Does anyone else make lists?

Post Reply New Topic

I make lots of lists, using notepad, google docs, and google sheets. I need to do this anyway for my job for asset management but I also have lots of personal lists, to do lists, wish lists, bucket lists, shopping lists, lists of people's addresses or general information (like Bob likes bears, think of bears for Bob's birthday), lists of movies, complete with subcategories such as "List of Movies that Inspired Quentin Tarantino". I also use Habitica to keep track of tasks and daily habits, and I'm kind of a file hoarder, I'm not good at it though and I get lazy keeping it organized and end up with zip files hidden away like desktop_bak, desktop_bak_2, etc, or multiple versions of inventories and then having to figure out what's obsolete and how to merge them later. I guess it's kind of a mix of hoarding information + trying to compensate for bad short-term memory, like I'm trying to use notes and spreadsheets as a second brain. I used to have this really bad habit of trying to sleep but keep getting up every 5 minutes to write something on a notepad to look up later like "how do bees fly" or "360 electric toothbrush" so I wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

Yes, organization is the key to life.

I keep a number of lists as well as a lot of records (logs), enough to be able to understand your dilemma. So my recommendation would be to strive to consolidate your lists into as few as possible in as few places as possible. A good example is making use of spreadsheets where you can have a number of related lists in one spreadsheet just on different tabs across the bottom. And then to store as many as possible in one place, on a laptop, cloud storage, a pen drive, or whatever, so that what is elsewhere are easily remembered exceptions.

Hope this helps.

List are a major tool for many Aspies to stay on track. It helps to mediate our short term memory problem.

One of the problems that I had was combining short term memory deficiencies with my inability to perform multi-tasking. I resolved that problem by breaking apart a task into several smaller task. [The approach is like integration in calculus.] That way I could switch easily from one task to another and then back again. Because I channeled my focus into completing subtask rather than sitting idly by waiting for some roadblock to clear in order for me to complete a major task. This approach allowed me to become dramatically more efficient.

I even used white boards and broke down all the task I had and tracked each subtask.

Another tool I found most useful was clear letter size poly envelopes with string-tie closures. They look like this:



This is one of the best organizational tools for Aspies. Many Aspies have mounds of paperwork heaped upon their desks. It is an organizational nightmare. If something gets moved, they can never find it again. So when I am working on a task or subtask, I take one of these envelopes and put a blank sheet in the front and label the contents. Then I put everything related to that specific project into that envelop. So my desk is covered with many envelops but when the boss calls and wants an update, I just find the proper envelop and I am good to go.

I like this forum, even if it turns out I'm not actually on the spectrum or can't get a diagnosis this is still really good advice. It's also nice to be understood, I didn't know problems with short-term memory and multitasking were also symptoms. I will have to find a way to consolidate all of my lists eventually, the task just seems daunting to me right now, I almost feel like purging it all and starting from scratch. But making use of features like spreadsheet tabs and subtasks are good ideas.

EDIT: I'm so used to Facebook where you can be lazy and just hit like on posts when you agree but don't know what to say, this format forces me to think of responses.

Let's see ... I have lists on ...

• 1st World Problems
• 7 Habits of Highly Effective Pirates
• Alfred E. Neuman Quotes
• Chuck Norris Jokes
• Douglas Adams Quotes
• Engineering Jokes
• Fnordisms
• Gregory House Quotes
• Light-Bulb Jokes
• Lists of 4000- and 7400-Series Integrated Circuits.
• Lists of Catholic "Saints"
• Lists of people I've blocked from PMs, emails, Facebook, and phone calls.
• Lists of star systems in each sector of the Third Imperium
• Lists of Vendors
• Momisms
• Murphy's Laws and all their corollaries
• My own "You Might Be an Aspie If" list
• Office Rules
• Philosophy Jokes
• Redneck Jokes
• Several different "You May Be A ______" joke lists
• This List

... and many more.

You have already seen this list.  The others are for my own amusement, although excerpts have been posted.

I do make lists, but not the kind others have said they do:

Around the turn of the decade, I made rankings of the people who had the most positive and negative impacts on how my life played out during the 2010s(I made seperate lists for both sides). I also did a rundown of every major negative event in my life that happened between 2010-2019, among other lists that I started, but never completed because I didn't have much ideas.

Actually on second thought, a while back I made a ranking of girls whom have been the subject of the biggest dating(or lack there of in a lot of those cases)experiences of my life.

