Are You a List Maker?

If I was asked to name the most organized person I know, it would be my wife. No doubt about it. She has a file cabinet filled with folders for  everything from instruction manuals (as if I would ever need to read one. Ha!) to receipts for car and home repairs to tax documents for the past 10 years.

Now that’s not to say that I am disorganized. I do make lists, though mostly mental. But I also make physical lists. For special orders, I will outline the details in a summary sheet as opposed to having to sort through however many emails ( not to mention recall phone conversations) to gleam the final decisions on each aspect.

Sometimes my lists are adhered to, no matter what. When I food shop, I know what I’m going to be cooking so I know which aisles in the supermarket to hit. In and out. No, special 2 for 1 sale on Twinkies, you will not tempt me this time! But other times, it’s important to know when to stray from the list.

A good majority of my work starts out as a sketch. This sort of a list. It tells me overall dimensions as well as specifics on individual components. Take this executive toy race car, for example. I knew what I wanted it to look like. I drew up the plans for it and felt everything was perfect. Time to start cutting wood!

Executive Toy Race Car Mid-Production by Greco Woodcrafting

As I started to make the body of the car, I realized what had looked good on paper was a bit off. The racing stripes, which in the drawing above are the section immediately on either side of the dark center line, were too narrow. I had though 1/4″ racing stripes would look sharp, but they just didn’t look right at all. When I was building the car I chose to double the width to 1/2″ for each stripe, and I was far more pleased with the overall look (on the left in the picture above). You can read more about the car, including seeing a video of how it was made, here.

So are you a list maker? How strongly do you stick to your list?

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