Time-saving tips: lists

Making lists is . It makes you feel important - all those things to do. It dictates the shape of the immediate future, it calms you down (it’s O.K., it’s on a list somewhere), and it makes you feel good when you cross something off (list-making is standard practice in therapy for depression). It might even help you to get things done, too.

There are two types of people when it comes to making lists. Type A makes orderly lists, prioritizes, and calmly sets to work on them. Type B waits until panic sets in, grabs the nearest envelope and scribbles all over it, sighs with relief, and promptly loses it.

The more you have to do, the more you need a list, and few people with high-powered jobs get by without them. (...)

James Oliver, a psychologist, has created his own “timemanagement matrix.” He writes a list of things to do and then organizes the items into categories: things that have to be done right away, other things that it would be good to do today, things that are important but don’t have to be done immediately, and things that are less urgent but that he doesn’t want to forget. “Using categories to organize the world is the way the human mind works,” he says. “After that, you should put things into hierarchies of importance.” But he warns against the danger of Excessive List Syndrome. “If people get obsessed with making lists, it doesn’t work. They have too many categories and lose their capacity to prioritize.” (...)

Livro American Inside Out, Sue Kay & Vaughan Jones, Macmillan 2003.