At a recent lunch with my brother, we reflected on the goal of simplifying our lifestyles. Both of us have a lot of moving parts in our personal and business lives. Those complications are what inspired me to prepare a financial “cheat sheet” for our kids that detailed assets, accounts, real estate, retirement plans, investments, buyout formulas, and insurance policies to ease their way through a probate in case Don and I died simultaneously. (Or, more likely, if we became useless to them as a source of information.) I update the cheat sheet every year, and it always seems to get longer.
The cheat sheet is my life at the 30,000-foot level. As you get closer to the ground, it gets even messier. To combat chaos, I compiled a complex to-do list. I tried keeping reminders on the Notes app on my cell phone, but that started feeling too cumbersome. I also created electronic calendar events with daily repeats for urgent matters, but that began to overwhelm me. I finally resorted to an old-fashioned technique - a pen and small spiral note pad. I relished the thought of crossing items of the list. That worked for a while until the number of pages in my note pad became onerous: the items that needed to get done multiplied exponentially while the completed ones only decreased linearly.
Then I arrived at the brilliant idea of organizing my to-do list in a small, three-ring binder with tabs and a table of contents. I sorted my tasks into thoughtful categories, such as Finances, Volunteer Work, 2023 Remodel, Bike Trips, Hobbies, Home Maintenance, Vacation Cabin, and Miscellaneous Projects. I loved the tidiness and the all-in-one-place accessibility of my to-do list but creating an organized inventory for everything you need to do does not actually accomplish any of your tasks.
Some of the chores on my list are not time-consuming or even disagreeable, but I just cannot seem to complete them. For example, I should clean out the bathroom cabinet under the sink in our primary suite. As a reminder to do so, I placed my travel sized WaterPik on top of the counter after I returned from a recent vacation. The problem is that I came home from Portugal over a month ago, and the battery-operated gadget is still sitting next to the sink. Huge fail.
Similarly, I need to delete the GroupMe app from my cell phone, as my volunteer work schedule now uses a different app. I assumed deletion would be simple, and I blithely navigated to Settings on my phone and then selected GroupMe. So easy! Except I could not figure out how to delete the app. Googling instructions on how to delete it seems overwhelming, and I cannot complete this simple chore.
Some projects I start but I cannot get them across the finish line. I emailed a touring company about a credit discount for future travel, but I did not get a response. One would think I would follow up, but so far, I have not. I want to sign up for a half marathon in the fall, but I have not, though I have reviewed the website for the race. I cannot seem to get myself to clean underneath the produce drawers in my refrigerator even though they need it badly. To remove the drawers for cleaning, I must pull the refrigerator out from the wall so that the doors open all the way, and that is way too much work. One of our dogs is due for a senior health exam but she already goes to the oncologist veterinarian every month due to a melanoma that was removed several years ago. She is current on her vaccinations, and I just cannot pull the trigger for yet another physical exam.
But not everything is a failure. In a fit of exertion and discipline, I located the password for our children’s 529 College Plans at Fidelity. It has been on my list to close them out as our offspring graduated from college years ago. The accounts had small balances, but I could not figure out a way to close them on-line. So, I gritted my teeth and called Fidelity. After working my way through an onerous phone tree, I explained my request to the customer service representative. She gave me at least three warnings about the tax consequences of cashing out the accounts. I assured her that I understood that the IRS would be notified that I was receiving a check for $12.33, which was the liquidated value of the accounts.
I felt flush with success afterwards; at least I got one thing done. But instantaneously, I added four other to-dos, one of which was to buy a larger three-ring binder with more divider tabs. I am quite sure that the only thing standing in the way of getting everything done is better organization.