I've Got a Theory: The List

I'll admit: I'm a list-maker. I make lists for everything. Lists cover my desk, my kitchen counters, my fridge. I kind of make them often. In fact, a couple of days ago, my son sat next to me while I had my blog open, and he pointed to that About Me paragraph over there on the right and said, "You should probably change that line that says 'I make lists as often as I eat lunch.' It makes it sound like you eat lunch ALL THE TIME."

But lists are a good thing! Really. I even have a theory about them.

You see, in your brain you have spots to hold a items in a list. The average person has six slots. Really incredible people have ten. A select few have a freakishly large number. (In your main To-Do list. You've got lots of other lists in your brain, too. They look remarkably similar to your main To-Do list.) Your list stuff fills those slots.

But once your list spots are full, if you add another thing anyway, it just flops down on top of the first thing in your list.

And these things are heavy! One spot can definitely NOT hold two things. So it breaks the slot, and the stuff from that list breaks through to the next line... and the next line... and the next line...

Until all the lines are broken, and the list is all free-floating in your brain. That's what causes overwhelmed, stressed-out feelings to surface. (Unless you're one of the few that thinks it looks like confetti, and then your brain thinks, PARTY!)

I know what you're thinking. Sometimes I just have TOO MANY things in my list! Oh, no! What do I do to keep it from breaking apart?! (Or something entirely less dramatic.)

The answer's easy. Transfer the things in your brain list to paper lists, and it thereby frees up brain lists. Your brain's happy. The people around you are happy. All is well with the world.

Oh! But it does remind me of a quote!

“I write down everything I want to remember. That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down, I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on.”
~Beryl Pfizer

Just keep telling yourself that all is well with the world, and you'll be alright. But tell me: Are you a list maker?



P.S. If you want to enter the DIVERGENT giveaway and haven't yet, you still have until tomorrow night!