A-HED

America Is Drowning in Lists

Productivity gurus advise us to make to-do lists to improve our lives. But the
list of possible lists is maddening
By Laura Meckler and Heidi Vogt
April 27, 2018 11:38 am ET

Things to do for an article about to-do lists:

1. Make a list of experts on list making. Call or email 16 of them.

2. Interview Chris Bailey, author of “The Productivity Project,” who says “everyone on
the planet” should have a to-do list because the more ideas we get out of our mind, the
more we can think.

3. Pick up dry cleaning!

4. Come up with a big thought: America is drowning in lists, and it has never been easier
to make them.

• Hundreds of list-making apps are available for smartphones.

• Software programs like Monday, Basecamp and Evernote promise group to-do lists
with coworkers.

• Dizzingly complex Bullet Journals allow people with too much time on their hands to
track yearly, monthly and daily goals. Plus: optional mood trackers!

5. Email publicist for Marc Andreessen, the venture capitalist and Netscape co-founder
who created his own list system. Request interview.

6. Use this response from publicist: “His schedule is nuts, and he won’t be available to
participate in this.”

• Try to resist the urge to point out to publicist that Mr. Andreessen’s first piece of advice
in his own blog post on productivity is: “Don’t keep a schedule.”
7. Check spelling of Andreessen one more time.

8. Stress-test the idea that you should put everything in your head onto a list. Some
experts say it’s all too much. They argue the best lists require the simplest of ingredients:

• A pencil

• A piece of paper

• Three—and only three—important things to do.

9. Find a great quote making the case. “A good list gives me that really good illusion of
control over my life,” says Melissa Camara Wilkins, who home-schools six children
while writing a book about simplifying life.

10. Take coffee break and wonder how someone who home-schools six children has time
to write a book.

11. Sort through interview notes and discover a divide.

• Camp 1: “write everything down.”

• Camp 2: “pick a few things that really matter.”

12. Question whether this difference of opinion is enough to hang a Wall Street Journal
story on. Decide it is.

13. Add a few things we’ve already done to our list, just for the thrill of crossing them
off. Progress!

14. Do some historical research:

• The Ten Commandments may be the original to-do (and not-to-do) list.

• Benjamin Franklin tracked progress on “virtues” such as temperance and humility.

• The “Ivy Lee Method” from the early 1900s involves recording up to six tasks each
evening for the next day. Many people still use it. Bet Ivy Lee’s descendants wish he’d
trademarked that.

15. Explain why all this is so important. Pull quote from David Allen, a consultant and
author of “Getting Things Done”: “Your head was designed to have ideas, not to hold
them.” He says that’s why we go to the grocery store to get lemons and return with a bag
full of things but no lemons.

16. Buy lemons!

17. List some of Mr. Allen’s lists:

• Task-oriented lists, which include calls to make, creative-writing pieces to finish and a
“waiting for” list of things others are supposed to provide.

• “Agenda lists” with items to raise with various people, with one, for instance, dedicated
to his wife.

• A “someday maybe list” for things that might never happen.

• Hundreds of other lists such as the 45 movies on his “guy flicks” list for watching when
his wife isn’t around.

18. Ask Mr. Allen if this seems a little crazy. His reply: “People say, ‘I don’t need to
keep all these lists.’ Then fine, keep them in your head. I don’t care.”

19. Figure out this someday-maybe list. Gina Trapani, a web developer and founder of
the Lifehacker productivity blog, has one, too. “Someday I’m going to live in Sicily,” she
says.

20. Wonder if our life goals are too boring. Maybe we want to live in Sicily? Google
vacation houses for summer.

21. Count to-do apps at the Apple App Store (quit at 700). Examples:
• List apps for groceries, packing, Christmas shopping.

• Punishment apps, such as “Angry Moon,” where fearsome moon face gets furious at
you if you leave a task undone.

• Reward apps, such as “Cat Do” that sends a “genuine cat photo selected by our team of
cat professionals” for every completed task.

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22. Find expert who makes everyone happy, saying there is no one best practice. “It’s like
saying the best height for a person is 5-feet, 7-inches,” says Gretchen Rubin, an author
who studies good habits.

23. Figure out this Bullet Journal system. Watch YouTube videos explaining system of
charts and doodles.

24. Wonder if anyone actually uses the trademarked nickname #bujo and find 1.4 million
mentions on Instagram (plus 1.8 million for #bulletjournal). Realize someone had learned
a lesson from Ivy Lee.

25. Call Ryder Carroll, the creator. His journal isn’t nearly that elaborate. He tries not to
get bogged down in details. “Productivity can become its own form of distraction,” he
says.

Write to Laura Meckler at laura.meckler@wsj.com and Heidi Vogt

at heidi.vogt@wsj.com