I read a scary headline today at a website I half-heartedly follow. It went like this: News Flash – To-Do List Fans are Closet Procrastinators. The first point is that this is certainly no news flash for me, and I’m not even a closet procrastinator – I think I’ve made it quite clear to many (and especially on this blog) that my procrastinating is a highly-developed skill. And yes, my obsession with to-do lists is linked to this.

So what can I learn from this non-news-flash? Well, as they quite rightly point out, sometimes to-do lists become long and un-do-able, making you feel overwhelmed and unlikely to do anything at all. I’m sometimes guilty of this and sadly, one of the first things to go when I can’t keep my list under control is my fiction writing. (But the first of all is the housework!). It’s a reminder not to make my to-do lists unmanageable, and to be aware that when a list gets overwhelming I should stop and do something about it. Rewrite it, prioritise it, and be nice to the fiction-writing side of it.

As for the housework … well, some things just don’t need to be on a list, do they?