Catalogue of the different kinds of lists we compose in our day-to-day lives
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Bucket list
Such as "Things to do before you die". Typically aspirational, completeable. Manual sorting (usually importance or desired completion order).
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TODO list
Such as "Weekend tasks to complete" or "Things to buy". Typically driven by necessary chores, completeable, and discarded upon completion. Sorted by urgency.
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Best-of list
Such as "Top 10 movies of all time". Similar to bucket lists but retrospective. Sorted by quality.
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Inventory list
Such as "Items for sale". Completeable. Various sorting (sometimes alphabetical, chronological, or some value metric like price).
Content of each item stays the same but the list shrinks when items are completed or grows when items are added or uncompleted.
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Brainstorming list
Such as this list. Fleshed out over time, occasionally deeply nested. Often used as an outline before composing a narrative document. Manual sorting (usually follows a narrative).
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Index list
A list of lists. One to rule them all. Sorted alphabetically or chronologically.
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Check list
Such as "Server deployment checklist". Similar to the TODO list but recurring in usage. Completeable and resettable. Manual sorting (usually follows a narrative).
Another variation of this list is the Diagnostic list, such as the "Purity Quiz" passed around in chain letters. Similar to the Bucket list but used to categorize and classify conditions.
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Timeline list
Such as "Books I've read". Sorted chronologically, and is append-only. Often used for keeping a log about some theme. Completed items from other lists form this kind of list.
What other kinds of lists are there?
What is a good way to distinguish different kinds of lists? Perhaps by the kind of engagement they require? For example, are they sorted/prioritized, completable, collaborative/personal/curated, time-sensitive/evergreen?
@clumma Thanks for sharing your lists! I think I can extract at least one more list type from your examples—I'm thinking the 'Reference list', but I need to think about it more. Let me go through them one by one and try to categorize them into my current nomenclature (which will clearly need to evolve).
Best-of list.
TODO list (pick up these tracks...)
Best-of list.
Best-of list.
Bucket list. (Because it's aspirational)
Best-of list.
I want to say inventory list, but the use case isn't quite right because the length remains the same but the content of each item keeps getting updated, whereas inventory would have varying lengths (through completion) with the content of each present item staying the same. I also want to say reference list but I imagine reference lists being append-only versions of inventory lists. It's almost like Reference List nested in a Timeline List. Maybe we need a new kind of list type here? Or maybe just call it a Timeline list per-person, if we're tracking changes over time.
Reference list. [Edit: On second read, I want to say Timeline list. Perhaps the 'Reference list' is not a useful category after all.]
Another interesting one. I want to say Timeline List but geographically-focused instead of temporally.
TODO list.
What do you think? I'm open to tweaking the names and definitions of my lists to accomodate these classifications, but I feel the breakdown is appropriate.
I agree with the premise but disagree with the conclusion. I agree it's important for surveys, but for casual list-sharing, randomized ordering is a poor user experience. "Hey Denali, check out #11 on Carl's list of favorite people!"
True but I'd argue that's an excessive generalization. Taken to an extreme, everything is an n-dimensional table. Let's say that for this exercise, we'll focus on 2-dimensional tables with fixed column sets depending on the list type.
This is partly what I have in mind. I definitely want a culture of list-forking ("That list of Favorite Movies close, but clearly wrong. Here, I'll make my own version."). As for merging, I'm thinking more of a Quora-style "Suggest an edit/addition" feature instead of outright merging. Ultimately I'd want to see an "averaged out" version of all forked Favorite Movies lists.