The Value of Lists

In the last week my life has become all about lists. 

If you've been following this blog, you know OG and I are moving to Carmel, California soon. To our immense surprise, our Minnesota house sold before officially going on the market, but the closing date of April 15th seemed doable. I thought we'd given ourselves enough time to manage all the details until the ladies who will be running our estate/moving sale told me they need two weeks to set up, price, and advertise. Then they need another week to hold the sale and clean up before the new owners take possession. Somehow, I'd completely failed to consider all that. Now we have to be out of the house and on our way by the end of March.

Eeeek!!!

Our first task was to contact the movers. Next, we stormed through the house separating everything we plan to take from everything going in the sale. That required a daunting number of decisions in a very short time, but we got it done. In order to help segregate the items, we also packed numerous cartons of books and miscellaneous items, leaving the breakables for the packers.

Whew! Now I can take a breath and move on to my list-making. I used the checklist provided by the moving company as a basis for my "to-do in Minnesota" list, and I've started checking things off. In the next few days, I also have to put together a "to-do in California" list. Since our moving time frame has been shortened so drastically, I'll be going out to Carmel alone for a couple of weeks to get things ready while OG stays in Minnesota managing things on this end. One of my tasks is to meet with the contractor who will be handling our massive remodeling project on the new house, so that will require an additional list. I'll then fly home just in time to supervise the packing and the loading of the truck before we set off on a five-day driving adventure across the American West. (More on that to follow.)

I make lists because I have to, and it's not simply a function of advancing age. Lists have always comforted me. As a writer I may spend my time wrapped up in words, but I'm largely a visual creature. I like/need to see jobs spelled out, and I take satisfaction from every item I'm able to cross off a list. Hopefully, with the help of my lists, we'll arrive safely at our destination with everything we intended to bring, including our sanity, intact.

What about you? Do you try to juggle everything in your brain, or are you a list-maker, too?