Pages

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

The Importance of Lists.

I am an inveterate list-maker.  I make lists for all occasions and I put my lists in 'map' order.  That means, when I make a grocery list, I list everything along the layout of the store.  When I make my errands list for weekends, I list things in the most logical driving order.  For really important, one-time things to remember, I use Post-it notes on my front door. For those things that I don't dare forget (turn off hose; unplug electric fence), I use a blackboard. I have made lists since I was a teenager because it was fun and satisfying to put things in order.  Now that I am going in twelve directions at once, I HAVE to make lists or there is no order in my life (well....).  Along with my many lists, I developed the habit of keeping an "Egg Journal".  It's a journal in the most basic, simplistic terms.  For some reason long forgotten, I have been logging in my hens' egg-laying accomplishments since I moved into this house, raised chickens and found my first egg.  It goes back about 4 years and includes the morning outside temperature, date, number of eggs collected that day, and a brief summary of the weather.  Heaven only knows why I started it, but I have stuck with it day after day, week after week.  It has actually been an interesting research tool, in that I can go back 1-2-3-4 years to the day and see what the weather was like.  Every once in a while, there is an additional notation - Lulu died; two broken eggs; forgot to close gate - that can almost always bring me back to that day. 
     What is it about habits, anyway?  Good ones  limp along miserably for a couple of weeks, then go die in a dark, lonely corner.  Bad habits roar into life and stick to me like Gorilla Glue.

5 comments:

melanie said...

Speaking of glue...how's the project chicken?

Anonymous said...

I think this is a fabulous habit. It is simple, but gives you a journal of sorts, about how your hens are doing. Just like farmers of old did.

Mama Pea said...

Are we related? I simply couldn't function without my lists.

Years ago I was one of many contributing writers to a locally published magazine. In one issue, the publisher posed a question to all of us: What would you do if the world stopped for a day? My answer was: Spend it making lists of what I would do when it started back up again.

'Nuf said?

Susan said...

Melanie - GlueGirl aka Elmer is doing extremely well! She polished off all her water and a bowl of feed and was giving me the hairy eyeball for refills this morning. She's got natural light and fresh air, so she is happy.

Stephanie - I think of Thomas Jefferson's farming journals and how we are still referring to them now! Just think: someday thousands of people will be wondering who LuLu was (hahahahaha).

Dear Twin-Separated-at-Birth (MamaPea) - lists are such an ingrained part of me that I make lists of my lists sometimes. One of the very special things about lists, is that you can add something you've already done just so you can cross it off to make yourself feel better!

Mama Pea said...

YES! Yes, I do that . . . put something on my list that wasn't there before but I did it so I write it on my list so I can now cross it off! (Put on list: Learn how to write a grammatically correct sentence.) Why do people look at me funny when I do that?