A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorised in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but lists are frequently written down on paper, or maintained electronically. Lists are "most frequently a tool", and "one does not read but only uses a list: one looks up the relevant information in it, but usually does not need to deal with it as a whole". [1]
It has been observed that, with a few exceptions, "the scholarship on lists remains fragmented". [1] David Wallechinsky, a co-author of The Book of Lists , described the attraction of lists as being "because we live in an era of overstimulation, especially in terms of information, and lists help us in organizing what is otherwise overwhelming". [2]
While many lists have practical purposes, such as memorializing needed household items, lists are also created purely for entertainment, such as lists put out by various music venues of the "best bands" or "best songs" of a certain era. Such lists may be based on objective factors such as record sales and awards received, or may be generated entirely from the subjective opinion of the writer of the list. [3] Musicologist David V. Moskowitz notes:
There are now top 100 or top 10 lists of a great variety within the music industry and its associated media. Rolling Stone issues top 100 lists of albums, songs, guitarists, and bass players. Guitar Player and Bass Player magazines contain similar lists as do other types of music magazines. This type of "best of" list... is based on a degree of opinion. Certainly, each "best of" list is based in some type of more scientific method than simple opinion, but this varies from list to list . Other "best of" lists are even more subjective, essentially coming down to a nonscientific approach to a single person's opinion. Lists of this sort still appear in mainstream media, such as Billboard magazine's "Top 30 Breakup Songs". [3]
The practice of ordering a list evaluating things so that better items on the list are ahead of less good items is called ranking. Lists created for the purpose of ranking a subset of an indefinite population (such as the top 100 of the thousands of bands that have performed in a given genre) are almost always presented as round numbers. Studies have determined that a list of items falling within a round number has a substantial psychological impact, such that "the difference between items ranked No. 10 and No. 11 feels enormous and significant, even if it's actually quite minimal or unknown". [4] The same list may serve different purposes for different people. A list of currently popular songs may provide the average person with suggestions for music that they may want to sample, but to a record company executive, the same list would indicate trends regarding the kinds of artists to sign to maximize future profits.
Lists may be organized by a number of different principles. For example, a shopping list or a list of places to visit while vacationing might each be organized by priority (with the most important or most desired items at the top and least important or least desired at the bottom), or by proximity, so that following the list will take the shopper or vacationer on the most efficient route.
A list may also completely lack any principle of organization, if it does not serve a purpose for which such a principle is needed. An unsorted list is one "in which data items are placed in no particular order with respect to their content; the only relationships between data elements consist of the list predecessor and successor relationships". [5] For example, in her book, Seriously... I'm Kidding, comedian Ellen DeGeneres provides a list of acknowledgements, notes her difficulty in determining how to order the list, and ultimately writes: "This list is in no particular order. Just because someone is first doesn't mean they're the most important. It doesn't mean they're not the most important either". [6] A list that is sorted by some principle may be said to be following a ranking or sequence.
Items on a list are often delineated by bullet points or a numbering scheme.
Kinds of lists used in everyday life include:
Many highly specialized kinds of lists also exist. For example, a table of contents is a list of the chapters or other features of a written work, usually at the beginning of that work, and an index is a list of concepts or terms found in such a work, usually at the end of the work, and usually indicating where in the work the concepts or terms can be found. A track list is a list of songs on an album, and set list is a list of songs that a band will regularly play in concerts during a tour. [7] A word list is a list of the lexicon of a language (generally sorted by frequency of occurrence either by levels or as a ranked list) within some given text corpus, serving the purpose of vocabulary acquisition. [8]
Many connoisseurs or experts in particular areas will assemble "best of" lists containing things that are considered the best examples within that area. Where such lists are open to a wide array of subjective considerations, such as a list of best poems, best songs, or best athletes in a particular sport, experts with differing opinions may engage in lengthy debates over which items belong on the list, and in which order.
A task list (also called a to-do list or "things-to-do") is a list of tasks to be completed, such as chores or steps toward completing a project. It is an inventory tool which serves as an alternative or supplement to memory. Writer Julie Morgenstern suggests "do's and don'ts" of time management that include mapping out everything that is important, by making a task list. [9] Task lists are also business management, project management, and software development, and may involve more than one list.
When one of the items on a task list is accomplished, the task is checked or crossed off. The traditional method is to write these on a piece of paper with a pen or pencil, usually on a note pad or clip-board. Task lists can also have the form of paper or software checklists. Numerous digital equivalents are now available, including personal information management (PIM) applications and most PDAs. There are also several web-based task list applications, many of which are free.
Task lists are often diarized and tiered. The simplest tiered system includes a general to-do list (or task-holding file) to record all the tasks the person needs to accomplish and a daily to-do list which is created each day by transferring tasks from the general to-do list. An alternative is to create a "not-to-do list", to avoid unnecessary tasks. [9]
Task lists are often prioritized in the following ways.
A completely different approach which argues against prioritizing altogether was put forward by British author Mark Forster in his book "Do It Tomorrow and Other Secrets of Time Management". This is based on the idea of operating "closed" to-do lists, instead of the traditional "open" to-do list. He argues that the traditional never-ending to-do lists virtually guarantees that some of your work will be left undone. This approach advocates getting all your work done, every day, and if you are unable to achieve it, that helps you diagnose where you are going wrong and what needs to change. [15]
Various writers have stressed potential difficulties with to-do lists such as the following.
