By Andra Bryan Stefanoni
Globe Staff Writer
PITTSBURG, Kan. — We all know Santa makes a list and checks it twice, and doing so most likely helps him avoid lines, find the perfect gifts and get around the world on Christmas Eve.
When it comes to mere mortals, Pittsburg resident Tom Lallemand is a self-described penultimate list-maker.
“I think that’s why I can get so much done,” he said.
A homeowner and business owner who celebrates and decorates to the tenth degree at both locations for Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas, he begins making lists for purchases and tasks in early October.
“If I’m running errands, I organize my lists accordingly so I can go from one end of town to the other and not forget something or have to double back,” he said.
“If I’m going to Joplin, I make my list so I start at Sam’s and work my way north. It saves time and gas.”
He makes his lists old-school, using a notepad on which he jots down a draft list of everything he has to buy and do, then he separates those items out in an organized fashion into finalized lists.
“It just feels like I’m not complete without them,” he said.
The word “list” can be tracked back to William Shakespeare, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In Hamlet, the Bard refers to “a list of landlesse resolutes.”
Conni Rush, professor of psychology and counseling at Pittsburg State University, said there’s a bonafide modern-day pyschological benefit to list-making.
“You can either hold it in your head or hold it on paper,” Rush said. “For a lot of people, if they hold it in their head, they get worried they might forget something. So they think about it over and over again, which adds to stress.”
The advantages to writing things down?
“If you can write it down, you don’t have to hold it on your head,” she said. “Also, you can cross things off as they get done. Everyone is different, but when you have so much to do, it’s hard to see progress.”
There are dozens of free and paid apps for mobile computers that can help. Among the free: Pepperplate’s recipe and ingredient manager, Grocery Gadget shopping aid and plain old “Notes” that comes standard on iPhones.
Among the paid, ListPro, at $4.99, is among the most robust, featuring 40 fully-customizable templates Ñ 40! Ñ seven column types and a host of other tools. List Master, at $6.99, allows for “the perfect” grocery lists, gift lists, password lists and to-do lists, among others, and can be synchronized online so it’s available from any computer with Internet access.
But Rush cautions that good old-fashioned pencil and paper can have its advantages.
“We see everybody use smart phones, we see how easy it looks, but there’s a learning curve. If you put your list on a smart phone you’re just learning to use, it may actually increase your frustration,” Rush said. “Maybe you can’t figure out how to use it.”
Once you’ve had it a while, no problem. Until then: “A notebook, that’s what I prefer,” said Rush. “With a notebook, the pages stay in, and you can create multiple lists at one time.”
Rush, for example, made a menu for Thanksgiving on one page, on the next page created a shopping list, and a separate gift list so as to not overlook anyone.
“I think you take satisfaction for checking things off. It can seem overwhelming, but if you write it down, you can see it, and if you can see something, it’s much less scary than if you just imagine it. It’s much more manageable.”
