If you’re looking into building a list, there are quite a few things you need to remember. For a list to be efficient, several things need to be kept in mind; without these points, you’ll be left for dead. With these points, though, you’ll build a compact, efficient list that will help you get on and get along with whatever you need.
Building your List Properly:
When building a list, the first, and most important, thing to keep in mind is a simple phrase: “Just enough.” You want just enough information along with each point on your list so that anyone reading it, yourself included, knows why that point is relevant. You don’t want to suffocate your reader, though: this is where “Just enough.” comes in.
There’s a simple way to do this, really: think of your topic, any topic, and write about it for 5 minutes. From what you write, you’re going to take the first and last paragraph, and splice them together; more often than not, doing so will create a good summation paragraph about your topic. From there, you need to further distill it into a simple sentence. Once you’ve done that, you’ve got the right amount of information for your topic.
Building on “Just enough.”, you’ll want to keep your list simple: put only items that are relevant to your interests, not any item that comes into your mind. When you do this, you create a compact, well-oiled machine that will be both useful and easy to digest for anyone who reads it.
To Build a List: Brevity:
Brevity is key to building a good list. Again, your reader is on a need to know basis: any information unrelated to the list’s purpose is irrelevant, and worse still, distracting. By keeping things simple and to the point, your list remains useful.
Again, writing everything you can think of about a point is the start; from there, you want to pare down your list. Think to yourself, “Do I need to know this?”: if there’s any doubt, you want to eliminate it. Anything you don’t feel strongly about isn’t worth keeping.
If you’re looking to build a list, these things will help steer you right. When you keep brevity, and “Just enough” in mind, you’ll create a list that’s compact, while remaining useful. That’s the goal of any list: it shouldn’t weigh heavily on the people who read it. No list should be wordy and obtuse; no, your list should tell the person reading it what they need to know. No more, no less, no fluff or flim flam.
When your list has hit that stage, it will truly be ready. You’ll know immediately when you have a good list and when you don’t: just hand it to someone else and let them read it. If they make it through the list, you’ve done a good job. If they don’t or get bored, then you’ve more work to do in order to truly finish building your list.
