Nothing on my to-do list ever gets done for the simple reason that I don’t have a to-do list. If I did have a to-do list, the first thing on the list would be to make a to-do list, which I would not do, so again, the answer would be that nothing on my to-do list ever gets done.
I’m of the firm belief that what doesn’t need to be done today should be put off until tomorrow. And if there is something that needs to be done today? I do it. Simple. If I know ahead of time I will need to do something today (because each day I kept putting it off until tomorrow, and tomorrow finally came), I put a reminder on my calendar. For example, this was the last day to pay my car insurance, which I know because it’s on my calendar, so I did it. But I remembered anyway, so the reminder was simply insurance insurance. (If that doesn’t make sense, no problem; I often try to be clever and only end up being too clever for my own good.) I occasionally leave myself a sticky note to remind me of something I need to remember to do, such as letting a faucet drip during our below freezing nights. I suppose each of those sticky notes could be construed as a list, but a list with a single reminder isn’t much of a list.
I come by leaving myself occasional notes honestly. My father always did it, though my mother never did. In fact, she was a bit bemused by his reminders. She often told the story of coming across a note he wrote before they were married reminding him to marry her. “Would you really have forgotten to marry me?” she supposedly asked. And his answer, “No, but I didn’t want to take a chance.”
The note apparently worked because they did get married. They celebrated their sixtieth anniversary a couple of months before my mother died. The January before their September anniversary, doctors diagnosed my mother with cancer and told her she had three to six months to live. She told them that wasn’t good enough. She needed nine months. The anniversary was that important to her, and she did make it. (The photo accompanying this article is one taken of all us women at the get-together.)
I think I’m getting off the track here. But really, what is there to say about a to-do list that doesn’t list anything to do?
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.
haps I should care about the near future, but I don’t, at least not yet. I suppose it will be a different matter when the house is sold and I have to scramble for a place to live, but that is not a problem for today.
Bertram's Blog 
Doing the To-Dos
January 15, 2021 — Pat BertramIt’s amazing how light one feels when everything is wiped off the to-do list, at least temporarily. Yesterday I finally published my new website with no problems — yeah! (You can check it out here: https://patbertram.com) I decided to stick with my current car insurance because of lower deductibles and accident forgiveness, so I paid that bill as well as several others. I cleaned out the file of old bills. I’m sure there were several other small chores done, too. What a great feeling!
I carried that feeling over into this day until I was scared half out of my mind by a loud screeching noise. It turns out my phone was screaming at me about a dangerous dust storm in the area. As if I didn’t know. All I had to do was look out the window. Or, if I didn’t look out the window, all I had to do was open the door, see all the blowing dust, and quickly shut the door on the outside world.
I hadn’t been able to locate the permissions for that alert app so I could turn off the notifications. If an alert goes off in the night, it would probably scare me into a heart attack. Luckily, I finally managed to turn off all notifications. If I ever feel the need, I can always turn them on again, but for now, it’s more of an annoyance than a lifesaver. When I go out, I check the weather anyway, otherwise, it doesn’t matter. Besides, I can’t do anything about the weather, war, riots, whatever, so it’s better if I slept through it.
Because of my finally finding that permission setting, I hunted once more for the photo editor permissions. I have no idea why the default setting was “no permissions” because with no permissions, the app wouldn’t work. I’d never been able to find the permissions before, and even though I didn’t find them today, I did something in the search for that setting that turned on the photo editor.
Now I just have to figure out how to turn off the “Find my phone” app. It keeps telling me . . . something. Maybe that I need to sign up for it. Apparently, I can’t turn off the notifications they keep sending me to sign up for the app unless I sign up for app, which makes no sense to me, but that’s a conundrum for a different day. (And I wondered why I was so hesitant to fiddle with my website!)
Speaking of conundrums: for some reason, WordPress held the comments of some long-time commenters for moderation. If this happened to you, or happens sometime in the future, please do not take it personally. It’s merely a blip in the program. I would never require moderation for those of you who come here frequently.
So, that’s my day. How is yours?
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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator