If you like making lists, read here “The Amazing History of the To-Do List”, wherein is found this nugget from Umberto Eco:
The list is the origin of culture. It’s part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order — not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart’s librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists — the shopping list, the will, the menu — that are also cultural achievements in their own right.
Eco’s entire interview is worthwhile. He’s assembled an exhibition at the Louvre on list-making and list-makers, attempting to explain the acts undiminished importance. Der Spiegel asks, “Why do we waste so much time trying to complete things that can’t be realistically completed?” To which Eco answers:
We have a limit, a very discouraging, humiliating limit: death. That’s why we like all the things that we assume have no limits and, therefore, no end. It’s a way of escaping thoughts about death. We like lists because we don’t want to die.
Belle Beth Cooper’s Fast Company article explores a few essentials of list-making along with some historical anecdotes (Break projects into tasks, Prioritize ruthlessly, Plan ahead, and Be realistic in your planning), of interest but no surprise to makers of lists (are there non-list-makers?)
I am a sucker for list-making tools, and own way more than I could possibly use. My favorite by far and is The Hit List, although its development is lapsed and its longterm fate unknown. It has an iPhone counterpart (but no iPad), for which one must pay to sync. I try to quit it, but keep coming back. I’ve also begun using a new iPhone app called Begin, which rather whole life task management is designed for daily lists, but does this with simplicity and style; imminently useful. I’m not sure I can recommend purchasing The Hit List, although I find it better by some stretch than Things or Omnifocus, the two apps most mentioned in its class (which, by the way, offer free sync across devices). On the iPhone other useful apps include Ita (not strictly a todo app, but a terrific list app) and Clear.