INSEAD to do lists...

I admire, and to some extent, am envious of those who are "naturally" organised. They get up in the morning and know what they are going to do, when they are going to do it and how they are going to do it. They possess a permanent mental to do list with a click for more details option built in. It would be nice if I could count myself as falling within this category. Unfortunately I cannot.

I like to think I am organised, and to be fair, at work, I know what is going on. Yes there are days when it all goes out the window, but even then I seem (luckily?) not to miss anything too important (please excuse me while I touch wood and try to convince fate that I am not, in fact, tempting it to prove me wrong). But this is more down to being trained by and working alongside highly talented, driven individuals, whom drilled into me what a "good professional" should aspire to. So while I do have the occasional (daily) lapse in the office, overall, I've got away with it.

My private life is more akin to organisation deriving from chaos theory. I want to be organised. I know its important to be organised. but when I get home I am too lazy to be organised. This means that letters lie in a drawer for weeks, deadlines are missed (thank God for direct debit for credit cards), lottery tickets not checked for so long that you can no longer claim a prize (fortunately not costly yet), enough paper is hoarded to stop acres of Amazonian rain forest being destroyed, expensive flights and hotels are the only option as all cheap options are gone because it is being done in a rush with a few days to go...... I'm sure you get the idea.

I normally get through this by sitting down every month or so and, once I've stopped castigating myself for being so stupid again, sort through everything, dumping or filing papers and writing a to do list. I then action the to do list.

However, on getting in to INSEAD I decided to set a new precedent for my private life and do a to do list at the beginning. The result? Surprisingly, I am doing ok! Trust me this is a wonderful surprise for me - and long may it continue. I find that a large chunk of important INSEAD admission procedures have been completed, while other minor issues (such as getting loans to fund this 12 month "jolly") are also progressing - again I'm hoping fate is not being tempted by the above.

Of course this does not mean that all is light and rosy in my nest. I am finding that my lack of motivation and effort at work ( i.e. zero) is slipping into my private life, such that items on the to do list are looked at 6 pm in the evening i.e. well after office hours so that a number of the items cannot be dealt with. I also spend an inordinate amount of time on the internet and the more time spent reading pointless, enjoyable rubbish*, the more my motivation and will power drain out of me. Call it an internet induced vegetative state.

I deal with this by re-visiting my to do list frequently in order to scare myself into doing something about the aforementioned list. So far this is working - although I really need to get cracking on my third language revision and I need to submit the language declaration form and...


"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."

Immanuel Kant



*(why did I read the entire wikipedia entry about the Hindu Elephant god and summaries of all the "Alias" episodes when I've never watched the programme?)