My Don't-Do List
I'm not baking a pie, deal with it.
home-made pumpkin pie
I’m not alone in this club. We all have things on our plates, especially with the holidays coming up. My husband and I are four days away from closing on a fixer-upper, so the last four weeks have been especially chaotic. Very neatly organized in my day-planner is a lengthy to-do list of mortgage-lender things, contractor things, utility setups, interior design mood boards, budgets, and a slew of necessary tasks that are bound to come up with those two particular life-events.
Unmentioned are the book-writing things, doctor’s appointments, a very painful tetanus booster, work-out schedules, wine nights with friends, returning my library book, etc. etc. etc. etc.
We’re having two Thanksgivings this year to boot, which I’m pretty excited about. (Hello, carbs and wine and naps!) But do I have time to bake the pumpkin pie I told my family I’d bring? Yes. Sure. But I won’t, I decided. Literally this morning.
What Do I Value More?
It really just came down to this very question. Time is precious. And I ended up deciding that opening a very lovely bottle of Pinot Noir with my bestie was more beneficial to me, this week, than baking a pie. Not when Whole Foods is literally right down the street. The Cost-Benefit Ratio of $13.99 versus 90 minutes of time and my dwindling sanity, I’d say, is well worth it.
I started examining this “Don’t-Do List” concept further — What do I need? What can wait? What shouldn’t wait? — I need my workouts this week, I need to get a cashier’s check for the closing, I need the deep-tissue massage for my recovering back injury if my husband expects me to pitch in on house-demo day. I need to keep a meeting with my boss, and set up utilities at the new house, and buy dog food.
Pick Your Battles
I don’t need to meet my writing goal (especially since my workshop group canceled this week anyway), I don’t need to fit household chores into an already chaotic work week, I don’t need to wash my hair when I know I can stretch it one more day. I know I can push finishing the remodeling budget until December.
Here’s How I Plan To Use This Tool Going Forward
Currently, my to-do lists are separated into three categories:
My 9–5 job; daily tasks and projects
Writing projects
Misc. life
Calendar events are their own thing (in case you were wondering)
Some of these lists are heavier than others, like my day job, typically. Other weeks, like the last month, personal tasks have exploded, what with the whole buying a house thing. Technically, a Don’t-Do List isn’t a list at all. I’m simply marking a line item with a symbol: an X, perhaps, or maybe I’ll be a daredevil and cross it out entirely!
In any case, by notating whether an item belongs on the Don’t-Do List, I am giving myself advanced permission to fit in what I value most, for that week. And for someone like me, who oftentimes prioritizes work tasks above all else, this might be really freeing.
If I Have One Goal…
It’s unfair to generalize, but I do think, typically, that women especially tend to push aside the self-care to-do list items, and/or stuff way too much onto their plates that when there is something fun to do—holiday parties, concerts, plays, wine nights—that we end up hating the idea of going out because we are so damn exhausted that we couldn’t possibly imagine being in hard pants past 5PM.
I’d like to not be that person (if I can help it).
Maybe you already have something like this in your life—The Delegate List, The Not-To-Do List—or maybe you’re a bit of a renegade who operates without a list (which, quite frankly, blows my mind—but whatever, different strokes for different folks.) However you choose to include or not include tasks in your life, maybe start asking yourself what truly matters, for that day, or week, or month.
We all have one life, let’s fill it with things that matter and make sense. Maybe baking a pie is on your list, and you’d like to keep it there. Remove something so that it not only remains on your list, but you have the energy and bandwidth to enjoy it.
Happy Not-Doing,
— E