Notepads at the ready

 Making lists is often the best way to impose order on your world

 

There are basically two kinds of people in this world: those who make lists and the ones who don’t. My husband comes firmly in the second category. He has an almost pathological dread of listing things down on paper. I, on the other hand, can do almost nothing without first listing it, either on paper or on the Notes app on my phone.

 

I admit that I may be more anal than most when it comes to making lists. For instance, I have four master-lists for packing when I travel. One of them is for packing for a beach holiday; another is for heading to the mountains; there’s another for a city break; and then there is a common list of essentials that I need no matter what the destination. You might think this is excessive. And you would be quite wrong. These lists take the stress right out of packing – and ensure that I never ever forget anything, remembering it only when I am checking in for my flight.

 

Even on holiday, I rely on lists. I make a note of the top ten attractions I need to hit at my destination. I list all the restaurants I want to check out. And, most important of all, I make a list of all the local food specialties that I need to buy on my grocery run on the last day of my trip, to bring back home.

 

No surprise then, that every cooking expedition of mine starts with a list. I first note all the ingredients I will need (this also helps immensely if I need to go shop for them), then roughly jot down the method. That way, I am not taken by surprise by anything in the middle of cooking – except, of course, my own occasional incompetence.

 

My list obsession extends even to my writing – not this column, but my books. I can never really get started until I make a list of all my characters, writing a little synopsis on each one. I break down the plot into a list of chapters, making a rough outline of how each one will play out. I then make a list of deadlines, laying down in black and white how many words I need to get done in each month. And only then do I get down to actually writing the damn thing.

 

Sure, I spend a lot of time doing this when I could be actually writing my book. But I find this time well-spent. It calms me to see the path to writing laid out clearly before me. It is reassuring to know that if I put down 500-700 words per day, I can finish a chapter in a week or ten days. And even though I don’t always follow the plot lines that I have listed, they serve as a sturdy scaffolding to build the rest of my book around. (And there is nothing quite as satisfying as listing the word count of every chapter as I finish it.)

 

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that lists make my life much easier. And on occasion, they have been life-savers. If you haven’t experienced their magic yet, you may want to get started. Shall I list all the ways they would help? Or have I done that already?