Hi.  My name is Dauna; and I am a listaholic.   I make lists to organize my days.  That’s what I tell the world.  Frequently, however, I get carried away.  I’ve been known to write two or three things I’ve already done that day on the top of my list because I want “credit for them.”  Scrapbookers, who plan their vacations around the photo opportunities their destinations will provide, will understand this point of view.  It’s a disease.

I love scratching things off my list after I complete them.  It makes me feel powerful, valuable, and efficient… like Wonder Woman with a pen and a much bigger costume.

“What did you do today, honey?”

“Look, here’s my list.  See how looooong it is.”

Any time there is an article in a magazine about making lists I read it. Let’s be honest, I could write these articles.  I can visualize the list of bullets I could include in my article.  It would be a beautiful list about making lists. One wonderful suggestion they always write in these articles is to do the thing you dread the most, FIRST.  Great advice, but hard to execute.

For the past three days I have had the same most dreaded item (make a call about my health benefits) on my list.  Do you know how upsetting it is to have the same top dread on my list for three days in a row?  Paralyzing.  Failure is having everything crossed off your list at the end of the day while the one most distasteful item glares back at you.   Each day it peers back at you the stress builds.  It’s enough to give a listaholic nightmares.

I’m proud to announce I called about my health benefits today.  Ahhh.  What a relief.  (There’s a reason I didn’t write this article yesterday).  Tomorrow my list will be fresh.  No festering reruns.  That is really fortunate because with Thanksgiving only a week away my lists seem to be consuming steroids while I’m not looking.

But my conscience won’t be clear until I make one more confession.  What I’m writing now is my blog for tomorrow.  I will save it overnight.  When I get up tomorrow the first thing on my list will be “Write and post blog entry.”  I’ll hit one button and then cross it immediately off my list. Tomorrow is going to be a great day.