No sooner do I get home from Ohio, it seems, but it’s nearly time for me to go back to school: another example of time slipping out of my fingertips.
In one sense, I’ve already been back to school for more than a week. My new online term started last Monday, so two classes of students and I are well into the second of our eight weeks together. But for me, “back to school” refers to face-to-face classes, and those resume next week. In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out where half of December and January have already gone. What happened to the long winter break I’d looked forward to during a busier-than-usual fall semester?
Time has a way of slipping away regardless of the traps and snares I set in its path. Yesterday I sat down with my Book of Lists–the notebook I use to organize teaching and other mundane tasks one to-do list at a time–and made the first set of lists for the new semester. For each day, a page; on each page, a list. Today, tomorrow, and the day after: here are the tasks, chores, and errands I have to do between now and then.
I have almost an entire book filled with such lists, and time slips away still. Do you know how many times I’ve lamented in occasional scribbled journal entries (some kept in the Book of Lists, and others elsewhere) about how I need to “tame time” through more efficient list-making, scheduling, and other time-management techniques? Despite all my organizational tips and tools, time refuses to slow for me. No matter how many times I make my lists and check them twice, time still continues to fly.
Time, I’ve decided, is a wily creature that delights in wriggling from our grasp, creeping away into any tangle or thicket where we with our calendars, to-do lists, and time-lines cannot follow. Yesterday as I made yet another set of lists and noticed how my current Book of Lists is nearly full, I wondered whether I should keep it once I’ve moved onto its successor. I keep my journals–I have a portion of my bookshelf where they stand numbered and dated as they keep the time written within their leaves. How much more indicative of my days, I thought, is each day’s to-do list with its assortment of tasks Done and Still Undone?
They say Saint Peter stands at heaven’s gate with the Book of Life, a list he checks for the souls of the saved, their names appearing like a entries in a maitre d’s reservation book. Isn’t Saint Peter’s book merely a mythic version of my own Book of Lists, a whole lot of lives chronicled in his while mine keeps track of merely one? Time can’t be tamed, but it can be tracked, noted with each line-item like a snow-stamped footstep. Where have my days gone, and what (if anything) did I accomplish with them? Only the Book of Lists knows, if I dare page back and double-check the checked.
The second photo in this entry is intended as a visual reminder that even in the snowy wintertime, furniture sometimes chooses to go wild.
Hoarded Ordinaries 
Jan 17, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Jeez, no, I wouldn’t want those on my bookshelf!
I make lists, but I delight in tearing them up and throwing them in the paper recycling bin when every item is done 🙂
or so overdue it’s no longer relevant 😦
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Jan 17, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Yes, burning it all would probably be the sane thing to do…and I agree with you when it comes to lists on paper.
But I should hasten to add that the Book of Lists has other stuff, too: really, it’s a mess. 😉 It has lists and random notes I write to myself. If I’m driving somewhere new, I jot down the directions, or phone numbers, or addresses.
And there are occasional journal entries of the kind I keep in my “real” journal, ones written in response to timed prompts in my writing classes, or when I find myself away from my “real” journal, or whatever.
So the Book of Lists isn’t just lists…but mostly, it is.
It just struck me that my journal only offers a slice of life when I have time to write, but the Book of Lists shows what I was “really” doing (or not doing!) when I didn’t.
I guess it’s like the various sources historians scour to understand what life was like during a particular time period. You can consider the Big Documents of the time (peace treaties, the letters and personal papers of leaders, great books, etc) to understand the politics and “important” social movements of the day. Or you can read a housekeeper’s ledger book to understand what common folks really ate, what their kids wore, etc.
I guess my Book of Lists contains that latter kind of history & thus holds a certain nostalgia for me (which is completely anal retentive, I know!) 🙂
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Jan 17, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Y’know, as a compulsive buyer (and life-long lover) of stationery and journals–I clicked over the bookshelf post you linked–as well as a hyperactive list-maker, this stood out at me:
“Time can’t be tamed, but it can be tracked, noted with each line-item like a snow-stamped footstep. Where have my days gone, and what (if anything) did I accomplish with them?”
