Lists

I am a list maker.  I do not remember when I started making lists, maybe in junior high or high school, but I know that by the time I started college, I was an inveterate list maker.  And the weird thing is that I get this electric thrill when I can mark something off my list. This sounds strange, I know, but it is what it is.  It helps to motivate me, especially when I have tasks that I really am not excited about doing.

Sometimes, I make my lists very detailed, because it gives me the opportunity to mark more things off the list. For example, instead of listing "clean the bathroom"  I would list: "clean the bathroom sink, clean the toilet, clean the shower, clean the bathroom floor."  And every tick I can make gratifies me. 

I think it is a form of obsessive compulsive disorder. Which I have a touch of.  My OCD traits are not debilitating, but there are many things that I do that are a bit obsessive.  Like double checking that I have closed the windows before I go to work in the morning.  Double checking where I am supposed to go and when while I am traveling.  Making sure I have tickets with me, when I am going some place, and double checking this several times.  Turning back in a parking lot, to make sure I locked my car.

Sometimes, I have to go back home while I am on my way to work, because I am not sure I have done everything I need to do to get ready for work: especially when I have the windows open overnight, or need to remember to turn on the heater or air conditioner.  Or, did I lock the door?  Close the refrigerator? Turn the lights off? Do I know where all the cats are?

There is something else at work here. And that is my lack of mindfulness.  In other words, I do so many things on "auto pilot" that I do not know what I am really doing.  I have really worked hard at being more mindful of how I do my routines, which eliminates some of that second guessing of what I do.  In other words, I can see myself closing the windows, turning on the air conditioning, knowing I locked the doors, before I leave the house.

And, this is weird, too ,but being able to go through those tasks in my mind, and definitively being able to know I completed those tasks, gives me that same electric thrill as when I checked that task off my list.

I am a creature of habit and routine, and I do not like it when my routine is disturbed, although I can be flexible. Part of that routine is to complete my lists.

I make lists at work:  most days, at the end of the day, I make a list of things to do the next day.  During the day, I make lists of things to do that same day, or in the future, for the patients on my caseload.

So, I suspect the reader "gets it" by now: I like lists, and I like marking items off my lists.