A real-time operating system (RTOS) is an operating system (OS) for real-time computing applications that processes data and events that have critically defined time constraints. An RTOS is distinct from a time-sharing operating system, such as Unix, which manages the sharing of system resources with a scheduler, data buffers, or fixed task prioritization in a multitasking or multiprogramming environments. Processing time requirements need to be fully understood and bound rather than just kept as a minimum. All processing must occur within the defined constraints. Real-time operating systems are event-driven and preemptive, meaning the OS can monitor the relevant priority of competing tasks, and make changes to the task priority. Event-driven systems switch between tasks based on their priorities, while time-sharing systems switch the task based on clock interrupts.
Time management is the process of planning and exercising conscious control of time spent on specific activities—especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency, and productivity.
Financial statements are formal records of the financial activities and position of a business, person, or other entity.
In computing, scheduling is the action of assigning resources to perform tasks. The resources may be processors, network links or expansion cards. The tasks may be threads, processes or data flows.
Questionnaire construction refers to the design of a questionnaire to gather statistically useful information about a given topic. When properly constructed and responsibly administered, questionnaires can provide valuable data about any given subject.
Getting Things Done (GTD) is a personal productivity system developed by David Allen and published in a book of the same name. GTD is described as a time management system. Allen states "there is an inverse relationship between things on your mind and those things getting done".
A checklist is a type of job aid used in repetitive tasks to reduce failure by compensating for potential limits of human memory and attention. Checklists are used both to ensure that safety-critical system preparations are carried out completely and in the correct order, and in less critical applications to ensure that no step is left out of a procedure. they help to ensure consistency and completeness in carrying out a task. A basic example is the "to do list". A more advanced checklist would be a schedule, which lays out tasks to be done according to time of day or other factors, or a pre-flight checklist for an airliner, which should ensure a safe take-off.
The MoSCoW method is a prioritization technique used in management, business analysis, project management, and software development to reach a common understanding with stakeholders on the importance they place on the delivery of each requirement; it is also known as MoSCoW prioritization or MoSCoW analysis.
First Things First (1994) is a self-help book written by Stephen Covey, A. Roger Merrill, and Rebecca R. Merrill. It offers a time management approach that, if established as a habit, is intended to help readers achieve "effectiveness" by aligning themselves to "First Things". The approach is a further development of the approach popularized in Covey's The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and other titles.
Task management is the process of overseeing a task through its lifecycle. It involves planning, testing, tracking, and reporting. Task management can help individuals achieve goals or enable groups of individuals to collaborate and share knowledge for the accomplishment of collective goals. Tasks are also differentiated by complexity, from low to high.
Software project management is the process of planning and leading software projects. It is a sub-discipline of project management in which software projects are planned, implemented, monitored and controlled.
Alan Lakein was an American author on personal time management, including How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life which has sold over 3 million copies.
Scrum is an agile team collaboration framework commonly used in software development and other industries.
Sentiment analysis is the use of natural language processing, text analysis, computational linguistics, and biometrics to systematically identify, extract, quantify, and study affective states and subjective information. Sentiment analysis is widely applied to voice of the customer materials such as reviews and survey responses, online and social media, and healthcare materials for applications that range from marketing to customer service to clinical medicine. With the rise of deep language models, such as RoBERTa, also more difficult data domains can be analyzed, e.g., news texts where authors typically express their opinion/sentiment less explicitly.
Free recall is a common task in the psychological study of memory. In this task, participants study a list of items on each trial, and then are prompted to recall the items in any order. Items are usually presented one at a time for a short duration, and can be any of a number of nameable materials, although traditionally, words from a larger set are chosen. The recall period typically lasts a few minutes, and can involve spoken or written recall. The standard test involves the recall period starting immediately after the final list item; this can be referred to as immediate free recall (IFR) to distinguish it from delayed free recall (DFR). In delayed free recall, there is a short distraction period between the final list item and the start of the recall period. Both IFR and DFR have been used to test certain effects that appear during recall tests, such as the primacy effect and recency effect.
Knowledge organization (KO), organization of knowledge, organization of information, or information organization is an intellectual discipline concerned with activities such as document description, indexing, and classification that serve to provide systems of representation and order for knowledge and information objects. According to The Organization of Information by Joudrey and Taylor, information organization:
examines the activities carried out and tools used by people who work in places that accumulate information resources for the use of humankind, both immediately and for posterity. It discusses the processes that are in place to make resources findable, whether someone is searching for a single known item or is browsing through hundreds of resources just hoping to discover something useful. Information organization supports a myriad of information-seeking scenarios.
Field inventory management, commonly known as inventory management, is the task of understanding the stock mix of a company and the handling of the different demands placed on that stock. The demands are influenced by both external and internal factors and are balanced by the creation of purchase order requests to keep supplies at a reasonable or prescribed level. Inventory management is important for every other business enterprise.
Mark Forster is a British author best known for three books on time management and productivity. A business coach until he retired on 24 November 2008, in the past he has also worked for the British Army, Ministry of Defence and the Church of England.
Intelligence collection management is the process of managing and organizing the collection of intelligence from various sources. The collection department of an intelligence organization may attempt basic validation of what it collects, but is not supposed to analyze its significance. There is debate in U.S. intelligence community on the difference between validation and analysis, where the National Security Agency may try to interpret information when such interpretation is the job of another agency.
Scrumban is an Agile aligned approach to product delivery which is a hybrid of Scrum and Kanban. Scrumban was originally designed as a way to transition from Scrum to Kanban.
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