Reasonable expectations? Do we do that around here?

[mrissa]

I am looking at my to-do list for the rest of the week. It looks...oh, what's the word...tip of my tongue, you know, thingy...

...possible.

Huh.

I mean, there's the line item that's there just in case: the list of people I would like to arrange to hang out with if we have a spare moment, and, if relevant, what we would be arranging to do. That's a long enough line item that I'm not going to get it done this week, even if we do figure out Dad's birthday plans and even though we do have the bits of arrival/departure for 4th St. that we have committed to handling. (I think. I'm almost sure. We have committed to very little in the way of airport runs at this point.) So anyway: social line item not likely to be fully accomplished by Saturday midnight.

But the rest of it: this looks reasonable. It looks workable. It looks like it will allow me to finish this week and move on to next week.

And I have the automatic reaction, No, that can't be right.

But I have to remember why I have my to-do lists on a weekly scale: in part so I don't forget to do stuff that needs doing, sure, but in part so that I understand that I do not have to do everything at once. Every once in awhile the list sort of metastasizes and I have a list for one week that's about three weeks' worth of stuff. That doesn't work. I don't magically get handed two more weeks' worth of time when that happens. Some of the stuff on a list that long will get moved to the next week's list, and the next; that's how it works. So the goal is to keep from forgetting stuff that needs remembering, but also to keep from piling on the expectation that I will find 72 hours in every day.

I think I've done that this week.

Wow.

Comments

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

You are an inspiration. I don't remember the last time my to-do list was done, but I think it was 1996.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Nonono. I have a to-do list that stretches out to the horizon.

But the components of it designated for this week in particular? Might well get done.

[reveritas.livejournal.com]

That's what I mean, sorry for the shorthand :) Even the shortened-for-time versions never get even close to done. I'm doing something wrong either in the list-making or the thing-accomplishing.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

For me I'm pretty sure it's the list-making. Obviously I have some weeks where I don't get as much done as I ought, but often I suspect I'm bad at estimating how long it's going to take me to finish a particular story or what have you.

(And I'm not even sure if I should blame myself at all for not being better at guessing that, because sometimes it will take me forever and sometimes not long at all, and sometimes a story has composted enough to be fertile, as it were. Still, it would be useful to be better at these estimates.)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

That always weirds me out, too.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

That's remarkably similar to my own attitude towards to-do lists. Although I've discovered that I respond well to having a grid on which I can mark progress toward long-term goals on a daily basis. Shiny gold stars help, too.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

Shiny gold stars are almost always good.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

You do reasonable expectations quite a lot. For other people.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I don't seem to have the trick of thinking of myself as an other people, though, especially the bit where you assess their abilities realistically.

[themagdalen.livejournal.com]

I seem to have put the rest of it on MY list for this week.
It's not going to happen, though, so you can totally have it back next week. It won't even be scuffed.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Gee, thanks....

[mkille.livejournal.com]

Reasonable and possible, yay!

[pameladean]

Yay! Now to bottle that and sell it on the internet.

Well, maybe not.

I only get even as far as the listing stage when I'm totally overwhelmed.

P.