Real Simple: Lists seem to be more central to our lives than ever before―from our own obsessive to-do lists to the structure of the human genome or Google’s cataloging of the World Wide Web. But the urge to collect and classify is hardly new, nor is it always magnanimous. For every Ben Franklin listing his rules of civilized human conduct, there is a Joseph McCarthy listing his enemies of the state.
6 comments:
I think this article was severely mistitled. Instead of "10 Ways to Rethink Your Lists," it should have been called "10 Observations About Lists." Thea ideas presented in this article are not revolutionary. They are not even focused on one type of list. They are basically telling us that there are infinite ways to make a list, with infinite categories of items and level of detail. Which, I hope, is common knowledge. I don't think that many people are stuck in one way of list-making, but rather that they lean on a way that makes the most sense for them at the time. However, this article did get one thing right. Lists are often made to clear people's minds when they are under a lot of pressure. So they may be thinking too little about what they are doing. Even though they probably already know these basic methods and facts about lists, the article may be a valuable read for someone who has never consciously considered this before.
I have to agree with Kassondra on this one. This article was not only misleading due to its inaccurate title, but it was also extremely unhelpful. The article is centered on different circumstances where lists have proven to be useful in history. Although this may be helpful for someone who has never used lists before, it is mostly unhelpful since list-making seems to be common sense. Overall, I think that the way someone chooses to keep track of their life events is a personal choice. There have been many article posted recently to the green page that have discussed new iPhone applications that are used to help people make lists. I was hoping that this article would point out things to consider while evaluating the different methods of list-taking out there.
I have n idea what my life would be without to-do lists. Without these lists I would not be able to keep track of the enormous number of projects that I have going on at one time. I find the advice given to be very helpful in formatting, and generating my list. One of the strange things that I have realized is that the way my to-do list visually looks effects the way that I get the work done. I'm not sure why that happen but it does.
I don't find this article to be particularly ground-breaking or perceptive, but I do like the humorous way in which the information is presented--even though it did borderline on irrelevant. I never realized that the term "round robin" originated from people signing petitions in circles so that ringleaders couldn't be identified.
I agree with Kassondra and Jess. The article wasn't only inaptly named, but it also contained no helpful information. There were some funny quips in it, and some interesting historical facts, but other than that, there was no useful organizational information. More than a little useless if you ask me.
Joe Pinos meta skills advice is most certainly relevant in many cases, and this list even more so. As a person who often find that there are many things to do or waiting to be completed at a single point in time, i find that lists organized by categories and subcategories help me immensely, whenever i have free time to work i look at my list and get to it. Whenever i have something particularly frustrating, or something that i dont want to do, listing it along side a few expletives often helps me, such as: "Just finish the Da** paper" written on a note is very helpful to me, taking the articles advice and putting a little humor in my reminders.
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