Just Between Us

List Mania

Confessions of a Serial Indexer

    I love making lists. I live by them. I rely on them. They are my daily compass. At my house, I have several lists going at all times. There’s always one in the kitchen, in the office and by my bed. When something I need to do, buy or fix pops into my head, I feel an urge to write it down before I forget. Jotting down what comes to mind has been essential to me for almost all my adult life. Lists free my brain from having to keep up with so much information, but I also like lists because I find them comforting: They represent hopeful attempts at productivity. There’s something about seeing words in black and white that clarifies my goals and makes me feel one step closer to accomplishment.
    Fellow list-makers out there, I’m sure you can attest to the tremendous high we get from ticking off a chore, scratching off a responsibility or removing a thorn in our side that we have committed to paper. Ah, what a feeling of achievement. As a matter of fact, I like that feeling so much I’ll sometimes even beef up my list with easy tasks just to be able to mark off more!
    I’ve noticed that I’m far from alone as a compulsive list-maker. I would venture to guess that a large segment of society is similarly afflicted. The evidence is in the media, which reflects the people it serves. For example, some years ago, Oprah suggested the “gratitude list.” She said that every night we should write down five things we are grateful for, no matter what kind of day we’ve had. Her reasoning was that this exercise would help us turn our focus from the negative to the positive.
    A recent article in the New York Times echoed a similar notion. Apparently, a fairly new but popular phenomenon is the keeping of a “life list,” which is essentially a contract with oneself enumerating life goals. The theory is that by forcing yourself to write down a dream or a goal, you’ll be more apt to achieve it.
    Personal list-making might be just another aspect of our culture’s list mania: Certain genres of magazines will forever compile best- and worst-dressed lists, the do’s and don’ts lists of fashion and the hot lists of every conceivable kind. And let me not forget a list that needs no explanation: the Forbes magazine yearly list of the richest people in the world. Oh, the list goes on and on.
    While considering this common practice of prioritizing things to do—or be—it occurred to me that we’re a list-obsessed society because lists are not only psychologically rewarding, but they are also brief, and to the point. Perhaps they are another symptom of our hectic lifestyle, which simply doesn’t allow for anything lengthy or in-depth. Or is this straightforward, efficient way of organizing our thoughts a welcome respite from life’s complexity? I choose to believe the latter.
    Lastly, there is the dark side to list-making that I haven’t mentioned, and that is the devastating feeling (gasp!) of losing a list. But those occurrences are so upsetting I can’t even go there.

E-mail Gina Jaber at ginajab@yahoo.com.