The problem with posting your to-do list 📋

Ugh, we're commodifying this too? Can I not list in peace?

Hi angels!!! You’re getting a solo Bel chime today because, well, I’m stressed, and have two podcasts to go off and record (with two very special people - you’ll hear them soon.) So - lucky you, you get a solo Bel chime!

Love you sm, see you over on Close Friends xxx

This section is written by my crush, the refreshing-as-a-house-chardonnay-on-a-steamy-day, Bel Hawkins. She also writes our Sunday newsletter ‘No News is Good News’ which all our paying supporters receive. Upgrade your plan to get her newsy here!

The problem with posting your to-do list

Crush, crush, crushes! Another week goes by, another cycle closer to the end of what feels like the most psycho year of my lifetime so far. Is this just me? Or us all? Will they all just feel like this now in the permaweird permacrisis? This and other existentialisms rushed through my mind on the back of a Lime scooter during Luce and I’s red-wined quest home the other night. 

We may stop talking about it soon, but we have three weeks until our book manuscript is due (any stress ulcer prevention recs welcome), which has also got me thinking about something weaselling its way onto my algorithm lately: people posting their to-do lists.

We may NEVER get to the limit of what we can look at in our lives and turn into content (my socks, my bad thoughts, my nondescript possessions and their meaning according to lead roles in the Barbie film), but posting lists of things like 'therapy' and 'wash my whites' and '30 min journalling' has weirded me out a bit. There's something about promoting our mundane productivity that makes me feel a bit... bleak. Like, ugh, we're commodifying this too? Can I not list in peace?

I could be wrong. Maybe you find it inspiring? Relieving? That someone else out there is working their way through their silly little life just like you and that, in the scheme of things, there's something beautifully relaxing about watching someone else go through the everyday organisation of their lives (I'm thinking specifically here now about the rise of #CleanTok) that's a calming distraction from the other chaos out there/everywhere.

Over the years of dancing on and offline, I've tried to draw lines about what I will and won't share because it freaks me out if people know too much about me (the olive oil I use, the state of my kitchen bench, where I got that half-burned-out candle from, the contents of my midnight writing journal next to my bed). So I guess today I don't have the answers but more of a philosophical question (and yes, I can't help but say this in my mind in a Carrie Bradshaw accent lol): Is there anything left sacred about our lives that we won't put online? 

As per, would j'adore to hear your thoughts. In the meantime, see you this weekend for the newsy - if you have a burning life question/existentialism you want answered, reply to the newsy with it, and I'll get to work!

ily!

Bel x