How to Get Your Own Attention

Penelope Trunk just wrote a post on happiness and self-discipline. She believes self-discipline is hard to come by. I wrote an angry sort of rant about Darfur in the comments. I know, I don’t always make sense.

I agree with her to a point. I don’t think it’s having self-discipline that is the real hard part. Self-discipline comes naturally to those who are genuinely excited about a goal and see the outcome as attainable. It occurred to me that a lot of my problems with achieving self-discipline has to do with remembering to be do things. I’m a pretty motivated gal, and hence, ridiculously busy. I work full time, go to school part time, work part time, work out part time, you get the idea. Discipline is not usually my problem. My biggest obstacle is that most of the time I can’t remember what I promised to do for myself.

I’ve been trying to get my passport renewed for a month. My husband's IRRA is sitting in a money market fund earning paltry interest while there are allocation options only a signature page and stamp away. The only way I remember to take these magical fruit and vegetable pills my mom gives me is by a reminder I set on my outlook calendar at work. So I only take them 5 days a week. I even have reminders set to call or write to the people I love. That might sound like I’ve got the emotional depth of a robot, but doesn’t it really say that it means so much to me that I’ve added it to a prioritized list? Wouldn’t a callous person write it off altogether?

Just today I resorted to taping a piece of paper to my car keys thinking I’ll have to remember to bring my pre-natal vitamins to add to my regimen to work tomorrow if I have to rip the reminder off to start my car. (I’m not pregnant.)

I’ve heard weirder ideas. Writing notes and sealing them in plastic bags, taping them to your shower walls. Writing to yourself on your bathroom mirror…I’m seeing a theme – what’s next, to-do lists on the toilet paper?

My mother used to put sticky notes in conspicuous places, until we got so used to a sticky note on the coffee maker our minds erased it from our sight and our poor dog ended up neglected when my mom wasn’t around.

That’s the problem. We get used to reminders. We need new versions all the time. I think that’s sometimes a piece of why people fail to do things. Sometimes they just forget.

So – anyone else got some brilliant ideas for remembering to do things? I’m all ears.