Lists! Is it even possible to live without lists? From shopping lists to checklists to bucket lists, lists drive our lives.

You can barely browse a website without meeting a “listicle“, a list masquerading as an article. From today’s Google search for “listicle”, here are two examples: “8 Tips For Writing A Listicle That Will Get Published” and “5 Reasons Listicles Are Here to Stay, and Why That’s OK“.

As the years run short, I’m beginning to think that one list should be at the top of my list of lists: the “Never Again List” of things I won’t spend time on anymore. Things like:

• keeping track of the dime-a-dozen celebrity circus;
• paying attention to the social media outrage machine;
• sitting on committees that meet but do no work.

Getting the “Never Again List” right is the first step in simplifying and focusing my life. And I’ll start by not searching the internet for ready-made lists of activities to avoid.