Are you a list-maker?

List-making is said to be tied to psychological and personality traits, meant to reduce mental clutter and track clear progress, but the way you make lists can offer deep insights into your habits and cognitive style.

I have a confession to make. I am a list-maker. If I am going on holiday, I make a list of what will go in the case and what will go in the hand luggage. There will also be a list of what I will wear to travel in, with an alternative list depending on the expected weather. I could probably make a list to use over and over again, but no, I start afresh every time.

I periodically have to make a list of what’s in my freezers, as when I purchased the second freezer, I had all good intentions of keeping one for meats, fish and leftovers, then veggies and treats in the other, but over time, when there hasn’t been enough room in one, they get misplaced into the other, and I forget I have them.

Shopping lists were another habit (note the past tense here, more of that later), backs of envelopes, pages ripped from notebooks, and these might even be used twice, with the back of one being used to start another; even the backs of receipts from last week’s supermarket trip could be usefully re-purposed.

Lists in the work environment

This is tricky and is often called a ‘to-do list’, where sometimes the length of the list exceeds the pace at which jobs are tackled and becomes overwhelming, and where you might tend to tackle the easy ‘to do’ items first and the more complex ones become backed up, and you end up suffering from decision fatigue. This leads to impaired judgment, impulsive choices, or complete avoidance of decision-making. When lists grow faster than you can check them off, they transform from helpful roadmaps into sources of continuous guilt and paralysis. But this can be simplified: make a 3-5-item list of vital or weekly items and focus on getting them out of the way. Creating a ‘done’ list can help an anxious list-maker too, by boosting self-esteem and motivation.

The shopping list thing

Well, I have now proudly joined the tech-savvy brigade and have an app on my phone where I can add items to a digital shopping list. It even remembers what I have bought in the past, and I can look back and just swipe items up into my current list if necessary. What a game-changer this is! No more ragged sheets of paper crumpled into my handbag, where I am not sure which one is current. No more searching for paper or a pen that works to write down what I need. And when I add it to my cart, I can swipe it down in the app, and it is gone.

Studies indicate that physical writing activates more neural activity, which improves memory. Well, I had to type it in the first place, didn’t I? Doesn’t that count? And writing a physical list is said to reduce impulse buying, supposedly leading to better planning and fewer spur-of-the-moment decisions. Wrong. I still do that, there should be some alarm that goes off that detects the chocolate biscuits or that bargain bottle of wine that weren’t on ‘The List’ when they entered the cart.

Is it an inherited trait?

They say list-making is not an inherited trait, but rather a learned behaviour, a coping mechanism, or an organisational habit. You don't inherit a ‘list-making’ gene, but you may inherit a brain that functions better with external organisation tools to manage daily tasks, which is then reinforced by your environment and habits.

I still like lists, even though the shopping list has changed. My mother was an avid list-maker, and I guess I followed her on this. There is something pleasantly orderly and hopeful about making a list. And the list was often lying about with a chewed pencil, often searched for when about to make another list, but for the record, I have no chewed-up implements in my orderly shopping list-making now.