Lists are great and let me tell you why. They...

1. Organize Your Thoughts

2. Are Clear

3. Breakdown Huge Goals

4. Provide Feelings of Accomplishment

5. You're Reading This Now!

1. Lists Organize Your Thoughts

My mind, if it's anything like your mind, is always racing. I'm always looking for efficiency, progress, speed, anything that will give me an edge in what I want to accomplish.

However, this mindset does not bode well for setting a logical path to achieve a goal. It's too chaotic. We all have goals, and we need a path to help achieve those goals. Unless you have a step-by-step path (did someone say list?), then you're not likely to achieve that goal.

Don't worry about what's on the list! I change my list routinely, and so should you. I add things and delete things at will. But what it does for me is to help organize the chaos and excitedness a new project/build/day brings.

2. Lists are Clear

I just finished Adam Savage's book Every Tool is a Hammer. In that, he goes into excruciating detail about lists. Seriously, there were a few chapters dedicated to them. But what I learned from him is that lists make it very clear as to what is completed, what has been started, and what is nowhere close to done.

He gained a valuable list-skill from one of his former bosses and I want to share it with you.

I might not even have to explain what you see, it's that clear. But here's the key anyway. Feel free to modify it to your taste!

• ✅ = completed
• 🟢 = more than halfway done
• ❌ = hasn't been started

And that, my friends, is how lists can be super clear for long projects.

3. Lists of Lists are Great!

I recently posted on Twitter asking if people used lists or not. A few people mentioned Habit Trackers, the Notion web app, and simple pen-and-paper. All of these are great, and they're all lists! Whatever works for you, do it!

But one really stuck out to me. They mentioned that they had a few things that "Should be Accomplished Soon," but making a to-do list would demotivate them at the end of the day if nothing gets finished. But I think that's what lists help you avoid, not completing something!

Starting with a huge goal is great! We all need that, but that goal needs to be broken down into smaller, manageable chunks. Add chunks as you go along too! Then mark it off when you finished. If you don't feel like you're making progress, step back and reevaluate.

If we know JavaScript and we want to Learn React, for example, first we need to...

• understand JSX
• read about components
• learn hooks (to learn hooks we need to...)
  • learn useState
  • use useState
  • learn useEffect
  • use useEffect
  • etc...
• follow a React tutorial
• npx create-react-app etc...

Go for the small gains first! This list is huge! Get a win in your column, mark it off and make some progress. If you don't check off those 100-foot sprints and marvel at the work, it'll be difficult to get up to the top of that mountain.

4. The Feeling of Accomplishment

One of the best things about lists is the feeling of accomplishment. Once you mark off something that you've done you'll likely encounter one of these two scenarios.

1. You feel accomplished and want a break
2. You gain more energy and keep after it

The first is obvious. Crossing off a completed item makes me feel fantastic. It's an accomplishment. You hit the goal. You're done with what you wanted. Celebrate!

The second scenario can be even better when you have the right attitude. Once you get into a flow and you complete something, while achieving that goal you may have learned more about the over-arching goal and want to keep going. It might be much bigger than you thought. This is a time for you to sit back and reassess the situation. Do you have extra time right now to continue with that new goal and keep working, or should you put it down and move on? In any case, ✅ what you've already done. And then get back after it if you want!

Setting the project down and moving on to a completely different task can be beneficial. But staying in a flow state to continue building can also be advantageous. You'll have to make that decision on your own. Just don't short-change yourself and only feel like you've only accomplished 1 goal for the day. You might regret it later. After all, you didn't realize that you actually had a bigger goal to accomplish at the start of the day.

So, I usually wrap up a goal and keep moving. I'm actually doing that right now. I only wanted to write for 5 minutes and I've already surpassed that. I've got other things to get to, and it's time to move on.

5. You read lists

I'm willing to bet that you read #5 on the list at the top. Why? Because lists are easy to read and digest. Our eyes are drawn to them. Long, flowing paragraphs are not, even if they contain more useful information. So make a list. Make it short and concise. With a glance, you should get the idea of what your goal is and be able to start tackling it.

Our minds love digesting lists. So, I implore you, with whatever you're starting to do next please make a list! Start small, get bigger and eventually, you'll know what kinds of lists you like. Habit trackers? General goals? Web apps? Pen and Pater? Weekly planners? Whatever it is, write it down so you can see the path and mark them off!

I hope you enjoyed it. That's it for now. If you liked what you read, please follow me on Twitter, connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me here on Hashnode.