Written by Daniela Ronca
Illustrated by Daniele Brusca
Mine is a story of lists. Lists of things to do, appointments to book, books to read, ideas yet to think about. I write lists everywhere. I bought a nice coloured notebook to write out all my lists, but then the notebook multiplied and became a ‘bag notebook’ to carry with me, a diary next to the bed, or rather two, a list on the desk and a post-it for a separate list from the main one.
Then there are also the lists on teeeeeechno devices, like the lists on the mobile phone, divided by topic, and the lists of goodreads and of Youtube and Insta favourites, so I don’t forget a single thing.
The average time an item stays on a list is one year. Things written on the “ASAP” list have a good chance of being done first, but nothing is certain.
The time required to complete most of the things I write on a list is one hour, two max. Some things could be done directly, rather than going through a list first. There are also so many things that take longer and more days; for the most part these are things I WANT to do. Like “List of things to do before I die” or “List of artistic projects that I could implement” or “List of things to do in my free time”.
And I would have free time. Every day after work I could easily open a list and go through at least one item. Do I do that? Oh, I read the lists a thousand times. I rearrange them, change the colours of their titles. I extend them... I exteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeend them. I could wrap myself up in lists. It happens a couple of days a year that I feel good, and maybe I complete ten things in an afternoon. Boom, big headache and satisfaction, productivity.
Is it perhaps from writing the list, making the list itself? …What if I throw a list away?