Once upon a time, I wrote lists to organise myself. Or at least, I think I did; it's hard to remember back to my earliest days of list-writing (I imagine I was probably writing lists by the time I was 7). I think they probably used to make me feel important ('look at all the things I'm going to do!') in the same way that a full inbox does now ('look at all the vital communications I'm a part of!' - I know this isn't entirely healthy...).
I think, also, that list-writing used to help me feel in control of what was going on - you box up your responsibilities and plans and put them in a neat self-contained module, and then you can deal with them.
These days, that doesn't work so well ... control of responsibilities is now much more complex than just enumerating them, and usually involves putting lots of academic work into things or sending vast numbers of emails and chatting to people to bounce ideas around ... all harder to contain, although usually quite rewarding. I do like being a capable, organised person who can Get Things Done. Sometimes it's very hard work, but I'm told that anything that's worthwhile in life is hard work, so I guess it's par for the course.
Currently I have a totally different motive for list-writing ... it's not to organise myself; my brain does that just fine, with an immense network of responsibilities / things to respond to / jobs that need doing / things that I've noticed and are quietly ticking away in the back of my mind - email Chris / buy more milk / work on matrices / and on and on and on, layers and layers of Things That Should Be Done.
I also don't write lists for geek street cred (yes, this exists, and yes, writing lists and lists of lists does give you a certain amount of Aspergers-esque street cred). These days there isn't anything I do in order to gain maths-related geek-credibility ... I think that's mostly because I'm a third year, the novelty of "Oo! Lots of other people who can do maths like me! Let's all hang out and say maths-things to each other!" has worn off. Although I do still appreciate a really bad pun. And I am starting to learn what Zorn's Lemma actually is, and I think later this term we'll even be studying it.
These days I write lists to forget.
I can empty my mind onto paper, and then I don't have to think any more. It clears out the mind, to allow it to focus, rather than working handicapped because it's thrashing through 200 things that are rocketing around in the background. Once you know everything's written down on the list, you don't have to go 'Have I remembered everything?' 'Is there anything I've missed out?', you can just follow the list. So long as you wrote the list well enough to start with, of course, but I'm taking that as a given - thinking of all the possible things that need to be done comes pretty naturally to me.
I guess this links into the idea of a Pensieve. That's one of the things that I really rather liked about Harry Potter - I thought it was a brilliant idea. A way to take your cares and worries, distill them, and then store them somewhere outside yourself? Brilliant.
But until I get one of those ... paper will have to do.
(I don't usually write lists starting with 'Make list of things to do' ... had to do a special sample list for the photo rather than posting my actual to-do list to avoid incriminating details (e.g. location))
