Yesterday I wrote that I didn’t know if I had 52 items on the Dread List and the Put-Off List combined. Considering that for the better part of the last two years, I’ve been doing 20-40 hours of homework every week (yes, every week) in addition to having a full-time (or, in the last year, nearly full-time) career, caring for a terminally sick kitty, and writing 1-3 hours daily, the question is: how could I possibly imagine that I wouldn’t have 52 items on my combined list? How could I not have 100?
I’ve decided to cut my list off at the first 52 items that came to me. This was problematic, because I got to item 25 on my Dread List and item 14 on the Put-Off List when I lost heart and went to bed. When I woke up, I thought of some more items, but when I fired up the computer, I realized I’d forgotten them all and so I started anew. That I perceived this to be worthy of agonizing internal debate only underscores that obsessive-compulsive ministrations a) are absorbing, at best, only to oneself and b) take time away from the actual work at hand.
The idea of picking 52 Dread and Put-Off items is to pick one item each week and do it, or have it done. Yes, it counts to have someone else do it: neither my husband nor I are particularly handy, and so some things—like repairing dry wall or installing a 95” mirror—are best left to the professionals. Not that I haven’t let that get in the way of Dreading it nonetheless! Indeed, a subset on my Dread List consists of things that require the help of others.
Some tasks on these lists are deliberately easy to do; others are more involved. I’ve divided some projects I particularly dread or that require a lot of bending, reaching, lifting, or stretching into more management chunks, in order to avoid too much strain to my back. Most of the items can be accomplished in 15 minutes to two or three hours. The estimated time of duration, however, doesn’t necessarily correspond with the Dread Factor. I’d easily prefer to tidy the master closet, which may take a coulple hours, than dig out the information I need to cancel a few accounts I no longer use—even though the later will probably take no longer than 15 minutes.
Dread List:
1. Take back the glass I got at Home Depot
2. Take back the stuff I got for my Form and Space project to Michaels
3. Take back stuff to the Container Store
4. Have the hole in the drywall in my room repaired
5. Get paint for repaired wall
6. Re-paint repaired wall
7. Repair the bathroom wall where the soap dish fell.
8. Re-install soap dish
9. Install drywall in master closet
10. Paint master closet
11. Create drywall box over visible plumbing
12. Paint plumbing box
13. Research fancy toilet Alpay wants (yes, that’s right, fancy toilet; don’t ask)
14. Replace cracked sink in guest bath
15. Replace cracked tiles in guest bath
16. Replace toilet lid in guest bath
17. Repair cracks in drywall behind couch
18. Paint wall behind couch
19. Paint door to my study
20. Paint in column in study
21. Have mirror installed in living room?
22. Either find or get new holders for vertical blinds
23. Fix door stop in front hall
24. Make backup of Alpay’s computer
25. Make backup of my Mac
26. Cancel my Experian account
27. Cancel my vendor Visa account
28. Figure out what’s wrong with the camcorder
29. Figure out how to upload camcorder stuff to net
30. Get hexagonal table to friend
The Put-Off List:
1. Organize junk drawer in kitchen
2. Clean/organize under sink cabinet in master bath
3. Clean/organize medicine cabinet in guest bath
4. Clean/organize right medicine cabinet in master bath
5. Clean/organize left medicine cabinet in master bath
6. Clean/organize under sink cabinet in kitchen
7. Wipe off glass shelves in kitchen
8. Wipe off spices on glass shelves; return in alpha order
9. Make new labels for spices
10. Go through first set of 25 old disks of pictures
11. Go through second set of 25 disks of pictures
12. Go through third set of 25 disks of pictures
13. Clean filter of heater/air conditioner in my study
14. Clear out second cutlery drawer in kitchen; wipe down
15. File stuff in study—start with five hours
16-19: Clear 8’ bookshelves; clean shelf and wipe down books before returning to shelf (counting ½ of each bookcase as a list item)
20. Tidy the master closet
21. Tidy left side of the front hall closet
22. Tidy the right side of the front hall closet