The Inefficiency of Summer

I am a list keeper. I keep a list of everything I need to do in a day, everything from sweeping the floor to exercising. It’s a list that stresses me out a little bit sometimes, because of how long it gets, and how much I love to see things get checked. But I remind myself that everything always gets done, and I try to let the anxiety go.

I started making lists to help me stay organized at work. Then I extended it to home because I liked the way a list holds things for my brain. If an item is on my list, I don’t have to waste brain space reminding myself of it anymore. I’m not forgetting until bedtime that I never mopped the floor, or that the kids need to pick up their rooms. It’s all on the list, and it’s all fairly well scheduled. It’s my system, and it works. 

My lists continue into the summer. My fear of living without a list is similar to the fear that my husband feels with a pack of Oreos in the house–if there’s not some level of control, I’ll throw out the whole plan and gorge on selfish pursuits all day long. I start many of my mornings in the summer with the list, checking my cleaning schedule and the mental list of things I don’t want to forget and adding them all to the Reminders app in my phone. It’s not a delight, but it definitely helps me stay productive and efficient. I like efficient.

And yet I’ve found my lists lately to be more aspirational than definite. I made a long list today, and then spent most of the morning on the couch rereading a book I finished for the first time just yesterday, and didn’t make lunch until I had finished it again. After lunch, we went to a friend’s pool, and when we came home, that list was still really long, just staring at me from the glowing screen of my phone.

Uncharacteristically, I found it really hard to care.

The pastor at church on Sunday preached about holy leisure, and I’m letting that idea settle in my head. I’m not being graded on completing my list. I am not going to win summer by crossing off every chore and picking up every DVD from the coffee table. It’s nice to have a break from being driven, and to have time to go to the pool, to watch a musical in the middle of the day, to read on the couch all morning.

I have meetings and appointments and PD and house projects this summer like everyone else. Every day can’t be leisure. But I want to take advantage of the time that I have, and not make summer another exercise in productivity.

Today, I cleaned out things I’d been tossing in my room until I had time to decide what to do with them, and I washed and folded laundry. But I also made a favorite lunch and ate it in front of the TV with my kids while we rewatched a Harry Potter movie and tried to talk in British accents. It was fun. It wasn’t productive. It was right.