Friday Feature: Tolerations

Do you have a list? I have a number of them and, as someone who writes about organization, I love a good article about how to replace the nagging presence of all those little to-do list items with happy little checkmarks.

There's a name for those nagging tasks, according to this Fast Company article by Gwen Moran. They're called tolerations, and as long as they linger on our lists, they sap our energy and our mental resources.

So, why do we tolerate them? Well, according to Moran, "They’re unpleasant enough that you want to avoid them, but pressing or disruptive enough that they have a negative impact on your daily life."

Sounds about right.

But there's a solution, one that sounds a bit like a Nike slogan, but begins with dumping them all onto paper so we can see what we're dealing with.

Do you have a list of tolerations? Check out Moran's article. It's a quick read with a valuable solution.

Trust me, you have time. Do it now.

Don't add it to the list.

Friday Feature: Time Management...in Retirement?

When you think of retirement, what comes to mind? No more alarm clocks? Sailing around the world? Pursuing a hobby, or maybe even a new career?

I'm betting that time management doesn't even crack the top ten.

But, when you think of it, what could be more important when you suddenly find yourself with more leisure time to manage?

As it turns out, those who manage their time are happier in retirement than those who don't. I'm not talking about checklists and daily schedules, here -- more like a flexible set of goals and wishful to-dos. Kind of like the way parents are encouraged to look at a toddler's diet -- a week-in-view big picture rather than a day-by-day line item assessment.

Actually, this makes quite a bit of sense. By the time we retire, it's been decades since we've had hours of free time to play with every day, so it's only logical that it might take some time and practice to find a new balance.

So go ahead. Make those retirement plans. And, while you're at it, make that bucket list, too.

You're going to want to have some things to put on your calendar.

The Cure for the Common Frenzy

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I am generally an upbeat person, but lately, I've been feeling tired and a bit like I need a life preserver. I'm used to being busy, and although I'm busier than normal, that didn't feel like the whole problem.

Never satisfied not to analyze, I kept wondering and working at the knot, trying to figure out what tangled threads were at its core. Then last Friday, a beautiful, sunny day on the cusp of the weekend, as I drove down route 83, my endless to-do list scrolling through my head, it finally dawned on me.

I don't have any white space.

No, I haven't gone over the edge, or gone under completely (glub, glub). White space -- that beautiful stretch of calendar page that is blank and free from all scheduled obligation -- is my cure for the common frenzy. And while my days for the past couple of weeks have had patches of white space -- enough for a nap or a maybe even a decadent night of mindless television -- what I needed was a meadow-sized space. A whole day where I didn't have to be anywhere. I could have a to-do list -- no problem.

I just needed an entire 24-hour period full of white space to carve up as I saw fit.

While diagnosing my problem was a relief, looking at my calendar curtailed that excitement pretty quickly. I'm optimistic that I can stitch together a patchwork of white space in the week ahead, but my meadow is still a ways off.

Still, knowing what the problem is, now I can tackle it. The first step is to find the first white space day on my calendar and plant my flag. My day. My time. Nothing scheduled here. A big old X on the calendar, and that step is done. Yes, people can ask me to do things, and I'll be happy to add them to my list, and maybe even comply. As long as I don't have to be anywhere else to do it.

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The next step is to take a look at the things that are eating up my white space and decide if they've earned the right to gobble it up. Which commitments truly enrich me and which are simply white-space eating habits? That step is a lot more challenging, but it's the one that's likely to lead to a long-term solution.

Finally, I need to get from here to the X on my calendar. Knowing what's going on is a big relief -- a half-inflated life preserver, if you will -- and knowing my white space is there, waiting for me, helps, too. Until then, I have to protect my patchwork, and, barring emergencies, I think I can do that.

And finally finally, I need to accept that this is something that I need. That it's not selfish or childish or ridiculous. Yes, a full schedule with responsibilities is part of being an adult. But my goal is to be a happy adult, and that means that an honest assessment of what I can and cannot do is in order. And what I cannot do is operate indefinitely without white space.

How about you? How do you capture and preserve your white space?

