Successful multi-taskers reveal the cathartic power of a to-do list

Hugely therapeutic or a sneaky way to procrastinate your way through the day? As a study shows women love writing them, successful multi-taskers reveal the cathartic power of a to-do list

The ex-editor of Vogue

Alexandra Shulman, 65

The day has begun. I’ve made my list. There is something hugely therapeutic about the download from the tangle of to-do chores buzzing around in my mind onto a neat line on paper.

The power of the list is that it is simple, not complex. A list doesn’t require a ton of explanation, just a short command to get something done, whether that’s to buy some bananas or book a pedicure. As an avid list-maker, the point of this daily activity is not what the list includes – a varied collection of must-do’s – but the process of itemising into this linear form which reduces a chaotic collection of thoughts and chores into something manageable. Now, a new University of London School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) survey by Dr Joanna Nolan proves that I am not the only woman who gets huge satisfaction from her lists, and concludes that there is a difference between men and women’s attitudes to list-making. Women enjoy the whole process, while men generally are only interested in ticking the items off.

The day has begun. I’ve made my list. There is something hugely therapeutic about the download from the tangle of to-do chores buzzing around in my mind onto a neat line on paper, writes Alexandra Shulman (pictured)

This seems pretty on the money to me. While most men I know do make lists, they don’t indulge in the same kind of ritual element to their listmaking. Women enjoy the visual side and neatness of the list and the paraphernalia around it. We love our paper and pens.

And women’s lists reflect the huge diversity in their lives – the endless marriage of work and domesticity, family and style. Lists untangle these constantly interwoven threads.

My list life began in pre-digital days, when the 1980s Filofax, that little ringbinder with its lined papers, diary and address pages, was in every young woman’s handbag. A decade later, when I began to edit Vogue and had a series of miraculous PAs who took on a lot of my daily chores, I still made my own list each morning in a Smythson leather notebook.

At a Vogue conference, I learned a technique I still use from Stephen Covey, the best-selling author of The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People. Instead of just writing one long list, divide it into three. The first third is things that have to be done that day, the second comprises less urgent but nonetheless important activities, and the third is long-term to-do. In a perfect world, by the end of the day, the first column is ticked off and the second column becomes the first, but that scarcely ever happens. Even so, simply dividing the chores into levels of importance is a huge help.

Such is my love of lists that many years ago I thought of launching a magazine which consisted solely of lists. It would be called Listed. I never managed to do it, but I have launched a micro version of it – an Instagram account called alexandra’s_list. It’s a weekly list of only five items that I think are wonderful, with the content ranging randomly from Magnum Ice Cream Bites to Hermes lipstick to a book I admire.

Meantime, my daily list, now on a yellow legal pad, continues – and, oddly enough, that clear-out of the food cupboard at the bottom of the third tier is still yet to be ticked off.

The young author

Daisy Buchanan, 38

I have just made a list of lists. Tomorrow, I’m going away for a few days, so I need to make a packing list or I’ll arrive at my destination with no phone charger or toothpaste, writes Daisy Buchanan (pictured)

Life often feels overwhelming, and lists help me feel in control. Pictured: Ms Buchanan’s list

I have just made a list of lists. Tomorrow, I’m going away for a few days, so I need to make a packing list or I’ll arrive at my destination with no phone charger or toothpaste.

Next, I need to make a birthday list. A disproportionate number of my family and friends were born in September. Then there’s my reading list. I’m about to record the next series of my podcast, You’re Booked, so I need to make a note of our guests’ latest novels. Finally, there’s my list of work tasks.

Life often feels overwhelming, and lists help me feel in control. Without them, I would struggle to manage my thoughts and anxiety. I was diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder in my 20s. The thoughts in my head were hard to corral. Lists helped. Now, if I wake up at 4am with a racing heart, terrified I’ve forgotten to return an email or an ASOS delivery, I can tell myself ‘it’s gone on the list’ and sleep soundly.

Most of my girlfriends are compulsive list-makers. The men in my life don’t seem quite as obsessed. They might make one before they go shopping, but they certainly don’t seem to have lists of lists, or special list-making stationery. I have a theory: it’s because women simply have more to think and worry about.

Which reminds me that not all lists need to be ‘to do’ lists. In my book, How To Be A Grown-Up, I suggest we can give ourselves a confidence boost with a ‘have done’ list. We can start small, with lists of completed tasks and accomplishments. Or we can go deeper, with lists of our greatest achievements, happiest moments and dreams realised.

Sometimes, when I look at a long list of tasks, I feel as though I’m about to climb a mountain with severe vertigo. It’s a symptom that can be cured with a list of the mountains I’ve climbed before, and a list of the fun things I’ll do when I reach the peak.

The mum of teens

Susannah Frieze, 50

Mine is called The Motherlist, and is not only the beating heart of my life but the very hub around which the entire household revolves, writes Susannah Frieze (pictured)

Mine is called The Motherlist, and is not only the beating heart of my life but the very hub around which the entire household revolves.

READ MORE: Academic reveals why women love making lists… while men just want to tick things off

I work as a freelancer and I have two children, two dogs and one demanding husband. I also have a declining mother, three time-intensive hobbies, bad knees, a crippling social life, and a very tiresome bank manager who needs to be managed carefully.

If I didn’t have the Motherlist, I would buckle under the strain of trying to manage it all. I see it as a swaying rope bridge strung over the Abyss of Chaos – but the knots are tight and, if I take each step calmly and don’t look down, I can just about make it to the opposite side.

