Sunday 7 April 2013

What to do, to do

I love a list. In this age of iphones and Blackberries, ready to remind us of every aspect of our lives, a digital to-do list would be most people's first choice. A task can be listed as 'started' 'completed' etc, alarms set so as to ensure nothing is forgotten. Yet I still love the paper list. There's a great deal of satisfaction to be had from physically ticking or crossing things off a list; transferring things from one list to another as the paper becomes full or unreadable. I read once that lists should be arranged with a couple of easily achievable tasks at the beginning, the idea being that it gives the holder a positive 'spur on' for the rest of the day. Of course, that way one could find that one never gets around to the really difficult unpleasant tasks further down the list. It's about balance, and the expert list maker knows just how to balance the easy while ensuring the hard still get done. The other side of that is a couple of weeks ago, the Sunday Times Style mag had an article about procrastination, and how it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Apparently, while we're putting off the important, our imaginations can run riot, leading us to think things we'd perhaps otherwise not. That flash of blinding inspiration that comes while I'm messing about with the easy, putting off the more difficult, mundane tasks - I've yet to have it, but I'm hoping.

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