Lists – Glorious Lists!
Posted on | November 15, 2009 | 4 Comments
Although my husband, children, sisters, and friends have laughingly called me the ‘List Queen’ for many years, I am certainly NOT alone in my fascination with lists as a source of both personal organisation and intellectual curiousity.
From the oft-amended grocery list within the “Shopping Lists” spiral notebook to the “Things To Do” list in my purse-sized dayplanner, my brain simply functions more efficiently when I am able to tick things off and sigh happily from the completion of a task. And I would probably never write another book if I didn’t have a notebook filled with ideas and insertions at my side as I type.
Hopefully the readers of this column are a bit more tidy in their paperwork wrangling than I because I have occasionally found myself in a full-blown moaning frenzy when I lost one of my MANY in-progress lists amongst the piles of predatory, list-eating paper-stacks that blossom and grow on my desk and coffee table.
Italian writer Umberto Eco, author of the much-beloved book The Name of the Rose
This article in the German publication SPIEGEL discusses the new exhibition at the Louvre which gives us a glimpse into the lists made by well know writers and artists through the ages.
As Eco states to the journalist, “The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often.”
The Louvre exhibition lists give glimpses into the thought processes of those long gone in many cases. But an even more trendy version of list mania is currently unfolding in the world of social media as Twitter Lists emerge online. Whether it is your own closest friends or simply curious strangers, anyone can now have a clear indication of who you think is worth watching on Twitter and how you categorise them. It’s a fascinating bit of ‘mind perv’ into the thought process of other Twitterers. And the lists concept has caught on like the proverbial wildfire around the world.
Eco’s curation of this new exhibit at the Louvre may only examine list-makers from the past, but he has also tapped into the zeitgeist of our current fascination with the lists of other people and our tendency to be armchair psychologists about the motivation for adding each item.
Do we learn anything from the lists of others? Do these small glimpses into the lives of others serve a constructive purpose? Are we engaging that ‘inner perv’ that resides within so many of us — the one which makes some people think that it is acceptable to have a wee glimpse into the contents of your medicine cabinet when they go to the loo at your house? Or are we simply allowing ourselves to indulge in a tiny bit of harmless human nature — a normal curiousity about whether other people do their organising differently, better, more creatively, more happily than we do.
Questions, questions — and perhaps the beginning of another list with ideas to discuss in future articles. We DO LOVE our lists!
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4 Responses to “Lists – Glorious Lists!”
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Deborah Harmes, Ph.D.
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November 16th, 2009 @ 7:56 AM
Well if you’re the List Queen, I am most certainly the “Duchess of Lists.” I have a daily list of items to work through. If they are completed a black line rules them out. If not, a red line goes through and they are carried over to the next day. In 2007 I sent a senior manager to an expensive time management course – and they taught her exactly the same technique. Long Live the List!
November 16th, 2009 @ 8:51 AM
Dear Duchess,
I knew long before I read the article about Eco’s exhibit that I wasn’t alone based on firsthand observation of other woman around me. And I am so list oriented that I don’t even do fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants grocery shopping. If the items I need are NOT on the list, I am bound to forget something and be in a bit of a grumpy mood about it afterward.
When I have to drive one half an hour each WAY to go grocery shopping, that makes the use of a thoroughly well-written list positively a mood enhancer!
I certainly do like your black line, red line technique though. My own cross through is just a wavy line.
Thanks for the comments!
November 27th, 2009 @ 1:23 PM
Hi Deborah,
One of my list-obsessed … er, list-over-abuser? … friends swears by her simple technique.
She has SPIKES which stand at the back of her desk, within arm’s reach, and are very ‘old tech’.
She has also put names on the base/stand of the spikes, for example ‘book #1 notes’, ‘groceries’ etc, and swears she never ever puts a list on the desk without spiking it
This means she cannot lose a list amongst her current paperwork on the desk.
Another friend has little pegs on magnets to which she attaches her lists (the magnets are stuck to the side of her filing cabinet in reach of the desk).
I’m sure you’ll come up with something which suits you perfectly!
Cheers
Teena
http://A-Night-in-Paris.com
November 30th, 2009 @ 9:57 PM
Oh I remember those spike things, Teena!
The last time I saw them was when I worked at a newspaper and the editor had one spike for each of us photojournalists. We’d walk by the end of the desk, look at the one with our name on the base, and pick up our assignments.
Hmmmm…
Deborah