How to Organize Your Whole Life with Lists
If you’re like most moms, you have the equivalent of a marching band thundering inside your head from eyes up to eyes shut. Orthodontist appointments to make, new sneakers to buy, summer vacation to plan. What’s for dinner? When’s the project due? Where’s the birthday party? Here are 20 lists that can help you organize your life in a meaningful way.
Do you make a to-do list now and then, but feel like you’re adding more than you’re crossing off? Used effectively, lists are valuable for much more than simple task management. They can provide a way to memorialize the past and dream for the future. These 20 lists to organize your life provide ways to get things done, remember what you’ve done, and plan for what you will do. Getting some of that mental clutter out of your head and on a page (or in a file) will help turn down the noise, and potentially turn up the creativity!
If you think making lists is a waste of time, this article from Fast Company describes how making lists has value, even if you don’t accomplish everything on your list.
When you’re ready to move on from these 20 organizational lists, I’ve got the ultimate list of lists to make. These 75 lists will help you organize every aspect of your life. For a little help getting started, you can grab my printable list pack with all 75 lists ready to go from my Etsy shop.
Top 20 Lists to Organize Your Life
So here are the 20 lists to help you organize your life. They are separated into three categories: daily organizational lists, lists to help you remember the past, and lists to help plan for the future.
Lists to Organize Daily Details
In the first category are lists that we think of as a traditional means to “get organized.” These lists provide ways to set priorities for our days, get specific projects done, and keep track of necessary tasks.
Lists to Organize Your Mental Clutter
The second category contains lists to help you remember and organize things that hold value for you. The lists in this group remind you to focus on the good in your life, to pay attention to things that you enjoy, and provide a way of looking back at memories you might otherwise forget.
Lists to Plan the Future
In the third category, I’ve included lists meant to track future plans or intentions. These lists are a way to dream, set goals, and maintain an accessible reference for things you want to try.
Let’s start with the lists to help you handle your everyday tasks.
Lists to Order Your Present
1) Master List
Otherwise known as a “brain dump” – this is where you put absolutely everything to get it out of your head and written down. I sometimes label mine “All the Things.”
Read: The 3 Most Powerful Daily Habits
2) To-Do List
This is the familiar daily list of tasks. Sometimes it’s helpful to have a weekly list also.
Join my mailing list below for access to my printables library, where you’ll find this free printable to-do list!
3) Gift Ideas List
For when your friend you mentions how much they love a certain bakery, or your mom admires your veggie spiralizer.
4) Favorite Meal List
Family favorites or go-to quick dinner ideas you know your kids will eat.
Read: 10 Easy No-Recipe Family Dinner Ideas
5) Project List
These items might not have a firm deadline, but you want to keep them on your radar or a “to-do someday” list
6) Home Inventory
List of every single thing you own that you may want to replace in the event of a fire, theft, or other loss.
7) Seasonal Chore Lists
Helpful for remembering things like cleaning fan blades, changing filters, or vacuuming mattresses.
8) Shopping Lists
Groceries, clothing, toiletries…how in the world do you remember it all without a list?
Lists to Remember Your Past
9) Thankful List
Gratitude has been shown to improve overall well-being by many studies, and is an easy way to improve your daily outlook. Whether you keep a gratitude journal, a simple word document, or a moment of thankfulness every morning, this intentional practice will bring positive change to your life.
Read: 30 Days of Gratitude Prompts
10) Favorite Things List
Keep a list of your favorite products both as a starting point for gift shopping, and as a way to be prepared with great recommendations for friends and family!
11) Favorite Places List
Similar to a favorite things list, your favorite places may be restaurants, hikes, sights to see in your city, or any other places you love.
12) Journal Prompts List
Keep a list of journal prompts to help you stay motivated to write on a regular basis. Your answers to the prompts will jumpstart your creativity in unique ways and provide a nostalgic record of your thoughts to look back on in the future.
13) Favorite Books List
You may include books in your favorite things list, but as a book lover, I like to keep a separate list just for favorite books. This list is useful for recommending books to your kids, friends, or anyone else. Plus, my memory just isn’t great for recalling titles and authors, so I occasionally refer to my list just to see if I’ve already read a particular book.
14) Favorite Movies List
Just like your favorite books list, only this one is for movies!
15) Favorite Memories List
Record funny things your kids say, the time your husband washes your car unexpectedly, or a stranger in the grocery store compliments your kids’ polite behavior!
Lists to Dream Your Future
16) Bucket List
Things you want to do. There are so many variations – bucket list of things you want to do with your kids before they leave the house, places you want to go, things you want to learn.
Check out my monthly resources page to find bucket list ideas for every month
17) Books I Want to Read
This is probably my fastest growing list. I’ll never get to all the books I want to read. For a peek into how I choose what I’ll read next, check out my “12 Books, 12 Months” post.
18) Recipes I Want to Try
I love to browse Pinterest for recipes, but I also keep a written list to encompass a variety of sources.
19) Habit Improvement List
Every year this is part of my goal-setting process. The act of writing down that I want to drink a glass of water before I drink coffee in the morning, or read a book to the kids while they eat breakfast is a powerful reminder to me of what I feel is important. Having a list requires me to articulate my goals and priorities, and that motivates me to work on making those changes.
Read: 52 Small Healthy Habits for a Year of Big Change
20) Dream List
Write down your wishes, dreams, and ideas. I had the dream of starting a blog on my dream list at one point! When you write down a big dream, an idea you have to improve your workplace, or a product you imagine, you allow your mind to entertain the possibility of that dream becoming a reality. If the dream maintains its importance to you, you may decide to take steps toward realizing that dream. If your dreams change over time, it remains a valuable tool for increasing your self-awareness. Often connections between the things that you feel are important or interesting aren’t obvious until they are written down.
Where To Start
So there you have it…20 lists you can use to organize your life…past, present, and future. If you feel overwhelmed with your day-to-day tasks, start with a master list, and use that to create a daily to-do list with no more than 3 items on it.
If you feel that life is passing you by, and you struggle with maintaining that “attitude of gratitude,” try making a gratitude list, or even listing a few of your favorite things.
And for those of you who feel like your life is on fast forward, with no real thought given to what you truly value, why not make a dream list or a bucket list. You may find that in putting words to the things that are deeply important to you, you will choose to prioritize your daily and weekly activities differently.
Lists Provide Evidence of Our Choices
Paraphrasing James Clear, author of Atomic Habits—all our actions are choices, and each choice we make is casting a vote for the person we wish to become. My belief is that when used properly, lists provide a way of delineating our choices to ourselves. Without the deliberate action of writing down our goals, intentions, to-dos, and accomplishments, we are more likely to float through our own lives without fully understanding that every YES is also an infinite NO. Our time is our most precious resource, and for me, list-making is a way to make the most of that resource by providing myself with the indisputable evidence of my choices.
These 20 lists provide are the ones that I have found the most helpful lists to organize your life. For more lists to use in organizing your life, check out my Monthly Lists to Plan Your Year.
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The 20 Best Lists to Organize Your Life
