List or Lost

 

List Or Lost

By

Vivek Hande

 

Each of us have our own mechanisms to navigate through chaos and attempt to get more out of a day. Some of us use wads of Stick It; others use digital devices to organize everything – from your daily schedule to investments to holiday planning; some use a lot of readily available AI tools to be on top of things. I am an old-fashioned List Maker. Nothing to beat the good old To-Do list on paper. Today is Sunday, start of a new week. I made a very comprehensive list for tomorrow- the only problem is I don’t know who is going to do it!

There are different kinds of Lists. There could be daily; weekly; yearly To- Do Lists. Then there are sub lists- to buy; to loan; to sell; to pack; to wish; to not wish and so on. Sometimes, list making can get very detailed and time consuming leaving no time to actually do these things. But that is a risk one has to take to be organized and meticulous and productive.

It can get obsessive at times and one spends the night conjuring the list to be penned down first thing in the morning. Sometimes one actually looks forward mentally, with a sense of anticipation to the items to be penned down on the all-important list. Of course, compulsive list making can be associated with conditions like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. List making is associated with positive psychology; enhances capacity to select and prioritize and it most certainly helps to organize and control chaos.

Honestly, at times, I add things to my List just to make it a look a little bulkier (putting things I would anyway routinely do)- the tremendous sense of satisfaction at taking a pen and scoring off an item is pure magic. The ticking off an item on the list activates the hypothalamus and triggers the release of Dopamine and makes you feel good. The intensity of the hypothalamic activation after taking a pen to score off an item on a list far exceeds any that produced by any AI tool or digital device.

List making is not a new phenomenon. It probably dates back to the Middle Ages. Leonardo Da Vinci, who had a finger in several pies made voluminous notes and scribbled To -Do lists on the margins. A lot didn’t get done and would find repetition in subsequent notes as well.

Da Vinci The List Maker

 Benjamin Franklin was a compulsive list maker and set himself a 13-week self-improvement program with traits such as Temperance and Frugality to be practiced every day and tracked his progress meticulously. He had other Lists to ensure he stuck to a strict personal routine every day. Edison, who had 1093 patents to his credit had his List classified as “Doing and To Be Done”. My lists may be more mundane but I definitely find myself in good company.

Franklin's Daily To Do List

Ben Franklin again -List To Track Daily Progress

List making and the business of making the lists has provoked several scientific studies to delve into the psychology of it. George Miller, a cognitive psychologist, proposed the Miller’s Law which suggests that an average adult brain can only deal with five – seven chunks of information at a time and the Lists help deal with cognitive overload and help navigate a chaotic world. Umberto Eco, the famous Italian medievalist and writer famously wrote, “The List is the Origin of Culture. What Does Culture Want? To Make Infinity Comprehensible”. After reading that, I have started regarding my own daily To- Do lists with a great degree of respect and pride…

Lists- The origin of culture

I have a senior colleague and a dear friend who has made the process of making his daily work day lists into a well-practiced ritual and almost an art form. He writes them down in black ink in his diary in different priority classifications and as the day progresses, he scores them off in different coloured inks. Red if the job is done; blue if is partially done and needs to come back in tomorrow’s list (tomorrow it will be written in black); green if it has to be delegated to someone.  It does look quite colourful but it helps keep things in control for him. As long as it works for you..

Woody Allen is supposed to have said, ‘I am always making lists. I don’t procrastinate. I delegate tasks to my future self. I write down things I need to get done, but probably won’t. But making lists makes me feel I have got my act together’….. Let me get back to fine tuning my list for the coming week..