Making a List, Checking it Twice

I am making myself crazy.

Why? How?

Because I am not making a list and checking it twice.  I've surpassed "twice" a long, long time ago. No. I am making a list and checking it forty five gazillion trillion bajillion putraextraillion times. It is madness.

My life is becoming all about the list. My life is the list-  a culmination of all the things I "haven't-gotten-to-yet" but "have-to-get-to-immediately." I need a round tuit, but likely wouldn't have time to use it anyway.

At the bottom of my planbook I leave a little space for said list, where I can record all of the things I have to get done right away (school or non-school related). Each day I can cross about 2-3 things off the list. Each day about 5 new things get added on. So it's constantly like one step forward, two steps back. Which is not the correct ratio, but who has time for mathematical calculations anyway.

Point is, I'm running out of space! The list keeps getting longer and longer, and my planbook isn't getting any bigger folks. Of course if that was the only underlying problem in this whole list situation then I wouldn't be so bad off.

It's all piling up. Yet, if I don't write things down, if I don't add to the list, then I'll probably forget what needs to be done. It's becoming quite the stressful ordeal! Each day I am reminded of the once-popular Alabama song that I used to listen to back in the days when I was a huge country music fan (yes, I was there at one point):

I'm in a hurry to get things done

Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun

All I really gotta do is live and die

But I'm in a hurry and don't know why. 

Is the only solution to my problem to become less balanced? Really? You see, like most beginning teachers I am eager to become a super-teacher, to do my best and make an impression. But unlike many beginning teachers I refuse to let work completely consume my life at the expense of all of the other important things in my life. I work hard, but I've struck a pretty good balance. I don't stay at the school working until 11 o'clock every night. I come home and eat supper with my husband and play with my puppy.  I do work at home sometimes too, but I always incorporate a bit of "me" time in there.

So I just can't help but wonder if the only way to ever conquer my list is to let the scale tip a little. A thought that frustrates me because I know within myself that the less balanced I become, the less happy I'll be. I would be more efficient, but inevitably less effective. 

I'd love nothing more than to burn the stinking list. This list that dictates my life and continually makes me feel as though I'm accomplishing nothing. But until I figure out the best solution, you can find me here, kicking a dead horse- a slave to the list.