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Less Worry. More Food.

1/9/2015

 
The refrigerator was bulging. We'd stuffed crab legs into the deli bin; they were a gift from family. Then Ben had come home after breakfast with a friend, bearing goodies from Farmer's Market: a bushel of pears, roasted chickens, three heads of romaine, fishes and loaves, and I think an entire banana tree.

The day before, the fridge had been a food desert.

Oh, I'd been thinking about going to the store. I'd written a list. Researched recipes. Budgeted. Scheduled. Cleaned the kitchen to make way for all that potential food. Boy, was I busy with my visit to the grocer. But I cannot decipher any connection between my raising of all that dust and the transformation of our refrigerator into a cornucopia.

Is this happening with the laundry, too? I fuss and worry and fidget, and then one morning dirty clothes end up in the washer, while my mind is off working on an entirely different problem. Our California vacation. One minute I was saying, "Honey, I'd like to––" and the next minute Kate Guendling was dropping us at the airport. I'm inclined to experiment with this. Strategize less. Let the doing happen when it's ready.

Read more about how my life carries on without me doing the doing (http://dawndowneyblog.com/1/archives/05-2014/1.html)
Dane Zeller link
1/9/2015 02:24:30 am

Down with lists, I say. Where is the list that includes the item "look at list"?

I'll do the laundry when my wife tells me to do it, and not a minute before.

Zen lesson: to be, is to be...on someone else's list.

Dawn Downey link
1/9/2015 03:59:28 am

Dane, I found your list, the one that includes "look at list." Right here in my pocket along with a couple defunct grocery lists from 1985 and a to-do list written on the back of a Howard Johnson's receipt. Umm, do you want it back?

Dane Zeller link
1/10/2015 07:16:12 am

Nah. I'll make note of it.

Liane Dobbins
1/9/2015 09:39:38 am

I once was a list maker,a planner,a to-doer, I never got much done but the writing down of what needed doing. Sigh...
Now I just do whats in front of me and if I fail to see something I pray someone else will get it done.
I am throwing away ALL of my lists. They overwhelm me. Doing doesn't.

Dawn Downey link
1/10/2015 12:32:34 am

Liane, I've always made lists. I don't know where the habit came from. Remember the days of Franklin Planners? There were different sections in the planner for your various lists. Daily, weekly, important, not-so-important. Nowadays I vacillate between list compulsion and doing what's right in front of me. My friend Kate Guendling makes a to-list in the morning, but she's discovered something incredible. She puts the list away and refrains from looking at it all day, then when she pulls it out at the end of the day she discovers that everything on the list has gotten done! I love it! There's no judgment about the list itself, but, like you, she's not overwhelmed by the doing.


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