Secret Happiness - More to do books

Today I made a special trip to Barnes & Noble because I was ready for my next to do/idea book. The one that I've been using for the last four months (to the left) is almost complete, though sometimes I decide to end my use of a book far before the paper runs out. The design is "OK," and the paper is sub par. Obviously, I got this one in the Target store school section instead of in the Barnes & Noble journal section that contains ONLY books with thick white paper. And, the paper often has the side perk of being acid free or claimed to be "green" in some way.

I do like good paper!

This round of books, I decided I'd go for the smaller size since I've decided (again) to separate out weekly/daily "to dos" and notes from work from the "Personal Ideas/Other Info important to me" book. We'll see how it goes.

The reason: when I finish the to do book, I often have to go back and weed out all of the personal ideas, goals and such that I want to carry on with me to the next round of books.

I'd have this all electronically in one spot if I could just use the same laptop for personal and work. But, I cannot. So, it is 1/3 in these books, 1/3 on the iPhone and 1/3 online.

So, in the meantime, I'll indulge myself in fancy little books to make jotting things down a bit more fun and personal.

To Dos - despairs vs. regrets

Today on a walk, I had a little despair. It was current and so I wouldn't call it a regret. Most regrets seem to be associated with something that you wish you did in the past. My little despair came from a current frustration that may create future regret - the endless inspiration of adding to the to do list and never quite finishing it because I keep adding to it.

I guess this could fit into the category of "so many ideas - so little time" or more realistic - "so many ideas - so little energy."

I woke up at 3:45 a.m. the other morning because there were too many to dos scrolling through my head and I couldn't just stop them. Ugh! It would be great if I were producing amazing things from all of these inspirations and lists, but I feel like I'm in constant failure mode. The interesting thing is that about 70% of the to dos are ideas I'm generating and turning into action items. The rest are actually from other people. Part of me calls this proactive behavior and the other part of me is wondering if this is ADD on turbo charge.

Luckily, I've learned a trick or two that I need to apply on a daily basis. I'm listing two below and only two! Otherwise, it will turn into a long and unwieldy list of expectations for myself.

1 - Sticky note with three items - putting three or four must do items on a sticky (Post-It) note each morning and striving just to accomplish those three things. And, being ok if one or two of them are really simple (email so and so or take out the trash). This approach is such a relief and helps deal with adjusting internal expectations.

2 - Decide on a "stop doing" list - the book called Good to Great talks about creating a stop doing list. Take things off that are a waste of your time or don't fit in to your overall goals. Time is important, what will we not do with it? I like this idea.

Tonight I feel good. Not only did I do a little work, take a little walk, watch a little movie, participate on a little panel, but ...I also blogged about every major idea I thought of on the walk.

Now, tomorrow I'm just expecting to 1.) work for 2-3 hours 2.) take a walk and 3.) hmmmm. take a little break from the To Do list and the associated little despairs.

To Do list Brain

So, I'm assuming that everyone has read about the guy with the "beautiful mind" and about those people that can remember dates, events, and names from everyday that they've ever been alive.

Sorry to disappoint, but you already know this fact - I am not one of those people. I will admit to knowing only about three phone numbers, but since my phone holds about 200 I will keep praying that it doesn't falter.

I am plagued with my own special brain. I have "to do" list brain. Everything that happens to me every minute of the day goes through my sensors (ears/eyes) and somehow translates into a possible "to do" for my list. Whether it is amazing idea or website address that I need to add to my idea list or delicious account or a memory of a past experience to post to my blog or someone that I should write a thank you note to or an idea of another business to create or even to remember to think of others in kinder ways....it somehow always translates into another "to do."

Over the years I have translated this list into notebooks used at work, little artsy books that I carry in my purse, web widgets on iGoogle and Google Notepad, official Franklin Planners with special inserts that never quite fit my life, electronic Outlook lists on the work computer, Ta Da lists (website), or a cheap notebook...all used in an attempt to manage this onslaught of "to dos" racing through my head.

For now, I have come across a solution that has worked for about two months. That typically means it is a habit, correct? It's Excel. Yep, the excel spreadsheet. At first it was one scrolling list with correctly labeled columns - Tasks, Type (personal, work, research, financial, blog, exercise, etc.), Notes, date completed. But, that got a little unwieldy.

Now I'm up to about 5-6 separate worksheets so that I can manage things in small chunks. The last tab is "completed items" and I just copy/paste the "to dos" to that worksheet when I'm done.

Sound time consuming? No, it actually saves me from constantly copying over old to do lists by hand. Since I'm in front of a computer about 12 hours a day that is the best way for now.

Whew. Why do I care? I enjoy documenting life. Seeing the patterns. Analyzing what I spend my time doing (another blog entry to come). Finding ways to make some things more efficient so I free myself up for stuff that is more meaningful to me.

Alas, writing this down makes me realize that this is kind of a nerdy thing to do, but it will be done nonetheless. Anything to get these things out of my mind and on to paper/electrons will help this mind get freed up a little.

So, time to cross off the entry - "Blog - to do lists" - completed 2/13/2009

To Do Lists - little books

I just purchased my next little to do book. It's the orange ship with light lime green cover.

