Sometimes it's the little things...

While it's great to sit back and declare some big project finally DONE, there is something deeply satisfying in finding a way to crank through a bunch of little projects that have been nagging you for a long time. I don't know about other folks, but I have this amazing capacity to comment to myself every single day about some little thing that I really should do and that won't really take that much time, but week after month after year it just never gets done.

Well, I'm on a roll with little stuff. It started a couple of weeks ago with my making a list of stuff to get done over my holiday break, morphed into a list twice the size of the original, and is kept going by the combined satisfaction and challenge of watching that list being whittled away.

In terms of being organizationally challenged, I'm probably the perfect candidate for a PDA but I really don't want to have to deal with anything other than a pen or a regular sized keyboard, and my paper lists get written but then just get lost in the muck and mire of my overall disorganization. And I tried keeping lists on the computer, in Word documents or whatever, but it's just so easy to ignore them. But I may have finally come up with what works: Adding a to-do list to my house blog.

I'm actually maintaining two lists. The first is my active to-do list -- what I'm trying to get done in the next couple of weeks or months. It's going to include house stuff plus some not-directly-house-related stuff just to keep it all together. I say "not directly house related" because, for example, getting the long overdue package sent to my friend or getting things dropped off at the domestic violence shelter may not seem house related, but it clears out space, removes clutter, and even simply lets me cross it off my list and move onto the next task which is hopefully house related.

I crossed two things off that list today: Getting the pantry organized, and getting all of my knives sharpened. Considering that I was out of the house for much of the day, I feel satisfied with that. If I get a second wind I may tackle something else, but this is enough for today -- it is my first day of holiday break, after all!!

My second list is my long-term list. I organized it room-by-room, and have both big and small projects listed. I tend to forget things that I know I need to do but can't get to for a while, so this will help me record that.

I'm feeling on my way towards getting organized, and for an ADD queen, that's a damn good feeling.