The Tyranny of the To-Do List

Since the World Championships the pipe band season has been on another break (which comes to an end this weekend). As a consequence of this, the big theme of August has, of course, been the unpacking of our possessions in the new house. It's been going very well, but there's a lot of it to do!

However, I made a fairly crucial mistake last week: I took the time to expand my list of "people to notify" into a more general to-do list for things for the new house.

The chief reason that this was a mistake should be obvious: having put together a list of things to do, the pressure is now on to actually do them!

Naturally, the items on the list have several intersecting qualities: some of them are quick and easy, some of them are much longer-term and harder to achieve; some of them are actually fairly enjoyable, and some much less so; and some are much higher-priority than others. (Indeed, some of them have fairly fixed deadlines, while others need to be done... whenever.)

As was inevitable, of course, the highest-priority items are of course the longest, hardest to achieve, and least enjoyable!

I've been trying to console myself with the thought that progress is being made and the list is now moving in the right direction. And also with the obvious thought that the list of tasks hasn't actually changed; it's just that it's now written down. Somehow, though, that helps less than you'd think it should!