Finishing To-Do Lists

Everywhere I look, it seems I find unfinished projects and things that need to be done.  It’s impossible to completely eliminate every task I find.  And what’s worse: Martin discovers a slew of things we need to do, too.

Do you ever get overwhelmed looking at all of the “to dos” around your house?

Our biggest problem is knowing that we are moving in a few weeks.  Suddenly all those things that you neglect in life or never really think much about are waving their arms at us.  They’re shouting, “Haha!  You have to take care of us before you leave!”  It’s the butter in the freezer, nicknacks to donate, papers to scan, and all these little things that we never really think about when we can wake up and still be in the same place the next day.  But one day soon, we won’t be in the same place.  We’ll have to tell someone over the phone to dig in files if we need something that we didn’t make digital.  (Here’s a handy list of practical things to make digital, from documents to movies.)  I must breathe deeply even as I describe this overwhelming feeling to you.

Yet to some extent, even though you don’t have to worry about what to do with all the dried goods in your pantry like us right now, you probably face so very many little projects, too – the tasks that you’re not sure you’ll ever manage to cross off the list. 

Some tasks (like this one below) are clearly important.  It’s the urgent but totally not important projects that can trip us up.

country weeds

Are you a good to-do list person?  Not me.  No matter how much I rush to finish as many projects as I can, I never get that satisfaction of crossing off the very last item.  It usually seems so trivial by the time I reach it that I wonder why I even thought something like “organize utility bills” was so urgent.  Are tasks like that really important before we leave for Germany?  And even more importantly, are the little tasks that you and I stress over all that important in our lives?

Women are natural multi-taskers.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t even watch a movie without feeling like I have to do something with my hands.  The worst was when Martin caught me reading a book while watching a movie.  A book!  It’s no wonder I’m exhausted at the end of the day.

This last year, I have really tried to simplify our home and habits.  First, my dad taught me this simple trick for de-cluttering sentimental things so they’re easier to part with.  I’m trying to get rid of the papers and items that seem interesting and seem like something I’d want in the future.  I don’t pick up the free magazines at the health food store any more or clip out intriguing ideas or recipes unless I’m certain I’ll want to use them in the next month.  Any of the stuff either of us hangs onto has to be something we would need in the next three years.

Three years.  That’s my focus.  If things can’t be useful to our lives and our home by then, they need to be donated or recycled.  It’s just not worth weighing down life in order to keep them.

So what happens when you reach this point of frustration when all those projects start shouting, “Me!  Me!  Me!”?  The key – for me anyway – is to quit creating trivial things that need to be done and being more conscious as I bring projects (like those free magazines) into our home.

Taking a no new clothes challenge has helped decrease the feeling of needing to clean out our closets more because they’re not getting fuller.  Organizing stationery, learning to live with next to no storage (and no closets) in Germany, dispersing my childhood postcard collection – each little change in our habits adds up.  Ultimately, they mean less work down the road and fewer tasks on the never-ending to-do.

How often do you decide to leave projects unfinished?  And can anyone offer all of us who suffer with trying to get on top of things some advice?