Setting Goals to Avoid Diddly Squat Days

My grandmother has always had a way with words. When on her game, she could have you rolling with laughter - and it was usually when she was trying to be serious that she was the most hilarious.  I say “was” simply because she is in her 80s and is in the early stages of dementia.  The grandmother I knew and the one I know are very different ladies.

She’s never been large in stature - I’m not even sure she ever made 5′, but she has always been one of the hardest workers I’ve ever known - away from home as well as at home.  It always made her furious if she didn’t get everything done that she wanted to.  I can remember even when I was very, very young thinking that she was quite possibly the busiest person in the world.  She worked full time at a job she absolutely loved, kept a spotless home, was active in church and was very involved in a homemaker’s club as well as a bridge club (serious business, those cards!). In the summer, she could always be found working in one of her three rose beds, her garden or another part of her amazingly beautiful yard. 

Whenever a day’s output didn’t measure up to what she expected it to be, she’d say that she didn’t get “diddly squat” done.  This, of course, probably meant that while her department at work was immaculate, her roast for supper delicious, her floors able to be eaten off of, and her windows squeaky clean, she had gotten only one of two loads of laundry done. Diddly squat to her was different from the rest of us.

I’ve grown into her genes in a few areas - I have a passion for cooking, flowers, and birds, an obsession with magazines and baseball (except I bleed Cardinal’s red whereas she’s a Braves girl) and I love getting up early. I’ve also become the owner of a few of her phrases.  Diddly squat would be one of them. It’s a pretty good one - I highly recommend it.

I also have a distaste for days that seem like it (diddley squat) wasn’t quite done. 

Something that has helped me is alarmingly simple, but if I’m going to stand a chance of getting anything done, I have to do it.  That’s making a list and, with all due respect to St. Nick, checking it a heck of a lot more than twice.

I’ve noticed that on days when I write down my goals and check them off as I go along, I get everything done.  On days when I think I can fly solo - without the list - inevitably, something’s left undone, unfinished, or forgotten about.  I made that mistake yesterday, for the first time in weeks.  I was scrambling at 11:00 last night trying to catch up to everything that had eluded me during the day.  Not a heckuva lot of fun!

Needless to say, I have my beloved, much ballyhooed list today.  Right in front of me with my purple pen ready to put a gratifying check mark before each goal as they’re met.  Each swoosh feels like a pat on my psyche’s back.

If you feel like your day just isn’t big enough for you to fit your life into, you might want to give list-making a shot.  It’s a goal’s best friend and a distraction’s mortal enemy.

Joi

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