6 common problems to avoid when making your lists
Troubleshooting your list
Useless lists often fall short in these 6 areas
Lists can be a powerful tool, but they can also be a waste of time, a distraction, or a nuisance if they aren’t organized properly and used correctly. If you’ve created a list and never used it or sworn off lists altogether as a fool’s tool, it’s likely you’ve run into one (or several) of these common list failures. Although common, these failures aren’t inevitable, and you can correct them once you recognize what’s going wrong.
The most common list failures I see include:
Your list has no clear purpose or too many goals
If you aren’t sure why you’re capturing a list, or if you’re hoping your list will help with 5 different projects, this is a good sign your list won’t be a strong tool. It’s important to be explicit about why you need the list and who will be using it so that you can organize, structure and capture your list effectively. Additionally, it’s important that your list has only one clear purpose. If there’s more than one thing you need to accomplish you should consider building separate lists for each purpose.
You can avoid this problem by identifying your goals and defining the purpose of each list you need to make. Go a step further and add the goal at the top of every list you create.
Your list is disorganized and hard to make sense of
This will often happen if you have a complex list that you need to reference for planning or informing other decisions. If your list is comprehensive but impossible to navigate, you will often find yourself circumventing the list by going directly to other sources for the information you need.
You can avoid this problem by organizing your lists with hierarchy and format. Most list making tools will have structures for this built in, and you should be intentional about how you are organizing the information. If you’re unsure whether it’s organized enough, give the list to a friend or colleague and ask them a question from the information within. If they can’t easily answer the question, go back and consider how you can better structure the information.
Your list is too simple and missing key information
This most commonly happens when you quickly jot down information hoping it will become a helpful list to reference, without thinking about all of the information needed to make use of the list. I’ve most often seen this happen with to-do lists and project plans, where you write down a long list of items to be done, and then spend hours procrastinating or focusing elsewhere because the list is not helpful for prioritizing or identifying where to start.
You can avoid this problem by weighting the right balance of information for your list. When you feel you are done creating your list, ask yourself whether your list contains enough information to accomplish the goal. Does every item have the details needed to make it useful? If not, consider adding in more detail now.
Your list is too complex and contains unnecessary information
At the opposite end of list information, you could find yourself in a situation where your list contains way more information than is necessary. This can often happen for perfectionists, or if the list-making process has become a procrastination technique for beginning the action your list is meant to support. You should only capture information in any list that is necessary to achieve the original purpose of the list.
You can avoid this problem as well by weighting the right balance of information for your list. When you are developing the list and adding each layer of information, ask yourself how that level of information will be used within the list. If you can’t think of a reason why you would need the information and your list is becoming very complex, cut out that level of detail.
Your list is not usable in the format or tool it is captured in
Sometimes you may find yourself in need of the information organized in your list, but it is inaccessible to you. This often happens due to poor tool selection, which is a critical decision you will make in your list creation process.
You can avoid this problem by selecting an effective tool for your list’s purpose, including the necessary formatting, any necessary advanced functionality (such as formulas, dependencies, and views), and mobile access.
Your list does not account for the dynamic relationship of items within the list.
Often times when using a list, you may need to view relationships between items in the list in various ways. If you’ve failed to capture these relationships effectively, you will not be able to sort and reorganize the information the way you need to for necessary actions or decisions.
You can avoid this problem by making your list relational and there are multiple levels of relationships you can build within a list. Some tools allow you to draw and view these relationships very easily, and this should be a factor in your tool selection if it will be critical to your list.
Have you ever experienced one of these problems with a list of your own? Are there other problems you come across regularly? Let us know in the comments and share which of these is most often the troublemaker for you.
Happy Listing!