If I have, say, 8 to 10 things to do, remembering them and having them swirl around in my head can send me into a panic. When I put them down on paper and list them in order of priority, it tends to calm me and allows me to approach the list rationally instead of emotionally.

The amount of lists I used to have is a huge chaos. It was spread everywhere in different books, files, notes or whatever... I use lists about anything around my life or my special interests, specifically to collect data and thoughts.

I was a file-hoarder as well.
Last year, before quitting my home I decided to bundle up and compress all the information in one big file. It took me weeks, and I'm not even finished yet. It drove me almost into a burn-out. lol...
It's a burden, I hate it.

I make lists all the time and like writing everything down. I find it helps me feel less stressed out and more relaxed, even when I have lots of things on "to-do" lists because I know what needs to be addressed. I also find crossing things off of lists once I have finished them satisfying.

I love making lists, and also checking things off on them, although most of mine tend to be for things like which Pokémon I still need to catch in a game and what critters I still need to find in Animal Crossing, or other things related to my current obsession. Last night I made a list of movies King Ghidorah (Godzilla’s arch-nemesis) appears in and which Courage the Cowardly Dog episodes he makes brief appearances in, since right now my two main obsessions are King Ghidorah and Courage. I really need to start making and using lists of things that are actually useful like to-do lists (with added reminders on my phone, or I’ll just forget anyway).

Currently I've got one document on my laptop that contains a number of lists, with various individual URLs and bits of information in between them - they're just things I've noticed that I felt at the time I didn't want to lose access to, but haven't decided where to keep them (and in many cases I probably never will).
. . .The lists are:
1. Songs, one of which I might eventually choose to record live and upload to a Facebook group that gets people to do that in lieu of live performances while the music clubs are shut because of the pandemic. I've not touched that project for weeks, it fell by the wayside. If I get back to it I'll probably have forgotten about that list.
2. Tasks I'm hoping to incorporate into my daily routine. Just things like watering the tomato plants, getting the breakfast things ready so I don't have to work too hard first thing in the morning when I'm feeling groggy, putting food in the cats' bowls before bed, etc. They're all things I tend to do anyway without a list, but sometimes I forget, so I thought it might be handy to have such a list. Don't know when I'm supposed to look at it though. Several times a day would probably work best, but I bet I forget to, and I'm not even sure if there's a lot of point. Anyway at least it's there in case I'm feeling there's something I've forgotten and think to check it.
3. A general task list of one-off things I suppose I ought to do, just so they don't fall by the wayside. Oil bathroom door hinges, catch up on emails to sister, find out if there's a way to propagate easi-bake yeast so I don't have to buy it any more, figure out a modification to a vaping pen so it lets a bit more air in to stop it giving a slightly dry vape when I draw hard on it, figure out a way of blocking off the air conditioning vents to some extent in some rooms so it's not so draughty. I'd forgotten that list exists until I looked just now.
4. List of Web page user-added elements I've blocked with an ad-blocking browser plugin.
5. List of Web-based proxy servers I might try out to see if there's a good one.
6. List of the programs I have on my laptop (somebody on a tech forum asked me that for some reason I can't remember, and as I did a thorough job of it, I thought it might be worth keeping the result, though I can't offhand think of a specific use for it)
7. List of stuff I want - out of date, and I haven't looked at it for ages, though I see a new toothbrush on there, which is worth getting some time soon.
8. List of currently-working websites that offer videos for downloading.
9. List of tasks to be done prior to travelling from the UK to the USA. I was commuting between the US and UK about once a year, but I'm stuck in the US now because of the virus, so I don't know when I'll need that list again, but if and when I do, it'll be very useful indeed. Without it there would be loads of things I'd forget to do. There's also a fairly complete packing list which is also very useful.
10. List of tasks to be done when I get back to the UK. Oh dear. Rather important that I look at that soon and make sure nothing's going to fall apart while I'm away.

So yes, clearly I do make lists, some of which are useful, others aren't so much. The biggest problem seems to be that I tend to forget about them. Another problem is that I don't seem able to organise them very well, that's why so many of them are in one great long document - that particular document started off its life as a detailed record of the changes I'd made to this laptop to improve and customise it after I'd bought it, but it now contains loads of info. I rarely know where to keep anything that I write, so when I'm in doubt I just paste it into that document, with the oldest stuff at the bottom and the newest stuff at the top, more or less. Really I prefer paper documents because they don't vanish if the computer fails, but without an electronic search I'd never find anything.

I probably should. I do write my thoughts down from time to time.