Have you ever heard the term “pendrag” before? It literally means to drag your pen across paper, aka: cross something off your list. I, my friends, am a quintessential pendragger, nice to meet you.
If your heart just skipped a beat, you’re one of my people. Who knew there was a term dedicated to us? Those who literally make lists just so that we can cross shit out! (Dad? Sari? I’m talking to you!) That feeling? Wooooow. Yesssss. Pure satisfaction, ya’ll.
I know that I’ve been labeled a maximizer before– I maximizer my time, space, words, schedule, lists, color coded calendar, paper towel consumption, sleep, and closet space. But a Productivity Champion seems like it comes with a staged award ceremony, background music and some sort of medal presentation and a podium, right? Swoon!
I’m a no stray hangers in the closet kind of gal too. When a piece of clothing is removed that was living on a hanger, that specific hanger goes to the hall closet to rest until her next assignment. Hangers there are further separated by type: wire hangers from my dry cleaner, clip hangers for pants and skirts, “good hangers” with the velvet overlay for tops, blouses, shirts and jackets, child sized hangers I use specifically for scarves, and lastly heavy hangers for outerwear. (Are you afraid? Ha. Don’t call the shrink yet. Just wait… there’s more!)
Then the remaining clothes back in the closet are moved slightly so as to not highlight the unsightly span created by the removal. The visual effect of an orderly display makes me giddy. Plus, I can’t really afford hangers to take up precious room when space is at a premium. And if possible, I don’t want anything to wrinkle. So the readjustment is necessary to maintain harmony in that clothing cavalcade I call a closet. This is what I tell myself anyway. Please don’t ruin it for me.
Laundry is a fun topic for yours truly. I used to throw dirties in a clothing hamper, separate by lights and darks and do wash once a week or wait longer if I could stretch it so that I always had a full cycle. Now? Maximum efficiency. All worn items go directly into the machine and don’t get separated. All together now. (Lemme hear ya now. All together now!) They mix, mingle, rinse and spin. Some enjoy an early release direct to a fresh hanger to air dry while others benefit from a light zhuzh to finish in the gentle dryer cycle. I LOVE doing laundry so that not one single thing in my house is dirty. Obviously it doesn’t last more than a day, but that feeling of everything being clean and accessible? Yeah, love that. Laundry? Done.
The best kind of satisfaction for me is when something that has been on my list for a while finally gets crossed off. Like a package that was taking longer than expected finally arrives, a slow moving project that I’d been wanting to finish finally concludes, or a line item to my bank statement for something I’d returned weeks ago finally posts the credit. The follow up and tracking is over. I can give up monitoring each status on the daily. Goal achieved and I can move on to conquer the next set of menial tasks.
When I first got into blogging, I had no idea that I was capable of unleashing such a torrent of ideas, topics and thoughts. I enjoy this forum to express myself because I can literally bang them out on a keyboard any time of day or night. I can write until the idea is complete, which is of course preferable for a pendragger like me or put as much down as I can to best outline the subject so that when a more thoughtful me checks back in at a later date, I can finish what I’ve started. This is actually a new concept for me because pending copy never used to fly. I needed to finish the active blog before I moved onto the next one. But what I found was that sometimes I just couldn’t do it. I still had energy to write and interest to explore but there were occasions where I’d hit a dead end on a topic or needed the right photo to advance the post toward completion.
So one day I just pivoted and moved to another topic. And to my utter amazement, I could still produce content! Which was incredible to feed the flames of creativity without dragging the pen. And that was absolute torture for me because it created a potentially endless to do list. But I’m happy to say that I sit comfortably now in being uncomfortable with this. Which is huge progress for me… even though my pen is at the ready to cross off more blogs! Trembling even. But I need to be patient with myself until I’m done. So I’ve learned to give myself grace.
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