I'M A COMPULSIVE LIST-MAKER
by Naomi R. Bluestone, M.D.
A FRIEND OF MINE said to me, "You have so many lists, I bet you even keep a 'list' of your lists!" I nodded. It is true that I maintain lists and constantly rearrange not only their substance but their order and nature as well. For me, writing down a chore is almost as good as doing it. In fact, it is often such a satisfactory substitute that the need to actually do the chore vanishes.
I used to maintain lists by content, subdivided into things to fix, things to buy, people to call, letters to write. I soon found that this grouping failed to take into account the places in which these functions were to be performed. So I regrouped my lists into things to do around the house, at the office, on Montague Street (my local shopping area). This, of course, meant setting up a cross-reference indexing system--"buy lampshade, see Montague Street".
There is always some conflict in my mind over whether to use pen or pencil. Notations made in pencil can be easily erased, leaving room for new entries without disturbing the symmetry. However, they may be 'too' quickly erased in erroneous anticipation of completion and, thus, lost to recall forever. Notations made in ink, however, can be blotted out only with wild slashes of a felt-tip pen, leaving angry residues on still usable sheets. The inevitable messiness of the paper leads to decisions to start afresh, which gives rise to large numbers of unbound sheets of paper with a tendency to wander.
Perhaps the hardest decision of all is whether to maintain flexibility with blank note-and-tear pads or to incorporate all entries in a notebook. And if so, should this be a ring binder, where sheets can be easily replaced (and easily lost), or a permanently bound blank book? My compromise had been a bound spiral volume covered in leftover red-and-white-checked shelf paper and clearly marked "Personal."
I also find it helpful to supplement my bound lists with loose sheet of paper such as grocery lists. I am free, then, to take with me to the supermarket only the day's list. However, my trusty notebook accompanies me to the office, where I can
browse through it at will when the substance of my day starts to pall or while waiting for secretaries to put through their bosses who have telephoned me. In case the volume should be lost, I keep a duplicate, with all entries, locked in my desk at home. (For income-tax purposes, I keep old lists for ten years, along with my checks, receipts and calendars. No one has ever asked
to see them, but someday I may get lucky!)
It is important to make entries the moment they come to mind;for, like pieces of inspiration, they may not recur. This includes ideas that come during sleep. For this reason, I keep my lists by my bedside, along with my book of dreams.(I do not keep lists of dreams, since these are not, technically, things to do.) It is also important not to rank items in terms of importance but to record them indiscriminately as they occur. This morning, I entered the following: CCsew waistband blue slacks dammit, outline Public Law 93-41 and buy onions!!!DD (Note that adjectives and punctuation marks can be effectively utilized to delineate priorities.)
Another helpful device is to break down vague classifications into the most concrete subdivisions possible. I used to write clean closets. Now I prepare a meticulous list of clothes to be given away, thrown away, put away, fixed--and so forth,ad infinitum.
On occasion I will write down something that has to be done 'after' I have done it, only to have the pleasure of immediately crossing it off the list. In any event, acknowledging that an
item has to be "entered" can be a definitive gesture in itself. For example, clean stove(which I have never done) has been on my list since six years before I moved to my present apartment two years ago. The stove always needs cleaning, so I preserve this entry around which to build if my list gets skimpy. I striveto maintain a hefty list, since this increases my sense of
self- worth and importance. I list, therefore I am.
The sum of all the items on my various lists today totals 63, an all-time high. It is an amazing array, ranging from chop down tree to fix stethoscope. Now such things could easily seem like trivia to another person, but each item is precious to me, a piece of myself.
For example, the 'go to watchmaker'. That has a whole personal story to it. You see, I broke one watch, then another, and then I broke the strap on the watch belonging to the fellow next door, and now I suspend it from a long piece of string
around my neck and under my blouse where it makes a bulge. I have to go to the ladies' room to tell the time. (This particular item will be speedily checked off my list).
A number of admirers, and a handful of weirdos who consider my preoccupation a bit bizarre, have asked me when I developed my interest in recording functional data. Actually, there was a precipitating incident, which occurred on the wards when I was a house officer. A young Portuguese sailor was admitted to the hospital with an acute ulcer and not even a defensive knowledge of English. I placed him on a diet that entitled him to cream garnished with atropine sprinkles and not much else.
His improvement was remarkable, and I forgot all about him until I ran into the fellow a few months later while rotating through Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. His skin was alabaster, his pupils had completely absorbed his irises, and his body has swollen. The story, as I pieced it together, was that after several weeks of crying "faminto", he had suffered a bilateral spastic paralysis of the masseter (lower jaw muscle). His chart was reviewed, and it was recognized that someone (me) had forgotten to change the diet order. With solid food and rehab he made an uneventful recovery.
I was traumatized by my thoughtlessness. I vowed I would always carry a checklist of sample orders so that I would be equippe at all times to order whatever a patient's comfort might demand. From organizing my doctor's list to maximize its effectiveness and minimize its tyranny, I graduated to organizing the rest of my life.
Now I fancy that life itself is fueled by lists--to flicker out only when I can find no more entries to make.(#)
SIMPLIFY! SIMPLIFY! by Thoreau
GOING HOME by Hamill
THE ART OF PAYING A COMPLIMENT by Adams
PUT YOUR BEST VOICE FORWARD by Price
THAT VITAL SPARK--HOPE by Whitman
BUT WHAT USE IS IT? by Asimov
NO WONDER by Sangster
MAKE AN APPOINTMENT WITH YOURSELF by Finkel
HEARING IS A WAY OF TOUCHING by Lagemann
THE SPECIAL JOY OF SUPER-SLOW READING by Piddington
YOU'RE SMARTER THAN YOU THINK by Lynch
HOW TO SELL AN IDEA by Wheeler
HOW TO RELAX by Kennedy
THE ONE SURE WAY TO HAPPINESS by Callwood
TOO MUCH SEX, TOO LITTLE JOY by May
HOW TO BE A BETTER PARENT by Homan
FIVE WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR LUCK by Gunther
THERE IS SAFE WAY TO DRINK by Chafetz
TAKE MUSIC INSTEAD OF A MILTOWN by Marek
VIEW FEATURE RECIPE
ENTER CUISINE CORNER
Under construction but accessible too.
(Recommended)
ENTER CHILDREN'S ROOM
Specially adapted short stories for young people of all ages, from all over the world, by Amy Friedman.
(Very good fables.)
ASCEND TO THIRD FLOOR
Heavy stuff that were lifted by several decades to its present location, ZDS' third floor.
You can't find writers who can still keep their distance from their topics like these two.
(Highly recommended for the philosophical. Not too easy to digest in one sitting. Anyway, it's better than tons of history and anthropology books.)
DESCEND TO FIRST FLOOR
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