lists of lists

This blog has turned into a place for me to confess all of my funny quirks and I have another one for you today. I love making lists. It doesn't matter what kind of list it is. I especially like:

• to-do lists
• grocery lists
• lists of fun activities
• lists of people for events etc.
• Christmas shopping lists (I just barely started deciding what to get people this year--I'm way behind schedule!)
• and believe it or not, lists of lists

You can really tell what kind of list it is by what kind of paper it is on. I have this little, old, battered notebook that goes everywhere with me where I write all of my unimportant lists. I have another larger, nicer notebook that I'm supposed to write notes in for school (I hate taking notes in class so I don't really use it for class notes very often) where the important lists go. The most important lists go on clean, crisp, college ruled, loose leaf notebook paper. Luckily I have several packages of the perfect paper that will hopefully last me forever. It has to be done with a mechanical pencil or at least a very sharp pencil in small, neat handwriting. That is what makes the very best list.

I got thinking about all of this because I have let things in my life get a little out of control. I only got a little bit of sleep last night because I had so much homework to catch up on. I haven't been very good at planning out my time or prioritizing the most important things for the past week so today I decided that I needed to get things organized. When I pulled out a sheet of my special notebook paper I knew that I meant business.

As I started making my list of ways to get my life running smoothly I came up with so many things that I need to do. As the list got longer and longer (I am very good at making LONG lists...) I started to feel kind of overwhelmed and inadequate. Then I realized that there are a few simple things I can do to fix all of the little problems on my list. It reminded me of an object lesson from my high school seminary class where there is a jar with some big rocks and some sand. If you put the sand in first there is no way to get all of the rocks to fit. But if you put the rocks in first all of the sand falls into its place and everything is able to fit in the jar. Basically the lesson is that as long as you put the big important things first all of the little things will fall into place and you will be able to fit everything in your life. It's funny that no matter how many times I apply that lesson in different situations I keep finding new places to use the same principle.

Well...I think that is probably enough rambling for one day. Yep.