I’ve had to-do lists like yours trying to tame Time for me for about four months, mostly “this page translated, this many characters memorized, this chant reviewed, this many mantras” etc., and like you lamented frequently that either the vagaries of the day or my own vagaries of inclination fail to Keep The Schedule. In the end, I’ve given up: what gets done, gets done! The list’s a suggestion, not a rule; a reminder, but not a fore-gone conclusion.
It’s interesting to note that I’m not the only one who uses multiple notebooks for Life & Writing. I have a “day-book” that’s officially for appointments, odd contact information, that day or week’s list, but usually ends up being a place where I keep scribbled poems, observations, and dream records written on the go. I called it “the day-book” because unlike my 8 by 11.5″ Moleskine (received as a gift; I normally favor the black ones you also use) didn’t fit comfortably in my pocket. Now I have a Moleskine that’ll fit in my pocket, but I like the notion of a “day-book” that keeps Time in both linear and more creative fashion side by side. On top of all this is the poetry notebook and my reader’s journal (for book quotes)…and of course, the boundaries between them all keep blurring!
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year’s, and (on Korean time) Happy Buddha’s Birthday!
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Jan 18, 2008 at 2:23 pm
Throw all the lists away. The only time you have is the moment you are actually in.
Happy new year.
Teresa
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Jan 18, 2008 at 7:49 pm
I’ve tried on occasion to sort back through what was happening in my life at a particular time (eg, some important astro transit) and I’ve realized that either my journals from the time are gone or missing content. But I’ve kept my slim Daytimers used for work, but which also have a few social events noted on the calendars and those have been fairly helpful in locating my memory to what was generally happening in my life at that time. I’m a bad journaler lately, the blog taking the place of it. The blog has a wealth of such detail, but should it vanish into the ether I’ll be back to saved daytimer-like pages I always keep.
Love the found furniture. Is it better stuff Newton than out in Keene, left by college students?
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Jan 19, 2008 at 9:19 am
What is all that white stuff?
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Jan 19, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Hi Lorianne-
I enjoy your blog.
Have you heard of Sasha Cagen’s To-Do-List book & blog? It was featured on NPR & I was amazed to learn how many other folks there are like me who treasure their lists…
http://www.todolistblog.blogspot.com/
Andrea
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Jan 23, 2008 at 6:45 am
Soen Joon, it’s always so wonderful to “see” you here. I, as always, owe you a letter: that’s one of the things that keeps getting swept from my to-do list. I allow myself a huge amount of slack with my lists: they’re an ideal representation of what I’d “love” to accomplish, but on any given day I get to only part of what I’d aimed for. But part of the value of list-making, I think, is in learning how to prioritize. There are some things on your list that you absolutely must do, and there are other things you can let slide. Learning how to tell the difference is, in my opinion, the biggest challenge.
Teresa, you’re right about this moment being the only one we have…and yet, even the most present-minded Buddhist keeps old photos, reads old books, and studies the lessons of history. Living in the present doesn’t mean throwing away the past; it means simply doing whatever you’re doing from moment to moment, even if “whatever you’re doing” involves re-visiting the past.
Leslee, I used to use Daytimers myself, but they only had enough room for the basics of my schedule (i.e. what classes I taught at which institution each day vs. the various things I had to do because of those various classes). So whereas I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to go back & check a Daytimer, I do go back & check notebooks. That’s where my “real stuff” is.
And yes, the feral furniture in Newton is definitely nicer than the stuff that Keene college kids get rid of. And in Newton, the nicer stuff doesn’t last long: someone claimed that chair the day after I took a picture of it.
Andrea, I’m familiar with Sasha Cagen from the quirkyalone movement, but I’ve not spent much time reading her To-Do list blog. I think I’ll click on over…
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