33 Ways to Stay Creative: Make Lists

Let’s Get this List Started

Appropriate to this exercise of evaluating a list of ways to stay creative is the first one on the list: Make Lists

Most people make lists all the time. Grocery lists, to-do lists, honey-do lists, top-ten lists, and the list goes on (literally). We seem to think in lists, and this can be both a good thing and a not-so-good thing (I won’t exactly call it a “bad” thing). So for the first item in this list, let’s look at what is good about lists and what is not, and I promise not to write it as a list. After all, this is supposed to be a series of explorations into the ideas on the original list.

What are some of the good things about making lists? Well, first of all, making a list gives you a place you can collect and organize things that are on your mind. Again, this might be a list of things you need to buy at the store (how often have you gotten home and thought, crap, I forgot bread/soap/whatever?), great story ideas, ways to take over the world (just pondering here), or any number of other lists. Lists are also handy for prioritizing things that you may need or want to do (chores, sites to see on vacation, etc.). In general, lists are easy to make. All you need is something to write on and with and a general idea of what you are interested in.

How can lists help you be more creative? As I mentioned, you can use lists to keep track of all those ideas that pop into your mind. You can have separate lists for different topics, and you can compare those lists to see where ideas overlap. Having things in front of you visually helps you see the connections, the directions and the missing elements. Unless you are some type of savant, more than likely you are going to forget some of the ideas or idea elements that you come up with. Writing them in a list gives you a place to return to when you can’t remember that missing piece.

[Side Note: I teach English, and one thing I always teach my students, no matter their age/level, is how to outline their writing ideas. An outline is really nothing more than an organized list with various levels of importance. I have had adult students come back later and tell me how much this helped them in their later courses.]

In my non-teaching life, I work with a partner in media. One of our standard operating procedures (SOPs) is making lists of projects, ideas, challenges, and whatever else might come up. We make lists of clients we need to do work for; we make lists of items we need for a particular project. These lists are very handy, and since they are virtual, we can revisit them whenever we have a similar project/challenge/whatever.

Now what are some of the downsides of lists? Maybe one of the biggest challenges is that lists get lost. Have you ever made a shopping list and then left it on the table when you went out? Or maybe you had that great list of ideas but forgot where you put it. Physical lists are great, but they fall victim to being misplaced all too easily. Virtual/online lists have the advantage of being easy to catalog, but the downside is that all too often we do the same thing virtually that we do physically - we make the list and then forget where we put it. Have you ever been guilty of this? I know I have more times than I want to admit.

Another downside is the question - What do I do with this list now that I have it? Or a related question - Where do I start with this list? Obviously, a shopping list has neither of these problems (other than which aisle on which to begin), but often your idea lists are not so easy to work through. This is where you need to start prioritizing the items on your list. How do you prioritize? Well, that (for better or worse) is up to you.

I could very likely go on with both the pros and cons of making lists, but this is not supposed to be an all-encompassing exercise, merely some of my random thoughts about the items on the original list. Overall, I think lists are a great way to get the creative juices flowing, or at least provide the “fertilizer” you need to get ideas to grow.

These are some of my thoughts about lists. What are yours? Feel free to comment with your take on the idea of lists (but please remember to keep things polite).