Listing

I write lists. Shopping lists. Wish lists. To-Do-Today lists. To-Do-This-Month lists. Just-Do-It lists. Lists that masquerade as other things. Lists drawn as ideas maps. Lists in the round. If I do it, want to do it, or have done it, it’s on a list somewhere.

At the moment, there are six lists on my office wall. Looking at them is like looking at a portion of my brain, splattered onto A4, although slightly less gory. There’s an ideas map for a course I’ll be convening this summer. A list of my responsibilities for another summer course I’ll be involved with. Tutorials times, rooms, and essay due dates for the first year course that I’m teaching semester. A list of seminars I’m going to be running for a masters course, to prompt me to find some relevant readings. ANU principal dates. And, last but not least, a list of monthly targets I’ve set for my PhD thesis.

I never meant to have this many lists occupying wall space in my office. After all, isn’t the purpose of a list to collate information into the one place, efficiently, economically, putting all the pieces of the puzzle into their correct places? Theoretically, yes. But in reality, my lists seem to breed, one list begetting another, until suddenly my office is decorated with blu-tacked pieces of scribbled-on and crossed-out pieces of paper.

I looked at this disorder this morning, and, after momentary frustration, laughed. Because this tendency to write lists is one half of a symbiotic relationship with another tendency of mine: I love to cross things off. Is there a better feeling than running a thick, heavy pencil line through that particularly bothersome task that is now, in the words of a certain opposition leader, dead, buried, cremated? Or doodeling loopy biro circles over a list-task you did and enjoyed?

I write so many lists so that I can give myself that little moment of satisfaction, that feeling of a job, if not well, at least competently, done, and the restoration of some sense where there was previously befuddlement. And all triumphs of sense over befuddlement, in my humble opinion, ought to be celebrated.