All about lists, #3: Lists as (productive) playtime

This is the third in a series about lists: tools for making them, ways of making more useful—even using them as creative tools. Posted as inspiration strikes and time permits.

Long weekend coming up and to me, that means one thing: uninterrupted putter time!

I'll be attacking many non-urgent to-do items on various contextual lists, but I also plan to allow myself a few creative list-making opportunities.

Yes, I make lists the way some people do crosswords or sudoku—to keep my brain sharp. I mean, I do crosswords, too, but I confess to feeling guilty at only working my brain; I like working my brain and having something to show for it afterwards besides a filled out puzzle and (somewhat guilt-tinged) sense of accomplishment. Lists help keep my brain sharp and can, when plotted properly, provide a valuable public service.

Some Lists of Lists You Might Think of Tackling

These are helpful for everyone, and give your brain a fun, gentle stretch. For those who like to get double-duty out of stuff, they also make excellent blog posts!

• favorite movies for a rainy day
• favorite movies for Saturday
• favorite "go-to" movies (IMDb is great for tracking these: here's mine
• best experts on... (I wrote one on advice columnists)
• to 10 tips on whatever it is you know about (I did one on newsletters)
• top 100 books of all time
• top time-saving tips you've learned in your life
• five things you'd go back and tell your 20-year-old self
• five things you'd tell someone starting out in your industry right now
• best ways to use 5...10...15 (etc) minutes
• top 10 blogs that people MUST read
• etc.

The above lists do shed some insight onto your own psyche, which can be fun (and, yes, useful!) from a self-development standpoint. The potential lists below work that even harder. You can choose to externalize them or not. I provide links to my own lists that I've made public; people seem to find them entertaining at the least, occasionally illuminating at their best:

• the famed Proust questionnaire
• the 100 things you learned this year (2006, pt 1/pt 2; 2005, pt 1/pt 2; 2004, pt 1/pt 2)
• 43 things you'd like to learn (or do)
• how you got to where you are (I did 10 steps on How to Get to Happy)
• etc.

How about you—are you a closet/compulsive listmaker? What kinds of lists do you write to help keep your mind sharp and the world informed?

Let us know in the comments!

Comments

[Lindsay]

I have really enjoyed your articles. It's really fantastic to find good FRESH ideas not merely rehashed ex guru stuff.
Congratulations.

I would love you to pop over to: http://stuff4restaurants.com/blog2
sometime and see what I am doing for restaurants.

[Milli Thornton]

Hi Colleen,

I'm tickled to find someone else who loves list-making enough to see it as a fun pursuit as well as a way to be organized.

I was introduced to the concept of lists for fun by a Yahoo! 360 friend, as a way to get to know Internet friends a bit better.

After I had done my "100 Things You May or May Not Want to Know About Me" list, I was so inspired I wrote an article in my newsletter (Fear of Writing Gazette, 4/11/07) about lists as a fun creative pursuit.

The article offers 10 suggested lists to show the endless possibilities. Making it into a list of 100 stretches the writer (or closet writer) to dig deeper than she may have believed she could go.

If you'd like to check out the article, click on my name below (saves posting a long, garbled Yahoo! link). Look for the second article, big blue title, "Try the 100 Things Creative Warm-Up."

Have fun! - Milli

[Colleen Wainwright]

Thanks, Lindsay. What a great restaurant resource your site looks like! Really nicely designed & organized, too. I trust it's going well?

Good list ideas, Milli. And I agree--there's something about that "100" that's magic. Kind of like breaking through your wall in running at 3 miles (although I think I only broke through that one once!)