Lists

My iPhone has a list app and I use it daily.  My desk has a notebook where I keep lists of things for work.  My crafting table has a bulletin board and there are lists on it of pages I want to do in each of the scrapbooks I am working on.  I keep lists.  I start a list for each birthday coming up and write down ideas and then when they are purchased I put a check by it, when the item is wrapped I make another mark.
List keeping is fascinating.  There are list keepers that need quick little reminders "get dry cleaning" "need milk", etc and list keepers that have more than one list going at a time,  or even have lists broken down by hour, day or week.  I read that if you put little check off boxes by the items on the list, you may be considered an "over-the-top" list keeper.  I like the little boxes!
I was traveling last week and the lady next to me on the plane had a day-timer-- a big one and my first thought was, wow-- where's her calendar on her phone?  But then I remembered why I don't keep one-- TOO MANY THINGS to fit into the little squares! Plus, I have to carry it around with me all the time and I would forget the darn thing.  It's just easier to put it all on my phone.
Several years ago, a guy I worked with told me when he finished his work day, he would take the things he did not accomplish that day and start his list for the next day with those.  I found that interesting but I really tried not to have things left on my list if I could help it.  I like a clean slate every day, a fresh start, an empty in-box.  Does that happen, no.  But I would like it to be that way!
I must confess, however, that even if I make a list, I don't always succeed in getting things right.  I have had lists of gifts for the kids at Christmas and lost the list. I have made lists of "codes" and passwords and lost those too.   I have had a grocery list on my phone and somehow in the middle of the vegetable aisle, the lists goes into the trash on the phone and it cannot be retrieved.  But, I feel, the important thing is that there is a list (or many lists).  I have a plan and I plan to execute it.  And then I will check it off in one of those cute boxes!