I really like making to-do lists. It has nothing to do with productivity, I almost never complete anything on my list. It’s a sort of wish list, an exercising in dreaming.

How do I even know what I want to do? I will make a to-do list, and see what comes up.

This has been a practice that I’ve been doing since I was 14 years old. It started with a summer to-do list. Unstructured time is ripe, and it excites me. This is what I like the most about adulthood; all of my time is unstructured.

There’s a little bit of regret mixed in there as well. At some point, stillness became associated with laziness. And laziness is bad!!! There are a million little things to do, and it’s shameful to do nothing. A summer goes by, and I regret all of the things I didn’t get to do. Regrets and dreams may seem like strange bedfellows, but they get along in the space of a to-do list.

I realized (for me) that in order to dream, I have to accept the regret. And suddenly it’s not as scary anymore. So, this is how a to-do list works:

• Who is the me that I aspire to become?
• What are the tasks that future me is brave enough to deal with? (cleaning my email inbox, wiping down my balcony, paying the Portland Arts Tax even though I don’t want to)
• What are the things that future me would like to do? (make a cyberdeck! update my home server! make an oil painting!)
• What does present me want to do? (take a nap. eat soft serve. play video games with my friends.)
• What do I want to eat? This is very important.
• Where do I want to go?
• List my most unhinged impulses (have a public outburst, tip over a lime scooter, assume a false identity for an evening, etc).

Example from 2010 (I was 16 years old):

• make a jewelry box
• go to the junk yard
• go to the zoo
• go to the aquarium
• make watermelon juice
• bake-a-palooza
• have a tea party
• go to an art museum
• go to historical museums
• have spanish-speaking days
• read Neruda
• learn how to play the uke
• learn to sew
• make a mannequin
• make jewelry
• go to the beach
• do shrooms
• make dinner
• film photography
• make banana chips
• tan
• make lip balm
• make a lot of art
• grafitti
• read a lot of books
• marijuana
• movie marathon
• Girly Sleepover with [redacted]
• play tennis and other games
• go to a festival
• make a documentary
• make a fancy video
• study things that fascinate me
• write stories/essays/poems
• have “spa” days!
• go swimming
• go bike riding with friends
• climb some trees and explore
• meditate
• cultivate psychic powers and etc
• dress up and go out
• go see a play
• Have a wonderful day!

What kinds of things would you put in your to-do list? Share it with me in the comments, if you’d like.