Rules of Thinking, The

RULE 34

Learn to love a list

If you’re a keen list-maker, you can skip this Rule. It will all be obvious to you, because it’s here for people who don’t make lists (yet). So what’s wrong with making a list? What stops you? There are two main reasons people give me – either that it’s a waste of time because you can work it out as you go along, or that a long list is too daunting.

So let’s start with the first of those. It doesn’t matter how well you think you can multi-task, it’s always more time-efficient to do one thing at a time until it’s finished, and then move on to the next. And the best frame of mind for planning and thinking is not the same as the one you need for doing. Indeed different tasks on your list may require their own approach, ...