The List Therapy

Your to-do list is about to get a life-changing makeover. Laura Freeman takes a look at why the therapeutic art of list-making may be the key to contentment

Men with moustaches. Unripe bananas. Fools who tell me what I ‘want’ to do. Beds that sink in the middle.

On March 8, 1901, Mary MacLane, a young writer from Montana, wrote a list in her diary of the things that irritated her the most. To moustaches, bananas and mattresses, she added rolls of fat on hips, people with fishy eyes and sugary wines that taste of nothing. Mary’s Mad Moustache Mattress list appears in an intriguing new book, L’art de la Liste: Simplify, Organise and Enrich Your Life, by Dominique Loreau. The book has sold 65,000 copies in France since its release in 2008, spending months in the greatest sort of list: the top 10 bestsellers. Her lists are more than simple to-do lists. They are to-be lists. If you want to know thyself, better thyself, calm thyself, write a list.

Could a life’s lists paint a portrait of a person? Mine would suggest a personality disorder. On the one hand, I am an obsessive type who keeps a daily diary and fills Moleskines with the titles of books read, bought, borrowed and stolen. On the other, I am a featherhead who jots lists on the flyleaves of novels, the backs of train tickets and the torn bottoms of bills. I like screwing them up and lobbing them in the recycling when I’ve ticked off every last tedious task. Dominique would despair of my scrawled insomnia lists – “Mackerel Auden. Nativity!!! Silver polish” – which seem important in the small hours and incomprehensible in the morning. I could use her help.