The great power of to-do lists AKA Me trying to actually finish stuff!

I have collected models for this ridiculous hobby for 23 years and have accumulated an absolute tonne of stuff despite regular Ebay purges. I have accepted that I switch from project to project frequently and will, if I continue like I am at present, probably never have a fully painted army I am happy with. I like to have everything, for every list, in high numbers just in case I need them for a fully painted, 10k-a-side, Apocalypse game in front of cheering super-models (none of these elements will, sadly, come to frution!). I remember an article in Jervis' ramblings a year or so in White Dwarf about the 'Collecting' side of the hobby and this is certainly one of my 'pulls' with wargaming. I guess my parents starved me of toys when I was younger...

I also enjoy switching lists about and, particularly with the invention of allies, end up painting things from a variety of different armies at different times. The result of this is I always feel a little sadfaced about my hobby when I look at my bits and pieces; nothing is finished and it feels like nothing is going to be finished!

On top of this, I seem to 'waste' an awful lot of time thinking  about doing hobby stuff rather than actually doing it. I can happily spend hours devising weird and whacky conversions and picturing the precise paint scheme my next unit will be splattered with. However, despite having a LOT of ideas, very little gets done.

Before I begin to explain my attempt to combat the above issues, I also feel that being realistic is also important. Retraining as a lawyer does not allow much spare time for geeking around so I am looking at a few hours per week on average. Also, I am not expecting to finish everything by next week; this is planned to be a long task that achieves my goal: to have some finished stuff.

THE PLAN

My plan is to organise and best-exploit my hobbytime with the use of prioritised to-do lists. I am not a particularly organised person and actually using these in real-life situations has allowed me to get more organised and, to a limited extend at least, sort myself out. The same must happen with my hobby if I use the same idea.... Right?

To-do lists seem such a simple idea but if you're like me and typically write nothing down, they can be really useful.

I am going to ignore my Fantasy armies for now as I have yet to play a game of 8th Edition so it would be a waste of time.

In terms of 40k armies, I have:

Chaos Marines: Tonnes of the stuff. I have about 4k painted and another 5k or so unpainted.

Eldar: Quite a bit, mostly painted to an acceptable standard. Not quite finished

Grey Knights: Unpainted except one henchman squad

Space Marines/Dark Angels: about half painted by the friend I traded them from.

Necrons: Still boxed

Deamons: Allies - all unpainted

Dark Eldar: Allies - all unpainted

The list

On the Overlord's Facebook group (awesome podcast), members have monthly hobby goals to adhere to. This is really what got me thinking about how to best reoganise my hobby time and it's the basis for this idea...

Whilst I am going to structure my to-do-list by priority rather than time, it still follows essentially the same idea.

My first priority/cut-off date is a tournament I am attending on 20th February. I am stil unsure what I want to take and could get various armies ready for this.