Small Success Thursday: Patience, Practice and Lists

Photo: lisasolonynko via Morguefile

For the past couple of hours, I've been growing increasingly frustrated as I ran the necessary obstacle course standing between me and writing time. It didn't help that I completely forgot that tomorrow is a holiday, which meant moving banking and other tasks on my list from "to-do" to "to-do today." I kept reminding myself to practice patience, all the while realizing there's a reason they call it practicing, as I ended up behind a succession of people in less of a hurry than I was in.

Lately, that seems to be the case much of the time. I don't seem to be able to achieve a middle ground where pace is concerned. I'm either so laid back that I drive everybody crazy or in such a ridiculous hurry that I drive myself crazy -- along with everybody else.

Once I'd checked off the necessary items and made it to Starbucks (behind yet another slow driver) with my laptop, I saw for myself why the pace I desired wasn't the pace to be admired. As I sit here typing this post, I am all alone at my favorite Starbucks. It's just me, my drink and two of my favorite baristas. Wow.

And then it clicked -- the best reason of all to practice patience: because we are where we are supposed to be at any given time. I know not everyone thinks that's the case, but it's been true in my life so often (as recently as yesterday when I ran the same rat race), that I've come to believe it's true. God knows where I'm supposed to be, and when my ideas don't match up with his, all I do is frustrate myself trying to achieve unrealistic goals.

Then came the next realization. Today is Small Success Thursday on CatholicMom.com. What a fantastic, marvelous, wonderful way to realize I'm not alone.

So here are those small successes. I made it through my list of errands. I ordered my daughter's senior portraits. I finally got that blog (and this one) posted, as well as answering a "what comes next?" question that's been plaguing me since yesterday, and, as a bonus, came up with a few new ideas (that weren't on the list) as well.

And along the way, I practiced patience, albeit reluctantly. But that qualifies as a success, because, after all, practice makes perfect.

Never Listless

I've written before about to-do lists: writing them, using them, conquering them. I've read about them, too -- how to do them, how not to do them, how long/short/organized/detailed they should be. To categorize or not to categorize. Short and simple or long and comprehensive. Day-by-day or one big jumble.

And I keep changing my mind.

To-do lists are a necessary evil. We need them to keep track of the details of our lives, but if we're not careful, they can take over. Living by the list leaves little time for the things that refresh and sustain us. After all, when's the last time you wrote "take a nap" or "curl up with a book" on a to-do list?

My to-do lists vary. When I was working full-time, they were scrawled on scraps of paper and separated by home tasks and work tasks. When I first retired, I kept a master list and culled items from it to add to the daily schedule. These days, I do a little bit of both.

Last Saturday morning, I woke up with a to-do list that could fill a notebook -- or at least it felt that way. Typically, I shy away from writing down every single thing I need to do (especially on days like that) because halfway through the process, I grow weary and depressed from the mere act of considering everything I need to do.

Unfortunately, the alternative is keeping it all in my head (and running the risk of forgetting to do things) and so some days, like last Saturday, I succumb. I dump all of my to-dos (or at least the ones that occur to me at the moment) onto paper and then take stock.

This time, it wasn't the sheer quantity of what I needed to do that threatened to send me back to bed; in terms of length, the list was reasonable. But the amount of space each item took up on the page in no way corresponded to the amount of time each thing would take.

Today is Monday, and I'm still working on that Saturday list. The funny thing is, that's not a bad thing because I sort of suspected it would happen.

Yesterday afternoon, I approached my list with trepidation. I'd written it on Saturday, then started my day, filling it with both on-the-list and off-the-list (routine) items. And a lovely thing happened.

I did most of the things on the list. And the act of checking them off was very fulfilling indeed.

No matter how we do to-do lists, one thing is true in nearly every case. Dumping tasks onto the page frees us from the responsibility of carrying them around, trying to keep track of them. That's what the list is for. And if we make the list, plot out the day and then go about our business, we sometimes find that the list has taken care of itself and we get to check things off.

Not all lists are created equal, however. Some days, I grip my list in my sweaty fist all day long lest I forget to complete something that's on it. And grocery lists? I never leave home without them -- at least not when I know I'm bound for the grocery store.

Slowly, I've come to realize that to-do lists must be fluid. We can't simply make one list and be done with it, and the sooner we make peace with that idea, the more useful (and less stressful) our lists become. In the end, there's really only one thing that's true about all to-do lists.

It's fun crossing things off of them.