The Beauty of Planning (Part 2)

I have lists everywhere. I have lists for my lists. I have a list of tasks I have to do at work. I have a list of cards I need to make for peoples' birthdays. I have a list I need to take with me when I go shopping. I have lists of books I want to read.

I love 'em.

Listy list lists. You can never be disorganised if you have a list in your head. I have several, relating to the flat at the moment. I have a list of what furniture we are bringing with us. I have a list of what we need. I even have separate pieces of paper which have written on them what we might need for each room. In my head I have an itinerary of what's going to happen when we pay the deposit and the flat is ours. An itinerary is just a fancy kind of list. It's like the snooty cousin of the list.

Itinerary: Oh so you're just a list are you?
List: Yeah I'm great aren't I? I keep everyone ordered.
Itinerary: Well I don't just keep them ordered, I keep their time ordered. I make them do things at specific tmes. They can't do anything without me. They are lost.
List: I am humbled.

The trouble with lists is that they tend to breed like rabbits. And lo list begat lists. And it was good.

Lists can also make you ever so slightly edgy because it's only upon listing something that you realise how much you have left to do.

This is what's happening with me at the moment. What started as a simple list of things we need has sent me into a spiral of doom as I keep thinking of new things we don't have. These will come upon me at random times of the day. There I will be, busy at work, typing away and I will suddenly yell "CHEESE GRATER" and scrabble about for my list. I wake up from my sleep mumbling about toilet brushes. 'Laundry basket' suddenly pops into my head on the bus home.

It's making me mental. There are so many things you need that you don't think about because you use them most days and they're just....there. Like irons! And hoovers! A garlic press! A door mat! I'm planning a dawn raid on Poundland one day to buy cleaning products (which reminds me, I need to put 'mop' on my list).

By far the craziest list is the one regarding items for the kitchen. There are so. many. things. Storage jars, whisks, knives, fish slices, seives, colandars, roasting pans. My god I'm going to have to stop before I give myself a stroke.

The only thing that's going to make me feel better is if I can start ticking things off my lists.

I'm off to Poundland...