Lists

I’ve never been the most organized person. I feel most comfortable doing whatever pops into my head, without planning at all. This often leads to some interesting results, but it also means that I tend to avoid unpleasant activites and procrastinate horribly. My procrastination makes unpleasant things even worse, because now they are often overdue or out of date or someone else has already taken care of it because they were tired of waiting for me to get around to it.

I’m starting to make lists. I love making lists. What I don’t love is following them. In fact, I’m writing this right now to avoid doing the things on the list I just made.

Current list (in no real order):

• Clean and fuel car
• Research personalized stationary
• Practice handwriting
• Grocery shopping
• Make five phone calls
• Finish thank you notes
• Finish laundry

Of the things on that list, the phone calls is the task that causes me the most stress. My job requires that I make contact with people, and face to face I'm great. Emails, notes, text messages - no problem. Picking up a phone and calling someone who is not expecting me to call causes me so much anxiety that I sometimes get physically ill. This is not good when you run your own business and have to keep in contact with your customers. That's why I need to make myself do it every day. Up until this point I haven't. It's been on my list for almost four months, and has yet to be checked off on any day.

Today, I will check off everything on my list.