fizz & fuzz: Listing and Credit..

So, listing. Yes, I'm posting about listing. And credit (not the bank kind, the giving kind).

Annnnnnnd go:
So, I'm all about giving credit: you know, the kind of credit where credit is due type of stuff. So, telling people when they've done a great job, or tried really hard, or blew my mind, if my work's been inspired by someone else's, if someone's helped with something, or if I figured out a roadblock by talking it out with something (etc etc this list goes on and on). Most people roll this way, and I think it's awesome. It's awesome anywhere, and I think especially awesome and needed in the creative fields where so many lines can be blurry. Essentially - it just makes for good community and I'm all about community.

The one type of credit I have a hard time giving however, is to myself. Rarely ever do I feel at the end of the day that I've done enough. This has led to me listing: I make crazy lists all the time of all the things I want to get done. This can range from the necessary (have a shower, drink tea), to the mundane (fold laundry, hang laundry), to my creative pursuits (research quilts 1 hour, cut patterns), and the ridiculous (smarten up, get life in order [and yes, both of these phrases make it my lists fairly often]). I feel good when I cross things off, but how do I feel when not everything gets crossed off (which never happens)? Not that great.

After telling an advisor last semester that I was feeling frustrated with what I was getting done, she suggested I make lists, cross things off, and carry over the important stuff and said that I likely was doing a tonne of things that I just wasn't giving myself credit for.

Bullseye.

I think this is something a lot of people, not just the creatives, deal with (including the advisor with the advice: she advised out of past experience). There is SO MUCH we do in a day that we don't deem important, and so don't address the fact that it was done. I know I berrate myself for all the things I didn't do while ignoring the stuff I did. I once saw an artist who at the end of each day drew pictures & notes in a journal about everything he did that day, thereby acknowledging his triumphs (small and large) and feeling good. He'd even write in watching an hour of tv as an accomplishment cause sometimes you just need to veg. It's all part of the experience (so long as vegging isn't your only experience).

As I walked back from the grocery store this evening I got onto this idea of how much I'd done, how I hadn't blogged in enough days, or done enough homework, or whatever, and my brain started hamstering over this idea of giving credit to everything (credit to my friend Benita for the lovely term hamstering - amazing) and I decided to do this blog post and just for fun, make out a list of all the things I did today. EVERYTHING(ish). I know I won't draw a cute journal everynight (it'll become one more thing I didn't do at the end of an evening) but I think it's a good start just to recognize once in awhile all that does take place in the space of a day.

So... Get ready for the longest sentence of your life....
Today I got up early and snuggled with Fritz, made my tea and went to work for 8:30, did inventory all morning at work, went and had a quick lunch with two of my besties (shout out to C-Dubs and K-Unit!), got back and went to a local church hall to check out a display of sacred textiles, picked up some school binders for a friend, came back to work, fixed a door that had fallen off, copied blog photo files from school, went to class where we took photos for our exhibit promo and waded through all our assignments and deadlines for the next month (much more involved and braintwisty than that sounds), came home and loved on Fritz some more, cut out and sewed part of skirt (just for fun, cause you know I don't have that much to do and a girl needs skirts), talked to the Fox on the Fone (twice cause he's out of town), chilled and watch an hour of tv, folded laundry, got together a load of laundry, and did a rough copy of an assignment while watching tv, went to the grocery store (where my debit card refused to be read so they asked me to come back tomorrow and pay - the honour system is why I love places that aren't huge cities), emailed all my old friends about plans for when I'm in town coming up, made supper, read a bit of a magazine regarding my spiritual pursuits (I believe no matter what you're faith, religion, or spirituality - even if soccer's your religion or you worship at the Church of Jazz - you need to take time out to feed your soul), wrote up my assignment and emailed it to my prof, took out the garbage, and started this post.
There we have it - it's 10:10 and I still have quite a bit I plan to do, and somehow, it just never feels like enough. But I'm going to start to at least acknowledge what I have done and just accept that there's always lots to do; it's what keeps life interesting and keeps us moving forward, isn't it?

On my list for tonight? Work on my organza dress, put away groceries & supper, eat some snacks, watch some tv, tackle another assignment, tidy more, try not to be so verbose, and dye some bones (yes that's what I said) are just a few things on the list.

Anyone have any suggestions for tracking what we do? Prioritizing? Giving credit to oneself? If you're a lister - how do you list? Any good OCD listing rituals going on? I'm curious to know if/how others struggle with the same things, or if I'm just ultra crazy.

Now, this was crazy verbose, so don't worry, next one will be shorter, I promise, but future ones might be longer, we'll see!

And for fun, here's some photos of lists (and I can add took photos of lists, and uploaded photos to the above list now!)