Blog About List

I've been tidying up the significant number of lists that are kicking around in my Obsidian, and realised that they fall into different kinds, so I've been trying to come up with a typology for them. I'm sure someone's done this before, but searching for 'types of list' just give me, like, MDN pages about HTML elements.

Lists* are lists that are occasionally-updated and (generally) only ever added to, and they tend to keep track of things that are 'worth remembering. I have, e.g. a 'smile file' list of things I'm proud of that I look at if I'm not feeling great about myself and a 'remember' list of admonitions to myself on how to live.

Trackers are lists that that, as the name suggests, keep track of some kind of progress—generally of something 'perpetually ongoing', like your reading, where you've got things you're reading, things you've read and things you want to read. What differentiates this from shopping lists, below, is that element of not deleting things that have been completed. I have trackers for, e.g. books and music.

Ideas are a kind of list for things that you want to remember for later and you don't want to lose, but will get removed once completed. I have, e.g. a list of story ideas.

Shopping Lists actually have almost exactly the same description as ideas but shopping lists are more mundane action-oriented (just remembering to buy something) while Ideas lists are more 'creative'. This may not be definitionally robust but it feels important to me. I have e.g. lists of gifts I might want to buy people.

Menus are things that are likely only to be added to; means of keeping track of things that are intended to be tried—like a checklist without needing to do everything, or a list where you actually do something. I have e.g. a list of things that I can try to do to cheer myself up if I'm feeling glum.

Checklists are a kind of list that have a list of tasks that you need to do, generally in sequence. You check them off as you go but generally the list remains the same for future uses. I have e.g. a list of things I do in my weekly review every week.

There are probably some more, but these are the categories I've got at the moment.

* unhelpful, perhaps, that I've called on of these categories 'lists' but I can't think of a better name of these ones