Many many reasons to love lists
and many many lists to come

Welcome to Picoum.com — a place to get inspired about almost anything, and welcome to Tanja Is Crazy About Lists. I will meet you here once a week with a special list because I am just crazy about lists!

List-making is very popular in Japan. The Japanese see it as a way of tracking their lives. They write what they see, hear, taste, smell and feel. They say that after ten years of practice, list-making brings them immense joy. This type of journaling is a treasure in their lives.

I love lists myself because I find them to be a fun way to write. They are short, yet give you so much information! You can make them about any topic you want.

Why should we write lists?

1. To discover who you are and what you want out of life
2. To remember your life
3. To enjoy your life more by writing about it
4. To help you prioritize
5. Because it’s fun to cross items off

Where to start if you like the idea?

I am crazy about lists. Crazy in a good way. I even have lists of lists I can write about!

Grab a pen and a cool notebook (or many) and just start. Five items per list seems perfect to me. You can start with the classics (grocery list, shopping list, to-do list, bucket list, etc.) and here are more:

Favourite clothes	Places you want to visit
Hobbies you have or want to have	What you put in a suitcase for Mexico
What you do on weekends	The best gifts you have received
What you have in your purse	People you love
Songs you love	Most important moments in your life
Summer activities	What you want to be remembered for
When you are not at home, you miss...	Books you read, are reading and want to read
Favourite snacks	Favourite dance songs
What you wish for secretly	Favourite restaurants
Your best qualities	Your weaknesses
Smells you like	Wonderful moments in your life
What you loved during your last trip	Sports you like to practice
Jobs that interest you	What you inherited from your parents
Favourite traditions	What you don’t like
Things you you like	What you love about your job
What you used to do as a child	Favourite heroes
What would you save if your house burned	Websites you like
Things that scare you	What you would do if you were a millionaire
Your resolutions for next year	Things you procrastinate
Things people don’t know about you	What would you bring to a deserted island
Names you like	What you love about summer
Favourite movies	Favourite quotes
Favourite colours	Favourite foods
Favourite desserts	What excites you
Elements of an ideal day	Things you wouldn’t do…

 

Some of my favourite lists to write:

1. Once a day:
   • 5 things I am grateful for
2. Once a week:
   • I find 5 endings to this sentence : I would like to …
3. Once a month:
   • Clothes I want to buy
4. Once a year:
   • I ask 5 questions to my children every year and and keep in a special notebook. The questions are:
     1. When I am older I want to be…
     2. My favourite  toy is…
     3. The most important thing in my life is…
     4. My favourite food is…
     5. My favourite sport is…
     6. My favourite subject at school is…
     The questions can be endless. My kids enjoy this little interview.
   • A picture list. I choose one picture of myself per year that I keep in another special journal. I like to see how I am changing. I am sure that it’s a journal I will cherish when I’m older.

Any books I recommend?

I am so crazy about lists that I even have books about them! Here are 5 great ones:

A last list for the road!

Since I can’t stop myself, here are some more lists to try...

1. 5 new words to learn
2. 5 words that are hard to spell
3. 5 synonyms of “love”
4. 5 words in another language
5. 5 words about something you are passionate about

I’ll see you back here once a week to share a great list that I hope will inspire you to write your own.

Till next week…