To Do List (Funny)

[Randyonr3]

As all of us have, a "to do list" on the boat and as one thing is scratched off, uasally another is added..
Over the weekend I was looking at the list and to my surprise, the wife had added in an entry....
On the bottom of the list, in big bold marker was written,
"GO TO AUSTRIALA"
Looks Like We have a Plan!

[Mariness]

It's always the obvious ones you forget to put on the list, eh?

[Microship]

It's not just adding new items; it's discovering the previously unrecognized complexity of existing ones as you get closer to doing them. I call this the "Roberts Law of Fractal To-Do List Complexity" - as you zoom in, each item reveals itself to actually be multiple items until you get close enough that everything is a CDT (Clearly Defined Task) and thus fairly trivial.

Taking advantage of this phenomenon in planning actually helps, since less time is spent looking at abstract items and trying to figure out how to do them. Just pick anything and DO it.

Another thing that helps, in a weird psychological way, is making it public as a sort of performance art. I get satisfaction from lining something out, then deleting it a few days later. Here's mine:

Nomadic Research Labs - Live Page

Now back to the grind.

Cheers!
Steve

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Randyonr3

On the bottom of the list, in big bold marker was written,
"GO TO AUSTRIALA"
Looks Like We have a Plan!

Its at the bottom of the list? yeah, her plan is to make you work harder. Now I remember a story of a carrot, a stick......


Tell her its best to start now and do the rest of the list on the way...

[Randyonr3]

Originally Posted by MarkJ

Its at the bottom of the list? yeah, her plan is to make you work harder. Now I remember a story of a carrot, a stick......


Tell her its best to start now and do the rest of the list on the way...

we're leaving in the fall Mark, list finished or not!!!

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Randyonr3

we're leaving in the fall Mark, list finished or not!!!

We will be in the Caribbean at Christmas...

Are you that side of the USA?

We could have a CF Christmas party and roast Hud on Nevis for dinner

Mark

[Randyonr3]

The way it looks, we'll probably be in PV, Mexico for Christmas.. or further south..
Are you comming over to this side befor next Spring.. maybe panama?

[MarkJ]

Originally Posted by Randyonr3

Are you comming over to this side befor next Spring.. maybe panama?

I dunno we will leave the Med in prolly october and cross the atlantic just before or after the ARC and do the Caribbean till may 2011 the either Panama/cathehania or Trinadad or come back to the Med for mid year 2011.

Thats the 'plan'.

Probably Trinadad for the hurricane season. We have to stop and regroup somewhere

[44'cruisingcat]

Writing a "To do" list...... I really need to do that.

[Microship]

True confessions: my most pathological behavior occurs when I do something that's NOT on the list... then add it and cross it off. I've even been known to switch pens.

[sailorboy1]

Originally Posted by Microship

True confessions: my most pathological behavior occurs when I do something that's NOT on the list... then add it and cross it off. I've even been known to switch pens.

I do this also (but I don't change pens). Otherwise it was a poor time management choice to work on something NOT on the list when there were still so many items ON it!

[Microship]

Originally Posted by Don Lucas

Otherwise it was a poor time management choice to work on something NOT on the list when there were still so many items ON it!

Exactly! And besides, when we go back and look at ancient lists that resurface under piles of clutter, the ratio of crossed-off things must overshadow those that are still, years later, undone...

[VirtualVagabond]

Originally Posted by Randyonr3

On the bottom of the list, in big bold marker was written,
"GO TO AUSTRIALA"
Looks Like We have a Plan!

Another boat load of asylum seekers.... at least you've warned us, and coming in a boat that will get you here, and won't be trying to get your 749 other family members in....
Welcome! You're the kind we like

[Jim Cate]

While I had not noticed the fractal nature of lists, we have found a basic rule:

Lists get long on the bottom faster than they get short from the top, no matter how hard you work...

Cheers,

Jim

[Microship]

Jim - ah, that's for sure. I consider a major waypoint in any project to be the moment, observed in retrospect, where the list begins to get shorter instead of longer.

Speaking of discovered rules about that nature of large projects, I formulated another during my years of bicycle travel (though it is equally applicable to boats). It's the Roberts Law of Applied Mobile Gizmology:

If you take an infinite number of very light things and put them together, they become infinitely heavy.

Steve