If you know me at all, you know I’m a planner. A list maker. When faced with a task or an event, I break it down, write it down and attack it in baby steps. I totally buy into the philosophy that “For every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.” (This may or may not be a Ben Franklin quote, if you believe the Internet.)
When faced with my upcoming trip to London, I earned more hours than I will be ‘across the pond’.
First stop: Google. What the heck did we do before Google? I googled everything London. Best places to visit .. Maps of .. Films about .. Books about . I created an Excel file to keep track of my finds and I bookmarked more websites than there are Doctor Who episodes.
Next stop: Library. Well, actually, the Library website, one of my personal favorites. With a library card you can look up books online, request a copy of the book and they will send it to any library of your choice in our city library system. You can then walk in, find your books labeled with your name on a shelf right inside the front door, and sprint to the self-checkout kiosk before you are sucked into the void. This works extremely well when I don’t have hours to spend savoring all the stacks have to offer.
I pulled out books on places to visit as well as a few works of fiction set in London. Whether I visit all the places I’ve read about or not, I’ve already wandered down those streets in my mind: Bliss.
As the trip approaches, I am busy fleshing out my Excel chart and adding bookmarked sites to my Google Map. I am bouncing from book to book, cross-referencing and researching each area. I’ve downloaded podcasts with travel tips and audio walking tours of some key attractions. I’ve now consolidated my to-do list down to 4 items: plan for London, read about London, blog about London and rest up for London.
I’ve crossed off the first three, so all that’s left is to bid you goodnight.
