Happy New Year and To do's!

I am a total organization geek! I love things in their place. My day planner has had 2011 in it since November. I have a label maker and I am not afraid to use it. I can honestly embrace the words anal, perfectionist and life plan. Structure is my friend and I love it.

Thus January is great, in my world. Full of resolutions and organizational bins on every corner. Time to get all that you want out of life in a nice little to-do list package. This is the year to make it happen, I will organize the world and beyond.

You may start to notice that I have the zeal of seven mom's on a quad shots. And in my zeal my lists, resolutions and expectations of myself can get very out of control. Then with all the pressure, and everything else on my plate I end up laying on the couch in the fetal position with a nasty cold feeling very overwhelmed.

From my couch of confusion today I did an exercise that I had read about but never tried:

Step 1) You write down everything that you need or want to do in the day, make your list as fast as possible.

Step 2) Imagine this is the last day of your life, what would you do on your list?

Step 3) Now imagine you've got six months to live, what would you do on your list?

Step 4) What did you learn?

Well, step one was a bit scary. I do love my tasks and lists. I whipped out twenty tasks on the list in a matter of a minute or so. Step two wasn't too hard for me either, a bit dramatic and extreme (both things that I tend to be at times too). Boy that narrowed the list down to two things:

1) Play with Kate
2) Transfer money

Then I did step 3, and there was a few more things on the list. Exercise, send out a letter but really not much else. Finally was step four, what did I learn? It was straight forward. When I stop and think, my priorities and most do's really can become clear. It took a lot of pressure of me too. I mean I'll admit I did more today than transfer money and play with Kate. But, I just kept thinking in my head if that was all I got done today then I succeeded in doing what was important.

Of course I did have a really good time playing with Kate!