Summary
Section one of this book looks at why people make lists and why some find it enjoyable. There’s a focus on goals and what people want from their lives as well as setting priorities. There are lots of list examples in this section, as well as in the other sections of the book.
Section two examines when lists can be helpful – seeing what things are and aren’t priorities, remembering important things, or developing a call to action, etc..
Section 3 includes lists of lists and more examples of why lists can be helpful. There’s also an appendix which includes even more list examples.
Review
If you want to make lists, I recommend getting a journal or a planner or even a guided journal (like Listography) and dive right in.
If you want to explore WHY to make lists and how they can be useful for different purposes, give this book a try. You can also get list ideas from the many examples in the book.
I am more of the first sort, so I was looking for list ideas moreso than reasons to list. I love my Literary Listography journal because it provides the prompts and I provide the list. I have kept a bullet journal before and found it a positive experience. I know there are a bunch of guided journals like Listography if you need help figuring out what lists to make. While I found this book to be good in general, the examples of lists were the most interesting part to me. Although I didn’t find a lot of examples that made me want to get out my journal to make my own similar list. I did not find the different sections to be well defined, either. Maybe this would be a better resource for a beginning list-maker or someone who isn’t convinced that listing is a useful practice.
Thanks to Netgalley and the folks at Eerdmans for an electronic review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.