This text was originally published on my former blog typeoneminimalist.com. The website has been offline since 2020. This is an archive version.

Lists. Those sheets of paper filled with bullet-points or minus-symbols followed by carefully curated letters. Those sheets we put in and on our desks, computers, screens and bags hoping it will magically influence our motivation and mindset. We cross bullet-point after bullet-point, just to create yet another bullet-point, followed by yet another set of letters. We have tasks-lists, shopping-lists, information-lists, question-lists, movie-lists, music-lists, excel-lists and – my all-time-favourite – lists of things. No joke, I created a list of everything I owned last month. As it turned out, I owned about 550 things. Now, it should be more like 350. Anyway.

Lists are quite obscure constructs. They are the definition of order. The more of a list-person you are, the more control you have over your life. At least that’s what I thought. Yes, this hypothesis might be partly true. But shouldn’t we let go from time to time? Shouldn’t we lose ourselves in tasks, hobbies, music and moments? In beautiful sunsets, poetic writing, new languages, people, surprising stories or absurd math? – all while not having to think about another point on another list? I was a list-person my whole life and I still am. But letting go of that bullet-point-mindset – at least for a while – unleashed incredibly much. We’re humans, not computers. We don’t rely on a processor with a set clock speed for switching between one task and another. Lists are helpful. But maybe, just maybe, we should allow ourselves to find more joy in the things we’re doing in the very moment. Over the past few months, I got lost in writing exciting articles about inspiring people, in thoughtful Kafka-books, in a long but interesting thesis, in rainy days filled with audio-books, in the streets of Vienna and in relaxed Sunday magazines over good coffee. In a world of lists, we’ve forgotten how to truly fall in love with what we’re doing in the very moment. We’re always one bullet-point ahead of the game in our minds – so much that we forget about the power of now. Living in the moment. That’s what brings joy and what makes life worth living. There’s no point in rushing through hours, tasks and activities just to cross out another point on some list.

I still do write myself a list of tasks every day. But after I’ve written it, I put it away. I use it to order my mind but then try to forget about it. This somehow allows me to feel the true joy of doing – of writing articles, meeting people, creating meaningless but fun graphics for university and working on my thesis. It helps me be less distracted. When I let go of all my thoughts about the future, I can focus solely on one thing – and that might just be what so many people are missing in today’s world. We’re surrounded by endless lists, tasks, and distractions. We’re already thinking about the next bullet-point on another list when we’re not even done with the current one. Maybe we should just take a step back and focus on the presence again – on the things we’re doing right now, not the things we’re going to do afterwards.