40. (with egg)

I've updated the site's sidebar on the right-hand side of the page with a "Random Blue Top 10 Card" section. Click there and see one of the 74 (so far) "Top 10" cards that I've accumulated since I've been using blue 8x5 index cards to keep myself organized. I'll explain.

For as long as I can remember, I've loved things that organize stuff: tool boxes, personal organizes, PDAs, wallets, backpacks, even those clear plastic compartmentized boxes that fisherman use for tackle. I really like the idea of being organized, but, as it turns out, I really hate actually staying organized. Personal organizers are bulky to carry around and I get tired to opening them, finding the right page, refilling them, etc. PDAs are still clunky, with interfaces that still don't satisfy me. I doubt I'll ever faithfully use a PDA until I can safely stuff it in my back pocket without worry that it will break, or until they are integrated into a flip styled cell phone without losing their usability.

So one day a few years back I was talking to my mother about this problem, and she mentioned that she had become a "list person". She leaves lists for herself all over the place, although she now forgets to take her lists with her, or what the items on the list really mean, and other such age-related fun that I can't wait to experience.

I remembered this conversation one day while wandering around a small mom-and-pop stationary store in San Francisco, and on a whim I bought a pack of blue, lined, 8x5 inch index cards. Over the next few weeks I developed a pretty low-tech to-do list system: I would carry a few cards around, bound with a small binder clip. I'd draw little sections with lists of tasks I'd need to do, and cross them off when I finished them. The most important thing I would do is force myself to write down on the card everything that came up in meetings or conversations that I wanted to follow up upon. Traditionally this has been a bad trait of mine: I forget the little things that I need to do for people, especially when I get bombarded with tasks from every different direction. By writing down everything, even if I've already finished the task, I get the pleasure of crossing it off the list when it's done, which effectively crosses it off of my conscious, too.

Several times people noted that the cards looked like those used by David Letterman for his Top 10 List every night, so naturally I started labeling my cards as my own personal Top 10.

Creating a new Top 10 is a pleasurable ritual that I try to do every Monday. I get a fresh card, write the date on both of the top corners, and write "Top 10" in the middle in some funky text: sometimes it's boxy, sometimes rounded, sometimes normal, but I take my time because it's cathartic for me to dedicate myself, once again, to keeping track of my thoughts.