#Microblog Monday: I've Got a Little List

"I had all sorts of ideas for next year on the way in this morning," I said.

"Well, I want to hear them while they're still fresh," he assured me.

And of course, by the time he sat down in my office just a few hours later, all of the ideas seemed stale, or wilted, or just plain ... well, half-baked.  I read them anyway, and he made kind approving noises.  Because that's the sort of person he is.

"I made a list last year," I said, "and I did everything on it."

"Really?" he said, laughing.  "Wait, let me see that."  He peered at it over the tops of his glasses, amused.

"That doesn't cover everything I did, though."

"I know it doesn't."  He's still looking at it, my list with tea stains on it, perhaps a little impressed less with the list itself than with the fact that I'd even keep such a document, given that I have almost no paper on my desk.  He's the save-er in our office; I'm the Queen of Purge.  "We should send this in for your performance appraisal."

It occurred to me that even if the list didn't have very important or large things on it, I was impressed, too.  I hadn't realized that I had such power.

I wonder, what would I be capable of doing if I simply put it on my to-do list for next year?

Learn to speak another language?

Go to yoga once a week?

Write a novel?

Does my goal-orientation only apply at work?

Do you have a little list?*

(with apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan, whose Lord High Executioner has a very different sort of list.  I couldn't help it; the song planted itself in my head as soon as I started thinking about lists.  I played Katisha in my 7th grade production of the Mikado, and I haven't yet successfully erased the libretto from my memory.)

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