All Things Woompty

I am notorious for having giant long to-do lists. At work I have these hardbound record books where I keep all of my notes, and every day I write a new to-do list with anywhere from 10 to 25 things listed on there to get done in one day. (I never finish them all.) I have a notebook that lives in my purse where I jot down lists of things I need to get done at home. I send emails with lists of things to do to Kevin so I can make sure that he gets his things done.

So with all my compulsive list making, you’d think I would love the whole resolution schtick. It’s a list! Of things to do! Except I hate it, because I fail at long term projects. I am a procrastinator to the extreme, a person who always waited until the last minute to do schoolwork. (True story: One day at lunch my freshman year in college, some friends tried to get me to go shopping with them. I told them I couldn’t because I needed to write a paper. “When’s it due?” they asked, “It can wait!” But no, it couldn’t because it was due at 3 that afternoon. I got a B+) So you see where telling myself in January that I will do something before December becomes a problem.

I am therfore NOT making resolutions this year. Instead, I’ve decided to make small, monthly to-do lists. And by small I mean 3-5 things. I do have an overall goal guiding all of this (Live well, be happpy, stay healthy), but the two main areas I want to improve are my diet/fitness situations and my financial situation. So every month, there will be 1 diet/fitness to-do, 1 financial to-do and 1-3 general life to-dos.

January To-Dos 2010:

1. Diet/Fitness: Stop drinking soda. I somehow slipped back into drinking Diet Coke like it was water and that needs to stop tout suite.
2. Financial: Create year-long budget spreadsheet. I used to do this every December to keep track of our paychecks and plan out what bills will be paid when. I stopped and now things are A MESS.
3. General Life: Walk Sophie at least 3x/week. Even though she’s little and really tends to spend most of her time sleeping, she needs to get out more. She’s crazy when she doesn’t get enough exercise, and now that Laura and her pugs are gone she’s not getting her weekly 12-hour “run around like a crazy thing” sessions.
4. General Life: Cook at home 3x/week and eat out at lunch no more than 1x/week. Gotta get our nutrition back on track at home; we can survive on cookies anymore. Plus, eating out is expensive.

I’ve also made a commitment to Sheila (she of the insane yet awesome workouts) that I will not miss more than 2 classes a month until at least August. And I made a commitment to Kevin to keep Saturdays open so that he and I can spend them together as often as possible.

So we’ll see just how much of it gets done. But I have high hopes because look how short that list is!