Aging with Grace

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.

A.A.Milne

I confess to being a note maker. I keep a daily planner and looking at it is one of the first things I do in the morning. I tried keeping it on my desktop or phone. It just doesn’t work for me. I want to be able to cross things off and use whiteout when I’ve changed my mind. My husband was amazed that I buy whiteout. He thought it went the way of manual typewriters.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed about planning anything, whether it’s a trip, a party or a decision, I feel I have more control once I can see it written down. It does help that I’m a visual person. It’s one of the reason that I’ve never been into audio books. Have you ever done the exercise where the leader holds up three fingers and says two? When asked the number, I’m always the one that thinks it was three.

Organizing plans for the Holidays made me think of the process of making lists. I couldn’t imagine keeping it all straight without writing it down. I’m happy they still taught handwriting when I was in school. There is something about actually putting a pen to paper. For me, it’s more satisfying than typing on a keyboard. Ultimately, it’s the list and not how it is achieved that matters, I guess.