Illustration by Mary Kirkpatrick
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Some people meditate to start their day, some work out, others eat a full breakfast or drink coffee; I write lists. To be implicitly clear, I drink coffee and write lists (they go so well together). I don’t apologize for, regret or otherwise fret about my list-making, though it is a frequent source of amusement to friends and family. My mother sees an unnameable mental-health disorder in the extreme detail of my lists. Some see absurdity. Others venerate my lists for their complexity and structure. There have been many detractors, the biggest of whom was my daughter.
I do not make lists of books I want to read. Or the Top 10 films I’ve seen this year (have I seen 10 films this year?). My lists serve a purpose. They are functional, utilitarian. My lists are there to help me accomplish things, organize my sometimes-sloppy mind, give structure to my day.
Sometimes, my lists are colour-coded, as is the case with my academic lists. There are two academic lists for the week. One is for assignments coming due in the next month or so. This list, for obvious reasons, is chronological. Each course has its own colour. For example, Heroes of Greek Mythology is orange, everything related to it, orange. Always. Similarly, everything related to Poetry and Poetics is green. I have no bias. These are randomly chosen colours from what colours are available to me in highlighters, Post-it notes and computer tags. The other list is of readings for the coming week, highlighted, obviously, by course. This extra bit of compulsive listing permits me to see at a mere glance, what I need to do.
I do not highlight personal lists. As a rule. I might use a highlighter if the list is long and getting out of hand or there is a time constraint (Christmas, for example). If I do, items will probably be grouped by similarity. Domestic tasks in blue; financial items in pink. It’s important to be flexible when listing.
I have a particular method of crossing things off my list. I use a black, Uniball Vision pen, with a fine tip, whenever possible. A mere stroke is not enough; I must use several horizontal strokes to completely obliterate the thing. Remaining items are easier to read this way. If it is a thing I have decided not to do, or at least not do on that day, I expunge the word with squiggly lines and move it to the following day’s list, already begun, of course. In this way, I know that it still must be done.
I have been known to rewrite lists.
I never make lists on a screen – computer, phone or other. They are ALWAYS handwritten, with attention to form and aesthetic. I use a fountain pen and special French paper in a 5 x 5 graph (five squares per inch vertically and horizontally). Never lined or blank. I prefer a blue or black ink but have, in whimsical moods, experimented with exotic colours – Rose Cyclamen, Gris Nuage, Vert Empire. Inevitably the novelty wears off and I return to the fundamental utility of black or blue.
Often, a nest of loose, cursive scribble encircles the lists. Words, song lyrics, doodles, remembered things that stick in my mind. You might think that this scribble defeats the purpose and effort of the list. And you’d be partially correct. But the essence of the list is in the process of writing it, in the tactile relationship between hand and pen and paper. In writing it, I am committing it to memory, organizing and prioritizing in my head, preparing mentally for my day.
I do make shopping lists.
List-making turns out to be compulsive. Away from home, I am safe from its grasp, but at home the need to list is powerful. I do take breaks, sometimes for an entire week. Just like that, cold turkey, I stop, list-free; it has the effect of refocusing the lists, when they become vague, unclear, ill-defined. When this happens, I know I have been over-listing.
The academic rigours of high school finally won over my daughter’s skepticism. She eventually came to recognize the elegant utility of lists. Her lists are simple and straightforward, but I don’t doubt that her list-making will evolve to the degree of complexity and precision that mine have. Likely, they will surpass mine, for isn’t that the nature of progeneration? My son’s proclivity for list-making, too, is powerful, but in a completely different way. He is a list-maker of Top 10s. Or Top 100s. Top 10 Movies of 2023; Characters of the Walking Dead (rated and in order of ranking); Coen Brother films, ranked by rating (his own).
Listing is now also having its way with Pinterest. There, you can learn how to list or what to list. You can learn to make it expressive and inspiring. There are lists that have boxes for ticking, bullet points, flowers or stars, fancy calligraphy and co-ordinating colours. My lists are not fancy and pretty. They are neat, orderly and functional; everything they need to be. If you’re a lister you’ll probably know exactly what I mean.
Kate Judge lives in Alliston, Ont.