For the (my) record, I've taken a picture of the books I've used over the last couple of months. I combine both personal and work "to dos" in these and since I'm completely electronic in every other part of life , it's nice having one little book to carry with me at all times. Plus, it's fun to buy the ones that have creative covers.

Now, that I've taken the picture they can be scanned into the computer and....thrown out.

Like I said...I'm keeping it electronic.

At some point I'll dump them all into one of those online publisher type books and get it bound. As far as I'm concerned, it's a supplement to the regular journal and the blogs.

Just a little secret happiness to have a new little books for note taking and to dos.

A "Me" Day

Today is one of those days where I feel like "me." I had the day off work and slept in until 7:30 a.m. It felt so good to just lie on the floor (it feels better on my back right now) and get in some extra zzzzzs.

Got up, had some breakfast, read some inspirational thoughts (Ensign article) and started to work. Yep, sometimes not going into work still means the work must be done at home. I actually don't mind because I focus better here. My boss sent a very complimentary email of all of my project managing efforts followed up with an email saying that when we move back to our former office building there will be lack of space and so I will either have to share an office or have an office about 1/3 to 1/2 the size of my prior office. Joy. At least at home I can set up my office the way that like it - at the kitchen table with all of my gadgets.

That weird thing in the corner is left over German chocolate cake that I had as part of a 2nd breakfast (I know, German chocolate cake anonymous here we come).

I put in a load of laundry, took out the garbage, and went on a walk. What a beautiful day in Northern Virginia! It was around 70 degrees and the clouds and blue sky were perfect-o. I took an entire hour just to walk around the various areas of Penderbrook to enjoy the fresh air, colorful trees, Canadian Geese and the variety of golfers taking the day off work.

All good things must come to an end and so I came home and went out to eat lunch with my man before he heads out of town for a few days. Ok, so this isn't a picture of us today, but thought I would put it in anyway. We went to Famous Daves and ate a lot of meat!

I had to get outside again and so I took my camera out with me on another walk in an attempt to capture some of the colors. Soo beautiful! I also had that epic movie type of music playing on my iPOD at the same time and so I felt like I was experiencing my own surround sound movie with all of the beautiful scenery.

So, I just realized that these thumbnails aren't actually working.

Here's a slideshow:

Now, it's time to hit the rest of the to do list for the evening - a little more scanning, a little more cleaning, a little more work and a little more....food. Maybe I'll take just a couple more bites of that German chocolate cake. (P.S. Just for informational purposes - none of my cooking is worth mentioning. In fact, after tasting what I create most people have a heightened sense of self esteem)

It's good to have time to just breath, think about life and dream. 

Memory Lane - nooks and corners

I came home from work the other day and did what I always do. I put my keys and blackberry on the bookshelf and then went around my sofa chair and put my computer bag next to my church bag and stack of "to do" papers. It's a perfect hiding spot from the front door, but very accessible to me when I'm sitting and working on my laptop or watching the tube.

This is my favorite corner for keeping what I use on a daily basis. It's also grown to include a printer, purse, scriptures and other books I read. One would think I would use my extra bedroom for this type of stuff, but the reality requires me to have everything easily accessible while I'm doing my day to day activities in the main part of the house.

Growing up, my bedroom was my "corner," but now that the entire house is mine I guess I had to create a "mini-corner" to fit the bill.

I'm realizing that special "corners" or "nooks" aren't so rare when I look through old family pictures.


This was a special corner, for many reasons, in our Michigan house. First, the cabinet is built into the wall and accessible from the living room behind it. We would often try to crawl through the cabinet into the other room. One of the benefits of growing up in a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired home.

Plus, we stored the little record player (shown) in that cabinet so you could access it from either room. But, as you can see, the record player never strayed from the corner. We took it out and played it right there. In fact, it looks like the record that is playing is the Mary Poppins record. You can barely make out the men in black dancing on the roof. All of the songs heard in that corner are completely memorized and when someone says a trigger word at family gatherings we all start singing the tune. "Cast off the shackles of yesterday..." or "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" or "Hound dog howdy kidlets...this is huckleberry hooouuuunnnddd."

The boys found little nooks and corners everywhere. Little Scot apparently had a special corner in the garage. The horrible yellow paint with perfectly matching burnt orange carpet scraps to complement the decor. I'm sure that it wasn't that clean either even though sweeping the garage was one of the Saturday "duties."

Here's an interesting corner. When it rained, it became apparent that the deck had a slant because water would always pour down in one corner creating a puddle and a steady stream. For some reason we thought it was great that we could get our hair wet by standing in that location. Not sure why it was different than the rain pouring beyond the deck, but this special feature provided cheap entertainment for quite a few rain storms.

Another tidbit of thought that may provide little value beyond a fun memory. However, a bunch of these little trips down memory lane are starting to add up.

Technology - TaDa

So, I'm trying a new site for simply managing some tasks. I just started this week and set up a list to test it out - http://dauclm.tadalist.com/lists/public/906479.

I set up lists for a few team members so I can visually see their workload before assigning more tasks. It doesn't track anything or have a robust management system behind it, but it is great for every day use. Plus, we track real deliverables and such in other systems. Obviously, we don't drop everything and put every task in it, but anything that takes more than two hours deserves to have an entry.

Try it out at http://www.tadalist.com/ !