Vom Boards

Allow me to change your life in amazing ways tonight. I have this bad habit of waking up in the middle of the night and just worrying about things I have to do. It's like brain vomit. There's nothing I can do about any of it at 3 a.m. so it's just a mean little thing I put myself through for no reason. Every once in awhile, I'll write down the reasons for my anxiety so I can deal with it in the morning, but after like 45 minutes, I'm tired, worked up and have nothing to show for it.

So last night was one such night. I fell asleep watching Green Street Hooligans (yum) and woke up in a sweaty panic about planning a honeymoon. SO. USELESS. Then today during work, I kept thinking of things I needed to take care of in terms of the wedding and jotting down my thoughts on random scraps of paper. I looked at this giant pile of paper with half-asleep, half-coherent mind vomit on them and thought "This is ridiculous."

I needed one big ol' space to put my reasons for freaking out when I couldn't deal with them right away. You know, a place to store my brain vom so I wouldn't forget it and can remember to deal with it later, without the billions of pieces of scrap paper. So I made this:

I put a giant piece of paper on the wall, got my markers out and just doodled all my reasons for spazzing all over it. It's all in one place, it's colorful and it's totally removable. Now when I find myself stewing about something I can't do anything about yet, I can be all, "Oh crap, what am I going to do about [insert current reason for spazzing out]? I'll just slap in on the Vom Board and deal with it later." The Vom Board is just a place to keep all the uncontrollable things that keep you up at night or distract you from work.

Now, I've seen vision boards and bulletin boards and chalkboards and notepads and planners and all that, but I've never seen a Vom Board. For one thing, it's very cathartic to write on the wall (or at least a big piece of paper taped to it). It feels empowering, like "This is so annoying and important I have to aggressively record it right on the wall." (Flashback to the cave on Lost, anyone?) For another thing, I was just laying on the couch and staring at the vom board and was like "Okay, it's all on there now and I can handle anything that fits on one piece of paper covered in doodles." Finally? If I get up in the middle of the night again, I can just walk over to the wall and jot down my concerns and then deal with them in the morning. No crappy scrap paper, no boring black pen, and it's just all there in one place. Oh, and when I'm done with everything, I can just fold it up and throw it away. No muss, no fuss.

I initially wanted to get a roll of adhesive whiteboard paper, but I didn't want to ERASE stuff. I want to cross stuff out. Violently. And I don't want to worry about rubbing up against it and accidentally removing 10 very important thoughts regarding candles.

Side Note: So, while I was looking at these adhesive whiteboards online, I was reading the reviews because many of them don't actually STICK to the wall. But then I saw a review by this guy who wrote, "I love this product! I stuck it in my shower because I always have the BEST ideas in the shower, amiright?!" I thought to myself "Who puts a WHITEBOARD in the SHOWER. One errant stream of water and the whole thing is gone!" Oh, and also, the only thing I think about in the shower is "OMG, I'm so late. There is simply no time to shave." Probably the worst place on the planet to put a piece of adhesive whiteboard is the freakin' shower. Idiot.

So I opted for the plain ol' paper and magic markers. I'm worried that I look like a serial killer, though. A wall covered in nonsense and doodles that I add to in the middle of the night? NORMAL.

Yeah. So, it's all under control now. I highly suggest using the Vom Board method for things like Christmas shopping or job hunting or deciding what to wear to the next holiday party and other important things like that. It's great. If you decide to start your own, go ahead and send a pic of it to me! In a couple weeks, I'm going to take another pic of my Wedding Vom Board and I bet it looks amazeballs AND crazeballs by then! Who knows? I may have just finished planning the whole wedding by then!