As someone lacking basic organization skills I find lists very useful. Inside the collection of neural tissue so optimistically called my brain, all my words, ideas, and plans for tomorrow are flying around like bats in a belfry. By writing these things down in list form I am able to find meaning in the madness. I am able to see my ideas, prioritize them and wrestle with sequence. I am able to cross things off and forget about them forever. Whether it is a grocery list, a list of places I want to visit, or even a list of chores I hope to accomplish on the weekend, lists allow me to organize the chaotic jumble of my thoughts.
In fact I like lists so much that I have even gone as far as to make lists of lists I want to make. Making a list of lists is like organizing your organization skills, like vacuuming the vacuum cleaner, like breaking your hand while trying to further break your broken television. I present to you a short metacognitive list of lists I want to make.
- Bucket lists are lame. I want to make a fuck it list–a list of the things I would do if I had one day left to live. What would you do?
- The list of mistakes I didn’t make. This list is much shorter than my list of mistakes and therefore depressing to think about.
- The list of books I pretended to read in order to seem erudite and cool in college. I used to buy stacks of used books and put them on my bookshelf in the hopes that someone would see them and think I was smart. How dumb is that?
- A list of heirloom tomato cultivars. Seriously though. The mortgage lifter. The green zebra. The banana legs. The scooby doo. The alien vs predator. Okay some of these may be movies and not tomato cultivars, but they should be.
- The list of reasons I don’t want to be (and never wanted to be) president.
- The list of stories I started to write and never finished.
- The list of places I don’t want to visit, like the slaughterhouse for instance.
- The list of songs I wish I wrote but didn’t because I have never actually written a song.
- A list of the times I broke the law and/or got arrested. Thank God for statutes of limitation.
- A list of ways to drive a teacher crazy. I am currently writing a how to guide about this.
- A list of lists I want to make. Um, wait a second. Cross that one off the list.
Making a list and checking it twice (by kylesteed on Flickr)
Composed for the DP Weekly Writing Challenge: List Lesson
Now to start working on some of those lists.
intrinsickness 