11 x things that all control freaks recognize

‘We'll just see how it goes.’ You would never hear me say that. I actually don't want to see how it goes; I want to know exactly where I stand. What am I going to eat in the coming days, and how will my evenings look? It's not that I don't enjoy spontaneous meetings, but I do like to be briefed just before such a meeting. And if I'm going out to eat? I always check the menu thoroughly in advance. So you could say that I'm secretly a control freak. I come across as very relaxed and calm to others, but in my head, I'm constantly mapping everything out. Therefore, this is a list for all the control freaks among us. Can you check them all off? Then you are one too.

1. You can't stand mess
Control freaks can't stand chaos. Sleeping in a messy room? Impossible. If you decide to leave the mess, you really won't get a wink of sleep at night. Another big annoyance: dirty dishes in the sink, that really causes pure panic. A well-organized wardrobe: that makes you incredibly happy.

2. You prefer to put everything in boxes
All those loose open bags? Nothing is worse than that. Control freaks want to put everything in boxes, as neatly as possible. And preferably with a sticker on it, so everyone knows what's in the box. Only then is everything truly under control, of course.

3. You can't stand losing
Control freaks absolutely cannot stand losing. Winning is more important than participating. And if you do lose once? Then you'll spend hours afterward wondering how on earth that could have happened.

4. You love planning
Doing nothing for a while is sometimes nice, but a whole day without a plan is not for us. It calms you to look at the upcoming week on Sunday and have a general idea of what to expect. The space for spontaneous meetings, you actually plan that in too.

5. You live for to-do lists
A day without a to-do list is a day not lived, that's my motto. Whether the list gets completed or not, every evening I dutifully make a list for the next day. Sometimes the silliest things are on my list, like: ‘Make coffee’. I just find it so delightful that I can immediately check that off in the morning. Pure happiness.

6. You don't like asking for help
A control freak won't ask you for help quickly. We're terrified that the helping hand will only get in our way. Help with cooking? Prefer not, just extra headaches.

7. Unread WhatsApp conversations give you panic
This is exactly why I find WhatsApp terrible. You keep busy trying to clear all those unread chats. And really, no one has time for that in a day?

8. You're always tired
Because of all that thinking and especially stressing, you're actually always tired. At night in bed, you already worry a lot about the next day. Will there be enough hours in my day to get through that entire to-do list? Let's worry about that all night.

9. You're impatient
Long queues or people walking slowly? You really don't have the patience for that. As a control freak, everything must proceed as efficiently as possible, and that doesn't include dawdling.

10. You experience intense happiness when you're unreachable
Do you remember that outage the other day? WhatsApp and Instagram were down all evening. I found that so incredibly enjoyable. All control freaks had to surrender to it; no one could change that. What a peaceful evening that was.

11. You check three times if the door is locked
Or two times or five times, it just depends on what your favorite number is. This is also a typical trait of a control freak: doing everything a certain number of times. Well, for me, that's three. Checking if the door is locked three times, touching something three times, or checking if the gas is off three times. Quite exhausting, I must say.