Why I no longer maintain a to-do list!

“It was the 6th day of the week, Saturday. Shikha woke up at 6 am, a little early than usual. She put on her shoes, and stepped out for her morning walk. The meadow glowed under its morning warmth, and the cock clucked – ‘Cock-a-doo00-dooooo‘. 

She stopped by at the milkman, who was on his day of work already, to greet him. She saw Mr. Sharma, busy cleaning his backyard and Mrs. Sharma throwing the waste to into the garbage bin.
Ramu kaka, was at his provision store, tallying his accounts for the previous week.
Finishing her morning round, Shikha began walking back home. As she pulled open the door, she saw a bug. Carefully, she got rid of it with her fingers.
Seated in the living room, was her grandma. She was stitching a sweater for the upcoming winter. Shikha wished her morning, and began reading the newspaper. The sports headline read – ‘M.S. Dhoni wins yet another match for India!’
After reading, Shikha went to wake up her little brother, who was fast asleep.”

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If you’ve wondered what this story has to do with the title, hang on. It does. Let me explain.

The following is my to-do for the day:

1. Wake up at 6am on Saturday.
2. Go out for a morning walk.
3. Buy eggs and milk.
4. Clean the house.
5. Throw the waste.
6. Reconcile mobile bills.
7. Fix a bug (the software one 😀 ).
8. Collect dress from the tailor.
9. Go for ‘M.S. Dhoni – The untold story’ movie.
10. Have a sound sleep 🙂 .

The never-ending to do list

Now, go back and read the story. Hope, it makes sense. The words highlighted remind me of the tasks I need to attend to.

To do lists never work for me. And errands, I seldom remember.

On my sincere quest to find an easy and fun way, that would ultimately motivate me to finish and not procrastinate, I hoped into this marvellous thought of process. Known as the ‘Method of loci‘ [1]. This method has been used widely to remember facts, lists, numbers, and so on [2].

The powerful mind

The mind, being an effective tool by nature, has the power to remember, relate and process the tons of information that lie around us. Just as computers use RAM(Random access memory) to store and retrieve data, the mind, too has the same ability.

While computers use addresses to store data, we can use spatial locations and events to store information.

And yea, who does not like story? This keeps my right brain active and helps me remember and finish my pending tasks without resorting to any external aid.

Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing this piece.

All best,

Aishwarya 🙂

[1] Method of loci

[2] Practical implementation of usage of the ‘Method of loci’.

Image source: Google.