The Full Suburban: Making a list within a list within a list? Check!
Always looking for ways to be a better dentist and small-business owner, my husband usually has at least a book or two on his nightstand that delves into ways to improve himself and his business.
You know these books. They have titles like “Maximizing Your Business Know-How: 12 Ways to Be a Better Boss in 100 Days or Less” and “120 Conversation Starters for When Your Patients Have 5 Instruments and Your Entire Hand in Their Mouth.”
The most recent book that he has been reading is titled “The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.” The back cover says the book is about “what the simple idea of the checklist reveals about the complexity of our lives and how we can deal with it.”
I was extremely gratified to see such an idea getting its due attention because I am definitely a checklist kind of person. If you were to come into my kitchen right this moment, I would hand you a glass of ice water and offer you a chocolate chip cookie (unless I’d already eaten all of them – sorry).
And then you would glance over at the desk area next to my oven and see at least three neon yellow sticky notes scrawled with items on my to-do list. I write down everything that needs doing, from the most mundane (clean out the vacuum filter) to things that should be muscle memory by now but still require reminding (like writing this column every week).
There have been times that the sticky notes have lost their stick and fluttered to the ground, and when I found them missing, I felt as if the Earth had actually been thrown off its axis. It’s as if my arm has been amputated when I don’t have a list to check and cross off.
I don’t know what to do, I constantly feel like I’m forgetting something, and I’m a minor disaster until someone gently points out, “Uh, Mom, it’s just there under the kitchen stool,” and everything is right in the world again.
Right now, my sticky notes are filled with items related to our upcoming trip to Disney World. Yes, you heard that right, we are braving the airports, rental cars and crowded theme parks so we can make good on a trip we promised our kids a year ago and were unable to take because the world shut down.
Our initial plan was to go to Disneyland. We waited and waited for the world to right itself, but it obviously never did, and Disneyland is still closed to this day. But Disney World, now that’s a different story! Florida is a veritable Wild West in this brave new world we find ourselves, and we are taking our chances and going for it, coronavirus be darned.
My head is exploding with the number of details that are necessary to make a trip of this magnitude happen for our family of eight. As you can imagine, my checklists have been kicked into high gear. First, I started with one list. Then it became a list within a list.
Now, at T-minus 18 hours before we board the plane, I have a list within a list within a list, and a sub-checklist on top of that. It’s not exactly organized – more of a stream-of-consciousness sort of thing – but its presence makes me feel better and allows me to sleep at night knowing I’m not forgetting anything. Or am I???
My list within a list within a list looks something like this: order groceries to pick up on our way from the airport to the hotel. Bring masks. Double masks. OK, maybe triple just in case. Don’t forget the tickets. Bring shorts and sandals. And a sweatshirt.
Maybe ponchos and lots of sunscreen and possibly a sled. Ask the neighbors to bring in the trash can after trash day. Buy cat food. Stop the mail. Hold the newspaper. Excuse the kids from school. And on and on and on.
When we get home, I’m going to throw away all the lists and write down one final to-do item: get a massage. I have a feeling I’m going to need it.
Julia Ditto shares her life with her husband, six children and a random menagerie of farm animals in Spokane Valley. She can be reached at dittojulia@gmail.com.