Releasing the Tyranny of the List: Letting Go into the Present Moment.

Confession: I have a long history of being a habitual list maker. I know there are many others out there who share this same fetish. I generally keep a master list of large over arching things to do such as “passports for the kids” and then smaller lists for the daily tasks that need to be done in service of the master list such as "passport photos”. Some of these items are so non-urgent they remain on the list of things to do for months. When I’m really in full list making mode, daily list can include mundane things such as “walk the dog” and ‘exercise”.  And yes, I have even been guilty of adding an item to the list that I have already done just to see it crossed off. During my periods of most obsessive list making, I will find myself walking by the list and consulting it multiple times per day, especially during any moments between two tasks fretfully thinking: “What else can I get done?” The list itself seems to be preventing me from just being. 

Does this sound familiar to any of you?

What is the point of this list-making habit? I am not going to forget these things. I may as well write “brush teeth” and “eat food” as some of the other things. The absurdity of putting items like this on my list is a dead giveaway that something else is afoot here. The list has become a sort of external crutch or substitute for trusting that the next right thing will arise at the right moment. 

We all know the phenomenon of having a brilliant or important thought and writing it down so that you won’t forget it. What a relief that can be, freeing up mental space to actually focus on the present moment knowing you can return to the important idea later. Like Dumbledore’s Pensieve, the thought or idea can be stored in a safe place (a list) and revisited later. I am still a fan of this type of jotting. What I am talking about is the self regenerative list making that will only lead to another list the next day, like an externalized form of rumination: “call mom” , “vacuum car”, “make apple pie”, “prune tree”. There is no need to write these things down. It is clearly absurd and has actually had the effect of increasing my level of what I have coined FFA (Free Floating Anxiety).

When Covid hit us in March and we were all on lockdown, most everything on both of my lists became irrelevant. I ended up tossing the lists and not making new ones. Please note that I am not referring to grocery lists or appointments on a calendar which are practical and still necessary, at least for me. It turned out that I knew when it was time to go to the grocery store without writing it on a list of things to do. I also knew when it was good time to exercise or walk the dog. If something needed to be done, it became the priority in front of me, and I simply did it. For 4-5 months, I lived without a list of things to do. I flowed from one moment to the next tending to the thing in front of me. I felt like I had more time and fewer things cluttering my thoughts and hanging over my head. I noticed how nice it was not to see lists of tasks sitting on the kitchen counter constantly reminding me how little I had seemingly accomplished each day and how much more there was to do. 

As life with Covid has become a new kind of normal, old patterns have crept back in for many of us. I haven’t been back to the gym or to a restaurant, but a few weeks ago, I started making lists again. I wrote down just a few items at first, but as the weeks went on, many future based ideas of what I thought needed to happen got written down on a list. “Change the hot tub water” (this usually happens in November), “get a Real ID” (this is due by April of 2021), “rake the leaves” (they haven’t finished falling yet). I could feel the return of that frantic, frenetic energy. I wrote lists of things I thought of while at work, ostensibly to get them off my mind so I could focus on work,  I even wrote a list in the car once (only at a long stop light, of course). Pretty soon, I had 3 lists that needed to be cross referenced and collated! I felt less content, less present, less connected to my intuition and more scattered than I had in a long time. 

This has been a powerful insight for me. I am beginning to see how too much list making has become an anxiety management system for me, one that takes me away from the present moment, thereby perpetuating the feeling of anxiety. What began as a clever way to store a thought so that I could redirect my attention to the present moment became an insidious escape from presence. Research tells us that we humans are happier when we are present with whatever it is we are doing, even if it is unpleasant. I am ready to choose a different path. If anxiety is present, better to just acknowledge that anxiety is present. Feel that in my body, offer myself some compassion and kindness while this universally human experience flows through me. 

Then I can ask myself from a place of stillness and presence, what is it I really need to be doing right now?

The last warm October day, sitting by the creek. This is what I needed most!