Everything Is A List

Hey - It’s Michael.

Had a great dance weekend in Istanbul. Enjoy the newsletter!

You open your notepad and it’s a mess. A bunch of thoughts scribbled together, here a task, there an idea for a project, this goal, that reminder. A habit you wanted to start, another one you wanted to drop. A few reflection thoughts about this meeting, right next to it, this big life dream you’ve always wanted to do.

On top you’re circling around a hundred different thoughts on this topic and that conversation - and of course there are those emotions you keep on pushing down.

Start organizing your life & work in lists.

Principle

Everything is a list. If it gets too big, it’s a list of lists.

It’s really quite simple: find what belongs together for you. Then, consistently label your thoughts and put them in the right list.

Your brain is a fountain of thoughts. Your job is to create a funnel or decision tree that labels any thought and puts them into the right list.

Here is an example of a few lists that I keep:

As you see, lists are often interconnected or there are sublists of bigger lists.

Once you have created those lists, all you need to do is to maintain them - and it’ll bring great clarity & calm into your life.

It’ll also let you look at work from a different angle: a machine that you can build so that it works effectively & efficiently.

Take a small company as an example:

It really is just a list of processes (= tasks), that is handled by (a list of) employees, for (a list of) customers. It sells (a list of) products with (a list of) features. All this works legally because it’s a list of contracts.

Now you can think of quality standards for each list, and think of ways to interact with each list and so forth. Work becomes structured, manageable and thus, calm & effective.

There are of course many organizational systems out there (Getting Things Done, P.A.R.A. and the like). You can check them out and copy parts of them.

I do however believe there is tremendous value in setting up those lists yourself, because we are all different and how you live your life is unique to you.

Stop Rule:

Stop writing thoughts down without a label for what that thought is.

The best way to organize lists is to start with a big mess. Put everything into an “IN BASKET” - the top of the funnel - and then start from there. Try to find similarities and organize lists around those similarities. If you still like it after a few weeks, keep it.

If you consistently put everything from a central note into buckets (= lists), you’ll quickly see patterns that work for you.

“A place for everything, and everything in its place.” - Samuel Smiles

What would this look like if it were easy?

See you next week - Michael

PS: This newsletter is 100% written by me - no AI involved. If you liked it, please share it with someone who might like it as well.