What Have I Done?

 

A frustrated business man once invited a well known organizational coach to his office for advice. He was frustrated because he felt he wasn’t getting enough done. He told the coach he would write him a check for $10,000 if the coach could tell him just one effective way to organize his life and business. The coach smiled and said to him, “Start writing. The one thing to help you most is to write a detailed list every night before you go to bed of what is most important for you to do tomorrow. You will sleep better because you won’t lie in bed worrying. Tomorrow night  before you make your list for the next day, take time to review your day’s list and cross off everything you got done. Do that day by day. Carry things over from day to day, if you have to. If some item is carried over a long time, maybe it’s something you don’t want to do or don’t have to.” The coach got paid on the spot.

 

When the pandemic closed us all in, our priorities changed. We found things we wanted to do, we couldn’t and things we were going to have to do that we didn’t want to. As things went on last Spring, I kept adding another clipboard to my pile. On each clipboard is a narrow lined yellow paper tablet filled with ink scribbles. I finally stood the clipboards upright together in an old magazine rack. Organized by theme, any project I was called on to do got its own clipboard. I listed the name of the company I was dealing with, the contact person, the purpose of our discussion and any pertinent dates and information. When I had to, I could just pull one out and go for it. 

 

Mentally, I’m not able to move the lists to my cell. The magazine rack was an old one made with a wooden top and bottom held together by wooden spindles. After months of using these clipboards, I picked the rack up to carry it from my back office to the living room. I wanted the clipboard labeled Muscle, things I can’t do by myself. As I picked up the rack, it literally came unglued. Spindles popped out everywhere, up, down, straight out. A few held it all together. I took it to the living room and held it up in front of my grandsons, teenagers there to work. “What shall I do with this?” I asked with a straight face. My eldest grandson took one look at it and said, “I’m not the one who’s going to glue it back together!”

 

“Neither am I,” I said and carried it to the trash can. We salvaged the clipboards and I’m still using them. I started one after a long night when I thought I’d not been getting enough done, sort of like that businessman. I found it this morning as I once again dug through the clipboards. I forgot about making this one. It’s labeled “What Have I Done?”  I had listed three pages of projects I’ve finished in the last year. It was so helpful to read that I’d actually finished something. Little Victories as my friend Sydney used to call them. Look for them in your life.