Our Way Is Okay

Lists.

Love them? Not love them? It depends?

The subject turned to lists.

“I’ll add it to the list!” she says. And laughs.

What’s so funny?

“Once it’s on the list, I promptly ignore it.” We all laughed.

In discussions with colleagues, we get the whole gambit of …

I always use lists. I never use lists. I use lists for X but not for Y. I use digital lists. I use sticky notes. I have one long list. I have multiple lists. I love lists. I cannot stand lists. What was on the list again?

If we ask our friend Google to research lists and productivity, we receive almost as many different ideas, opinions and proven (?) methods as there are people.

If we ask our friend chatGPT they can create us a list of almost anything in milliseconds. (Not overly useful if we promptly ignore it 😉)

Lists will always become part of a conversation around our desire, and challenge, to find effective ways to manage our time, work and self.

There’s no one way.

There’s no right way.

There’s no perfect way.

There is our way.

When our way isn’t working as well as we’d like and we’re struggling to get all the sh…tuff done, we can focus our attention on finding the one magical solution to our problem.

When we realise there isn’t one, we get permission to take what works for us and leave what doesn’t. Without defence, guilt, self-deprecation or shame.

Because it’s okay to be listing/not-listing/kinda-listing in our own effectively ineffective, or ineffectively effective, ways.

Our way is okay, don’t you agree.

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