I have a horrible habit. Well, I probably have several horrible habits. But right now, I'm only concerned with one, because it's the one that has me totally paralyzed.
I make lists.
Lots of lists.
I list everything in the freezer, so that I know what we have for dinners. I list everything packed in the attic boxes, so that when I need a particular item I can actually find it. I list when the bills are due, and when the chores should be done (which is how I remember to change the AC filter regularly), and when birthday cards should be mailed. I list the library books and their due dates.
Lists are good. They really do help to keep track of things. But if you take it too far, they can be overwhelming. And that's what's happening to me. I've got such great, detailed lists of what needs to be done that I've realized that it's completely beyond me to do everything and I'm feeling very depressed.
It started out innocently enough. It always does. We're going to be moving at the end of the month, and I need to sort through all our stuff to decide what to take with us to the (much smaller) new apartment and what we can get rid of. I could have just trusted that we'd get it done since there's plenty of time (almost four weeks). But then there's the danger that we'd put off doing anything because there's plenty of time, until all of a sudden it's two days before the move and we haven't started yet. And by the way, I'm using the pronoun "we" although the responsibility is really "me." (I am aware of that. It just feels better to say we instead of me.) So I made a list of the rooms to be packed, so that they could be scheduled evenly in the time we had. There are twelve rooms and four weeks; three rooms per week. That would have been fine.
Except I took it a step further. I wanted to make sure that we didn't forget the closet, or the file cabinet, or the pantry, or the cupboard under the stair. (Oh, wait, that was Harry Potter. Never mind.) So I expanded the list to include a checklist of all the areas of all the rooms. It still wasn't too bad.
Except. I realized that "Pack bookcases" wasn't really descriptive enough. I have five bookcases in the den, each of which is overloaded with at least two rows of books per shelf. And there are more books lying in piles in front of the bookcases. So the list was revised to read:
1. Sort through books for Keep/GiveAway/Sell.
2. Put keep-books back on bookcases, to ensure that they fit and I'm not keeping too many.
3. Pack bookcases.
And again, this could have been acceptable except while starting to sort through the books I found a bunch that I haven't read in a while. So I had to modify the list:
1. Sort through books for Keep/GiveAway/Sell/NotSure
1A. Read the NotSure books to decide whether to Keep/GiveAway/Sell
2. Organize Keep-books alphabetically by author/subject while ensuring that they fit on bookcases
3. Pack bookcases.
Maybe that's a bad example. I admit that reading the NotSure books is a little bit over the top (especially since I've already got two banana boxes full of NotSure books). So let's go to another room.
The attic closet was orginally one item on the To-Do list. After all, it's already packed up. I even have complete lists of everything in every box. Oh but wait. There are over 25 boxes in the attic closet. (I'm talking big Rubbermaid tubs.) In the new apartment, I'm only going to have one closet for the attic stuff and my clothes, not two different closets like I have now. So obviously something has to go. I'm going to have to sort through all the boxes to decide what I want to get rid of and what I want to keep. So the list went from "Move attic boxes to new house" to:
4. Bring all the attic boxes downstairs.
5. Go through each box, deciding what to keep and what to sell.
6. Repack boxes, making new lists of contents.
I am now looking at a two page list of stuff that needs to be done in the next four weeks. Ohmygosh what was I thinking? There is no way all this stuff will get done. How did I ever think this was move was going to be do-able?
Do you see what I'm up against? Maybe I just need to add one more thing:
7. Remember to BREATH
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