Yep.

I’m a list maker.

There’s just something about crossing something off a list that inspires me to do whatever it takes to completely eradicate whatever it is that’s ON that list!

It’s kind of a love/hate relationship, isn’t it?

1. We love making a list.

2. We hate that the list is so long.

3. We love crossing things off the list.

4. We hate that we barely release the rumpled paper into the trash can before feeling the need to start a new list!

Even when I don’t have a list on paper, there are lists in the back of my mind:

• Things I Need To Do
• Things I Need To Do–If I Have Time
• Things I WISH I Had Time To Do
• Things I ABSOLUTELY MUST DO
• AND Things I Want My Hubby To Do 

Always in the summer when my kids were not in school, the change of schedule would mean that we could do things a little differently.  Summers fly by and so being intentional about how we spent our time together might involve a list of things we would like to do for our summer break.

While it’s fun to get ideas from the kiddos, this printable can give you a guideline for organizing your days:
Because it’s simple, you can have lots of flexibility in the way you use it, saving room for your own interpretation/creativity.

Lists are so helpful for me (especially now that I’m getting older!), but if I’m not careful, I can find myself erroneously thinking that I can cross things off my “spiritual list”–and that in doing so, I make God happy.  One of my favorite verses reminds me that we can plan all we want to, but we’d better realize that God just might have a different plan:

When my life is over, I want my legacy to be more about who I was and what I believed than the things I accomplished.  Making lists should only be a guideline.  Being flexible means that we allow time in our day to be interrupted and we don’t allow frustration to come in when plans change.  Life happens, and we will be much happier if we will trust that those lists might be a good idea, but God might have an even better one…

 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  2 Peter 1:5-8