Have you ever watched Gilmore Girls? It’s one of my favorite shows ever. Seriously. Anyway, if you’ve watched, you may remember that Rory is a smarty who gets moved to private school in the beginning of season one, and her mom makes fun of her because she makes lists for everything. Well, if Rory actually existed, she could probably meet her match in me. I am a master of list-making.

I keep lists everywhere. To-do lists, shopping lists, pro-con lists, and the list of lists goes on!

The Pros and Cons of Listing

Let me list you the pros of list-making.

• Organizing Thoughts – Use lists to help you organize your thoughts. This is best done with a Pro-Con list, in which you name the positive and negative aspects of a certain subject. One of my good friends once found a (private!!) pro-con list I had made upon first meeting a boy in school. I was attracted, but I didn’t know if I’d want to date him. So I made a list. By the way, that was about ten years ago, and now we’re married. No pressure or anything, I know not all lists can be as productive as mine.
• Memory – Use lists to help you remember things you might otherwise forget. Is your cupboard looking bare? Shopping lists for the store fall in this category. I even have lists of books I want to read and movies I want to see. I started a list of movies I’ve already seen, but I didn’t keep up with that one very well. I guess I’ll just have to accept that I may not remember all of the movies I’ve seen.
• Productivity – Use lists to make sure you (or your spouse) get things done! This is one of my favorite uses for lists, as I hate remembering weeks later that I meant to do something, only to realize that it never got done because I had forgotten about it. I use to-do lists all the time.

The cons?

• If you lose your list, you might be out of luck, especially if your memory is as poor as mine.
• You will find that you have a lot of random scrap-paper-lists to throw away, and they will pop up when least expected.
• You can still forget to put something on your list to begin with, in which case your memory won’t be very helped.

How To-Do It

You can do it however you want! I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way. I’ll go over my favorites, though, just for fun.

• I keep a big and little to-do list. I keep a big list on my fridge for both my husband and myself, so that we remember the big things that need to be done. I change it out about once a month, though often there are things still on the list that must be transferred to the next list. The big list contains things such as fixing the dryer, when the cat is next due for his shots, registering the car, etc. I also try to keep a little to-do list just for myself, and I make a new one every day, trying to list only things I know I can accomplish within that one day. The little list says things like write blogs, call customers, change cat litter, do dishes.
• I keep digital notes when it comes to notes serving my memory. To-do lists I keep on paper so that I can cross out items (this is more fulfilling to me than simply deleting it from my digital list), but lists of other types are safely stored in my documents on the computer. Easy to modify and organize!
• I keep lists on sticky notes. If I don’t do digital lists, I use sticky notes. They get lost less frequently! You can put them on mirrors, computer monitors, bedside tables, foreheads… And you can always fold over the sticky part later if it’s bothering you.

Do You Do Lists?

This has been a kind of goofy post, but no less legit. What do you think about lists? Do you use than as much as Rory and I? Leave your list in the comments!