interrogate the to-do list

i'm thankful that the waste disposal services do pickup every week on wednesday, but only take trash every other week, and i'm thankful that this week was a not-trash week and like most not-trash weeks, we have not had enough recycling or compost build up that we can't just wait until next week to take them out, and so yesterday evening (it was still light out!) after work, deborah mentioned something about how the recycling wasn't "too full" and i said "oh yeah, i think we'll skip it" and she chuckled and then i had the realization "wow, i really love to skip things, it's such a good feeling" and she then full-on laughed in that way that reflects that to her, a person who lives with me, it is incredibly obvious that i love to skip things when they are skippable. in the neverending neoliberal slog of the endless to-do list in both life and work, one tactic for forward motion is getting things done (ugh the phrase is so weighted down by the sediment of medium articles), and you do need to do that sometimes, but another tactic is determining whether you can skip a given task (a meta-analysis—interrogate the to-do list rather than passively acquiescing to its logic!) and, if you can, skipping it, which, when you can, feels good. i'm thankful that i did not take the recycling and compost bins out yesterday and that i do not have to bring them back in today.