The Motherlist is a highly complex document comprising a two-page spread in my notebook. On the right, the Action page; on the left, the Contemplation page.

Both are divided into quadrants: on the left, subdivisions of work ideas – ideas on the boil, or just at the germination stage. Then sub-lists for specific family members.

Over on the action page are lists for home admin, work matters, a dogs’ section and, sometimes, a mini list entitled WTBCI – a list of items for When The Boat Comes In, i.e. when I can afford them. Even a busy woman can dream.

Each point on each list is marked by an upside down triangle, which I colour in when done. My husband jokes that they look like big pairs of pants hanging on the line. His skimpy little to-do list, by contrast, contains only the tiniest of briefs.

The procrastinator

Marion McGilvary, 65

Oh, I love a list; I have lots of them – on Post-it notes, my phone, on my desk, on the fridge, and in odd places dotted around the house like confetti at a very organised wedding, writes Marion McGilvary (pictured)

I still convince myself I have a photographic memory and the very act of writing something down will solidify it into my brain. Pictured: Ms McGilvary’s list

Oh, I love a list; I have lots of them – on Post-it notes, my phone, on my desk, on the fridge, and in odd places dotted around the house like confetti at a very organised wedding.

My only problem with lists is that I don’t actually read them. Rather than being a tool for getting tasks done, the list actually becomes a phantom – a skeleton, not in, but stuck on, the front of the cupboard, scarily reminding me of everything I haven’t done.

You see, I still convince myself I have a photographic memory and the very act of writing something down will solidify it into my brain. It doesn’t, of course, which means my lists effectively become, not aides memoires, but one big avoidance tactic.

I have ‘taxes’ at the top of every single list I have ever written, for example. And yet I have never in living memory done my taxes before December. Ditto dental appointments – never made till something hurts. Similarly, invoicing for freelance work, filling in forms, or balancing my bank account. Ugh! It’s all like daylight to the undead – I shrink from it.

So jotting it on a list gets it out of the way. There, I say to myself – done, tick. The act of writing the list becomes a replacement for the activity itself, and I pat myself on the back for my efficiency, smugly achieving absolutely nothing.

The multi-tasker

Clare Foges, 42

If only list-making were an Olympic sport; I would be world number one. I am the Usain Bolt of to-do lists, training for years to perfect the art of The List, writes Clare Foges (pictured)

Often, I go through two or three different versions of my current list: sometimes they are colour-coded and even categorised by subject (life admin, ‘to buy’, work, etc). Pictured: Ms Foges’ list

If only list-making were an Olympic sport; I would be world number one. I am the Usain Bolt of to-do lists, training for years to perfect the art of The List.

Often, I go through two or three different versions of my current list: sometimes they are colour-coded and even categorised by subject (life admin, ‘to buy’, work, etc). If things are really busy, the list has been known to spawn its own listicles.

The best bit about having a to-do list is, of course, the crossing out. No straight line for me – I prefer a spiral of ink so dense that the completed item is obliterated from the list. The thrill of achievement as I spiral through ‘nit shampoo and comb’!

I would need 240 hours in a day to get through half my daily to-do list. Perhaps, subconsciously, that’s the point: a psychologist might say I have an addiction to being busy.

The City Supremo

Baroness Helena Morrissey, 57

My next day’s list usually starts in the middle of the night. I wake up in the small hours and mentally start listing my next set of tasks, usually prompted by something popping into my head. In the morning I’ll hand-write my actual to-do list – quite often, the ‘critical’ thing I woke up worrying about will have completely escaped my mind.

My list is barely decipherable (even to me). It’s always a mess, especially as I add things to it as the day progresses, but it still makes me feel in control. It’s always over-ambitious, too – I never cross everything off and, if I’m rattling through the tasks, I make a second list. I forget to include things – perhaps the result of having more than one job and lots of family members – I am a mother of nine – to think about, but also because I always have several rolling projects on the go.

All my lists combine easy admin and other more interesting work that might take several hours. And, yes, I do retrospectively add things to have the satisfaction of crossing them off immediately! Sometimes I come across an old list and wonder why I felt it was so important to do all those things.

Yes, men write lists too!

Simon Mills, 59

Researchers at SOAS reckon men don’t like lists, but, in fact, we are conditioned towards listomania from a very early age, writes Simon Mills (pictured)

Researchers at SOAS reckon men don’t like lists, but, in fact, we are conditioned towards listomania from a very early age. We are schooled in the enumerated register of the football league table, the pop charts and party invites. Yet our lists, unlike the lists women make, are competitive and definitive.

When my dad died I found lists all over the house. Some were esoteric – my favourite being ‘words and phrases I object to on the TV’. This list was long and hilariously curmudgeonly, his main tele-vernacular objections apparently aimed at Richard and Judy.

I have followed a similar path to my father. In my younger days, I kept a written record of every overseas journey I made (by now in the hundreds), all the London districts I’ve lived in (more than a dozen), the cars I’ve owned (more than 25!) and the women I’ve dated. (Ladies: all men do this.)

Mainly, however, my lists are workmanlike and task-based. Also, a bit babyish in their detail and over-reaching sense of control. Monday: Alarm 5.30am. Work two hours. Dog walk. Emails. Work three hours. Lunch. Mow Lawn. Call daughter one. All written in a thin biro scrawl, but with a thick-nibbed black Sharpie always ready to do the highly satisfactory crossing out.

Every man should make his own to-do lists. Strike through with purpose and pride. Otherwise, how will anyone know that your heroic purchase of the two-litre Persil Non Bio Laundry Detergent has been successful?

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