If you’re like me, you already love to make lists. Lists are for so many things! Lists are for much more than groceries or trips to the hardware store. Also, if you’re like me, you wish that others shared your enthusiasm for those beautiful, practical things called lists.
This post is an encouragement to write more lists!
To that end, here is a list of some of my favorite ways that you can add more list-making to your life.
Note: In this post, I assume that you are writing your lists on actual paper. This is because I find that paper and a pen in my hand are much more compelling to me than a screen and a blinking cursor. But I also often make lists on my phone or computer as well. Try out the options. See what you like best.
Organize/Prioritize/Remember
This one may be the most popular and well-known kind of list. Besides grocery lists, the beloved/dreaded “to-do” list falls into this category.
I find I have a harder time getting motivated if I have not organized and prioritized my tasks. Personally, I do that best on paper. This is probably obvious, but I make sure to keep my list around until the tasks are accomplished (or become irrelevant), so I’ll remember! Keeping things like that in my head has never been my forte. Plus, I love to scratch things off the list as I complete them. (Yes, I’m one of those people.)
Why not try ending (or beginning) your week, or even your day, by organizing and prioritizing on paper?
De-clutter
This kind of list is very strongly related to the previous one. I get stressed if I have too many things in my mind that are clamoring to be analyzed, remembered, considered, or decided upon. Making a list relieves the pressure, because I know it will be there later when I have time to revisit those thoughts.
It could look like a “to-do” list; a steps-to-accomplish-a-project list; or it could be a list of ideas to consider, like ways to make extra income or new crochet projects to try.
Next time your brain feels like a hedge full of song birds, try this: grab a notebook or a folded piece of copy paper (I like to fold it long-ways for a great list-making canvas.), and start listing!
A cup of tea and a muffin or scone are good additions.
Problem-Solve
A pros/cons list can be super helpful! Not so much in showing you which column is longer, but in helping you to think through the implications of a problem or decision and all the contributing factors.
Another way to explore an idea/problem is to make a list of questions or missing info. I did that recently to help myself decide if a crazy idea I had was worth looking into further. Even a surface-look at some answers revealed that no, I wasn’t going to pursue the idea.
When next you face a decision, problem or idea, try drawing two columns on that notepad and make a double list! It’s bound to be twice as helpful, right?
Look-back/Look Forward
Have you ever made goals at New Year’s? Or at some other turning-point of life?
If not, I encourage you to try it. Making a list of goals for the future creates two beautiful opportunities: the opportunity to look backward at your life in order to assess what you’d like to change or add and the opportunity to look forward and tentatively chart a course for the future. There’s also sort of a third opportunity. It’s basically the first one (the look-back) over again, because the two opportunities are cyclical. The difference is that when you look backward after having made some goals about a certain area of life, then you get the opportunity to see what changed and how God led you.
The beginning of a new year is an appropriate time for such threshold moments. But I have also spent time reflecting and goal-making at other times of the year — such as my birthday, or during a vacation that gave me some time to mentally regroup.
These opportunities for reflection seem to me to be too rare. I know I would benefit from a little more intentional quiet in which to look back, look forward, and consider the path of my feet.
No one says this can only be done at New Year’s.
Navigate
Sometimes I use lists (or a journal) to help me navigate tricky emotions or situations.
I made a list almost 5 years ago that I still keep in my desk. It is titled with the date (Be a good student: always date your list!) and this phrase: “What’s Worrying Me.”
After a page of listed anxieties come two pages of another list titled “What I Must Do: Think Truth.” I kept those lists because that moment sticks in my memory as an occasion where God gave me great peace as I poured out my heart to Him and remembered the truth of His word – His gospel promises to me in Jesus Christ. When I got done making that list, my troubled soul was much more tranquil.
On the back of the last page is a note nearly four years older than the original list. That note records God’s faithfulness in those areas of concern and fear. Just as with the goal-making, these kinds of lists can be great opportunities to be encouraged by looking back and seeing God’s faithfulness.
Next time your heart-strings are tied in knots, try untangling them with a little ink and a lot of prayer.
A Word of Caution
These are some of the reasons I think people could be blessed by adding more list-making to their lives – reasons I think you could benefit by writing lists for more than the items you need to pick up at the grocery store. But I wish to include a warning from experience, especially for anyone like myself who already enjoys lists:
Lists can become all-consuming. There is a time to ditch the list!
When I find myself spending too much time scribbling out to-do lists and not enough time doing the lists, I suspect that something is wrong. When I forget to pray and write the “Think Truth” half of my emotional or problem-solving list, then self-pity and bitterness seem to get the idea that they have a standing invitation.
A list is not the desired result. It’s not the goal. What good would it be if you made a grocery list, tacked it to the fridge to be admired, and left it at that? A list is meant as a stepping-stone, a reminder, an encouragement, a spur to prayer or thanksgiving.
Lists are for more than groceries.
With that in mind, are there any new lists you’ll be creating soon? I’m off to start one or two of my own….
