The freedom of lists
There are lots of lists to help us remember and stay organized in many areas of our lives. Shopping lists, to-do lists, gift lists, project lists, to-read lists, chore lists, and bucket lists, just to name a few.
Making a list is a great way to organize your thoughts and free-up brain space. When we have reliable lists, we no longer have to depend on our brains to remember everything, and instead can lend our brainpower to new ideas, day dream and solving other problems.
The catch is, lists only create freedom if you know where they are and you use them consistently. Too often the lists are stashed in random places such as notebooks, post-it notes, scraps of paper, and so on. Now our lists also live in digital notes, apps, and email. This can create more chaos than freedom if there’s no system behind it.
To fully leverage the freedom of lists, follow these 3 guidelines:
- Choose ONE home for each type of list. This means your daily to-do list should all be kept in one place, not on post-it notes and your notebook and your task management app. By creating a singular location, your brain knows quickly where to put things and where to look for them. Here are some quick example of tools I use for my lists:
- Grocery lists: We jot down needed items on a designated paper notepad in the kitchen. When we shop, we tear off the sheet and take it with us.
- Project lists: All project lists for both home and business live in a digital app (Trello) accessible from any device and it’s sharable.
- To-do lists: I write my daily to-do list in a dated paper planner.
- Goals lists: These also live in my dated paper planner for easy reference from which I create my daily to-do list.
- Less is better. Use the least amount of tools to house your all your lists. Tools include notebooks, planners, post-its, apps, etc. Besides the grocery list, my paper planner and Trello are my go-to tools.
- Opt for joy and simplicity: There’s an overwhelming amount of notebooks, software and apps to choose from for creating lists and reminders, managing projects, and so on. I’ve tested out many apps only to find the ones with lots of bells and whistles to be cumbersome. I encourage you to choose your tools with the following criteria:
- Joy: Do you like using it? If you don’t like the user interface, you’ll probably abandon it before too long. How much you like it matters.
- Simplicity: Is it simple? Unnecessary features can often be a distraction visually and functionally. When in doubt, choose the simplest tool to get the job done.
Once you’ve established your simple system for keeping your lists, review and edit them consistently. Your brain will quickly begin to rely on these lists and it will truly be free to move on to your next greatest achievement.
