Beth's Ponderings
I tend to be an “out of sight, out of mind” gal. If there is something I have to do, it has to be in plain sight - constantly - till I do it. As soon as it’s done, it can be put away and forgotten. As such, I tend to have a lot of to-do’s around my desk and room, in various states of progress.
My computer will have umpteen files and websites open all at the same time so I can deal with what needs dealt with, and, not forget what I haven’t gotten to yet.
If I have to remember to take something with me somewhere, it needs to be visible by the door or I walk out without it.
A list doesn’t work for me as I have to be able to actually “see” the form, or the email, or the instructions, or the website, or the file, or the box, or the book, or whatever it is that I need to do something about.
While it can seem overwhelming on occasion, as I can literally be completely surrounded by work, I am able to relax knowing that everything I need to deal with is in sight and won’t be overlooked. I’m able to then see, at a glance, the most important tasks and get them done.
So, try and imagine how I felt when I recently opened a box of cross-stitch projects, that were boxed up in 2004 when our house was getting painted, and discovered some important papers had been tossed on top before I closed the box. As our painting situation ended up becoming quite an ordeal that wasn’t finished for many months, the box was untouched for years, as I dealt with other things.
The good news, my life didn’t fall apart because I failed to deal with the papers. In fact, losing the papers had no effect on my life, and probably would have had none even if I’d dealt with them at the time.
To often we race around, spending most of our time and energy, dealing with things that seem so urgent and important, only to find out later that they really weren’t important at all in the big picture of our lives.
“The only way you can truly test whether something is wildly important is to not do it – and see what happens. If the sky falls, then clearly it was important. If it doesn't, Then it wasn't.” - Fergus O'Connell
Beth
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