through the steps required to get it. Just a few years ago, when faced with the DMV once again, I let my driver’s license expire rather than simply getting myself to 11 Greenwich Street. More than that, I procrastinated renewing it for so egregiously long that by the time I did I was told I needed to RETAKE MY ROAD TEST, which is how I found myself on a quiet corner of Queens hoping that all of the blinkers on our 1993 Volvo station wagon would operate as intended for my accompanied turns around the block. (They did. I’m once again a licensed driver.)
The weird thing about all of this is that I generally love to-do lists, frequently make them, and exuberantly cross the tasks off once complete. I also love all kinds of objectively onerous tasks (see family photo protection protocol below)! Still, certain to-dos involving appointments or scheduling or deadlines…well, I tend to either bury them on lists full of easier accomplished tasks or omit them from my lists altogether. It’s not a great system! A better system has been 1) acknowledging this about myself and 2) writing these v hated tasks onto a single list full only of the things I really don’t want to do. Something about calling it a Don’t-Want-To-Do List really lights a fire under me. Since the beginning of the year I’ve gotten a new passport before my old one expired, gotten an appointment with a primary care physician on the books, and paid my quarterly taxes and met with my accountant before March! Who even am I? I still need to renew my driver’s license before July and at this rate I probably will!
Specifics: Lately, I’ve been keeping my list in a notebook that I found while browsing at Kinokuniya and which I cannot for the life of me find again online. This MD Notebook has a similar vibe, but it’s missing the white lines on kraft graph paper that I especially love about mine. Sorry! (If I ever find it again, I’ll report back!)