A LIST OF LISTS

If there is a greater joy than checking off a box on a to do list, it is peering into lists made by others.

Hi, I will always love lists. There’s no greater joy than checking off a box on my own list and the intimacy of peering into lists made by others.

I wandered down the rabbit hole of why human beings like consuming information in this format. From the ranking variety of Letterman's top 10 list segment, or Forbes 30 Under 30, or Time's most influential people, to the Buzzfeed era of the internet listicle, to early blogging's “5 ways to” or “10 things to try.”

Or today's Perfectly Imperfect or our favorite Christine's 15 years of the beloved YouTube format of “monthly favorites” where she curates items she discovered that month, anything from records to homewares.

Our brains love lists, whether it's what's in someone's bag, a list of items to buy for someone (which we collectively agree to refer to as “gift guides” for the month of December), or the current “10 Essentials With…” phenomenon that magazines like GQ love.

And according to my non-exhaustive research, we always have. Lists bring order to chaos. David Wallechinsky, co-author of the Book of Lists, says that in an era of over-stimulation, lists allow us to organize the overwhelming. 

This 2013 New Yorker article explains that lists feel good to our brains because they appeal to our tendency to categorize: 

“...it’s hard for us not to categorize something the moment we see it—since [we] chunk information into short, distinct components. This type of organization facilitates both immediate understanding and later recall. […] we can process information more easily when it’s in a list than when it’s clustered and undifferentiated.”

So with this week’s episode with (fittingly) digital organizer Jésabel DC, I also present to you a list of my favorite lists in no particular order…. 

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LIST OF LISTS: 

1. Sister Corita Kent’s  Art Department Rules which I wrote about here.

   

2. Toby's “Calm Down Chart”

   

3. Susan Sontag’s “Likes, Dislikes” which you can read here 

4. Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Rulin’s

   

5. “40 Things I Wish I’d Known at 40” from The Everyday Hero Manifesto by Robin Sharma (you can read the list here) I especially love number 26. 

6. English clergyman Sydney Smith sent his friend’s 13-year-old who was depressed this letter of advice in 1820…holds up. 

7. Technically a speech, and perhaps I will send a list of my favorite speeches someday as well, but until I do, The Sunscreen Song. It’s a list to live by of sorts for me and I used to play it at the end of my yoga classes sometimes. 

8. The Poem Kat reads in “10 Things I hate About You”

I’m certain I missed many great lists, so let me know. And if you read my email last week that contained my reminders to myself, maybe you made a list of yours? If so, and you'd like to share one or a few, feel free to do so here. I have an idea to compile some of them into a master list of wisdom from the intuition of each of us. Or leave it in a comment…

Thanks,

Katie 

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HOUSEKEEPING

-Here's one last list with all of our working codes. And Shop with shelves  - Book shelf   - General Store 

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#421 SORRY FOR THE DELAYED RESPONSE: JÉSABEL DC ON OVERWHELM, SENSITIVE TIME & PRIORITIZATION

I spoke with Jésabel DC. She helps people with anxiety organize their digital lives. I was one of them, so in this, we talked about the systems she helped me make, how I've struggled to sustain them, and how to evolve them. With a background in psychology and design, she specializes in turning chaotic digital environments (i.e., inboxes, files, notes, calendars) into functional spaces.

***Jésabel and I co-created a workshop! Learn more and sign up for Life Audit ***

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Images: top image: still from Éric Rohmer's  'La Collectionneuse', 1967
below still from “10 Things I Hate About You” 1999

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