Living by the List

But not the Listicle

It may not be at the very acme of delight, but surely list-making lies on the border of satisfaction and pleasure. We start to make sense of the world, or part of it, when we make a list. It induces a mental clarity, a sense of contentment, a feeling of control. When you write a list, you are sharpening your focus and lightening your cognitive load: you don’t have to remember as much, because now you have a list.

There are all kinds of lists, from the banal to the sublime. The grocery list is the most common. Recently, while driving to the supermarket with my husband, he asked, “Where’s the list?”

I had to laugh. “It’s where it usually is,” I told him. “On the refrigerator.”

Yes, I still write it by hand, scrawled on a slip of paper. No, I don’t put it on my iPhone because then I’d have to find the phone and laboriously type in “Smoked paprika” with clumsy fingers, which would take three times as long.

My general To Do list can’t get forgotten or misplaced because it’s on my laptop, in a file labeled “Today.” “Today” is always current, so it’s fine that many of the tasks first appeared on the list last week or even last month. The list contains all the things I want to do, from submitting my latest piece to once again calling the plumber.

You would think that when I finished a task, I would simply erase it from the list, but I like to document what I do, from the fear that I really do nothing on any particular day. So I do not delete the completed task: I italicize it, so later I can see that I have in fact done something.

Presently, the beginning of my Today to-do list goes:

Shop Schiavonni’s

Go to dump

Submit humor piece

Write note to neighbor, invite for drinks

Check to Jon

Write Substack post

Many people even travel by the list, on a quest to visit all 50 states—or to run a marathon in each of them. Others aim to visit all 63 National Parks. Some hikers climb all 46 Adirondack high peaks, each higher than 4,000 feet. They sign the book at the summit, then cross that mountain off their list.

If grocery and to-do lists are prosaic, so-called bucket lists are sublime. What do you really want to do before you kick the bucket? Travel to Bhutan or Antarctica? Learn to tango or draw hands? Drive a Formula 1 car on a racetrack? Embrace a great-grandchild? Eat at a 3-star Michelin restaurant?

For some reason, sky-diving often appears on these lists . . . but not on mine.

Deluged with entertainment options, many of us keep lists to tell us what to read or watch next. If a title stays on the list for years without being watched or read, it seems to get stale. There are 10 books on my book list, 5 of which haven’t moved off it for years. These are old suggestions, for some reason uncompelling, and I might as well delete them at long last.

I have over a hundred streaming suggestions, some years old, and most nights this summer, I glance at the list, then decide to go read. Somehow, by the beach, I want to turn pages.

Just as lists help organize our lives, listicles have come to dominate popular magazines. A listicle is a combination of “list” and “article.” When you see a number in the title, you know it’s a listicle. The following ones went viral:

21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith in Humanity – BuzzFeed
This list of random acts of kindness touched millions and became one of BuzzFeed’s most-shared posts. It tugs at your heart—a classic viral formula.

The 25 Funniest Autocorrects of All Time – HuffPost
Screenshots of hilarious text-message fails.

Top 10 Life-Changing Books (According to Reddit) – Medium/Blogosphere
People love the idea of personal transformation, and this list of books that promise change was seen by millions.

A listicle promises useful advice in an easy-to-read format—and who doesn’t want that? But like a popsicle, a listicle goes down easy, tastes sweet, and leaves you undernourished.

A list you ponder and create on your own, however, is a different matter. It can help you organize your day—and achieve some of your life goals. For as you check off an item on your list, you get a little reward, a dopamine rush.

Good habits start here.

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