‘We're all just walking each other home.’

D I V E   I N

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Lists

 

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1.

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Different types of list (in a list):

 

Christmas list

Blacklist

Grocery list

To-do list

‘My list’ (pertaining to certain celebrities and a waiving of typical monogamous behaviour)

Reading list

Watch list

Pro/con list

Wait list

Bucket list

Playlist

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2.

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Most of us love to-do lists. Stationery shops are overflowing with pads of paper and notebooks specifically for making to-do lists. Apple Notes has an additional tick-box function. The to-do list existed long before arty paper and built-in apps, though. Leonardo da Vinci was a list man. As it was the Renaissance, he had a finger in a variety of pies, including engineering, geology, and, of course, art. We know he filled notebooks with sketches and diagrams, but he also made to-do lists. Tasks included examining a crossbow and asking an expert for help with a mathematical protractor. Thomas Edison was another known to-do enthusiast. A list he made in the 1888, unearthed much later by writer Maria Popova, was titled ‘Things doing and to be done’, and was long and ambitious, with what we assume are invention ideas: ‘electrical piano’ and ‘deaf apparatus’.

 

3.

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We know that making to-do lists can alleviate anxiety, encourage creativity, and boost our memories. But there’s a difference between ‘need to do’ and ‘feel I’m supposed to do’, the latter conjured partly by our primal, need-to-belong brains and partly by technology (as a whole). In its dedicated upkeep of the busyness epidemic, technology encourages us to believe we have endless, ever-changing things we have to do to be our best selves, simply by suffusing the zeitgeist with ideas that feel more like musts (now I have to buy a Pelaton bike, say hourly affirmations, and contribute to the office social WhatsApp group?). Making these exhaustive, excessive lists filled with tasks that deep down we know we don’t really need or want to do can increaseour stress and workload instead of easing it.

 

Maybe the key lies in prioritising: What do I need to do? How can I help myself? And what is overwhelming me, bringing about feelings of failure and inadequacy, or is perhaps absolutely nothing to do with me and my life? If this doesn’t work, business owner Francis Shenstone has food for thought: ‘Busy people make “to-do” lists when what they need is to reflect and create “stop-doing” lists.’

 

4.

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In her 1979 collection of non-fiction, The White Album, Joan Didion published a packing list. The list, taped to her closet between 1979 and 2014, includes a wide of array of things including 2 skirts, cigarettes, bourbon, and a mohair throw, among others. The list became iconic and is still reprinted online and referenced today. Accompanying the piece is Didion’s own analysis: ‘This is a list which was taped inside my closet door in Hollywood during those years when I was reporting more or less steadily. The list enabled me to pack, without thinking, for any piece I was likely to do.’ Didion goes on to point out various items and their uses: ‘Notice the mohair throw for trunk-line flights (i.e. no blankets) and for the motel room in which the air conditioning could not be turned off. Notice the bourbon for the same motel room.’ But, writes Didion, with her trademark candour and frankness, ‘it should be clear that this was a list made by someone who prized control, yearned after momentum, someone determined to play her role as if she had the script, heard her cues, knew the narrative.’

 

5.

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Most of us are familiar with the allure of the pros and cons list. We have a conundrum that seems to draw no immediate, organic solution, so we call upon a structured list to organise our thoughts and feelings and find an answer. Sometimes, however, we already know the answer. Us humans often crave reassurance and confirmation from a source outside of ourselves, be it a god, the universe, or indeed a pros and cons list. Of course, we — not some invisible deity — write the list, but in doing so we convince ourselves that once we’ve drawn the line down the centre of the page, we’re totally objective and interested in either outcome. This isn’t to say that pros and cons lists are redundant or ineffective — in making them, we often become stronger in our convictions, come across unexplored ideas, and feel reassured in having seen the full picture. 

 

6.

 

The late writer Nora Ephron published many lists. In I Feel Bad About My Neck, she catalogues “What I Wish I’d Known”, with entries including ‘never marry a man you wouldn’t want to be divorced from’, ‘the plane is not going to crash’, and ‘you can order more than one dessert’. Her following essay collection I Remember Nothing also includes two lists, “What I Won’t Miss” (dry skin, the sound of the vacuum cleaner, Fox TV) and “What I Will Miss” (a walk in the park, butter, fireworks).

 

7.

 

While most lists live in the future (bucket lists, to-do lists, etc.) or the past (best meals ever eaten, favourite books of all time, etc.), there’s one that exists in the now: the gratitude list. In her research, vulnerability expert Brené Brown found that being grateful has a huge impact on emotional state and wellbeing. She says, ‘Without exception, every person I interviewed who described living a joyful life or described themselves as joyful actively practiced gratitude and attributed their joyfulness to that practice’.

 

Here are some things we’re grateful for, right this moment:

A roaring wind outside

You, the readers!

The rolling back of a stiff shoulder after a long period of sitting and typing

Quiet afternoons

The Office

Hot water bottles