Dot to dot- the power of the list
Welcome back globetrotters and I hope you all haven’t been too busy to make some leisure time for yourselves recently. Has anyone ever described themselves to you as a list-maker? By co-incidence did the same person seem to be one of the most organised people you have come across when it comes to travel planning? Well this week your GTG is here to demonstrate that this is no coincidence at all, and the idea is something that can help us all get our plans into shape.
Why lists?
Well Santa makes them, most households have some version when it comes to the shopping, your teacher used them to assign you homework in school, and insurance companies love them when it comes to the fine print of what’s covered and what’s not, the truth of the matter is lists actually are all around. Lists allow us to follow one train of thought, jump to another and return to our original thought process with as little interruption as possible. When it comes to travel this can be particularly handy as your prep comes on top of all the other things you may be trying to get done in your daily life. Lists are a great measure of how your trip preparation is going, a long list means a lot to do while a list with lots of visibly completed items may signal your trip is well on the way to being ready to go. Lists are a physical memory aide and are particularly useful given the sensory overload that comes along with travel. As if they needed any further validation, lists can also help calm the pre-travel nerves and dissuade the uneasy planner from their trauma.
Multiple lists
Lists seem to work best when the items on them relate to what you are actually focusing on at the time. Likely for this reason, your GTG has witnessed a number of more specific lists that have been a part of a more comprehensive travel ‘to do’ list including;
- Packing lists
- Bucket lists
- Lists of things to buy
- lists of vaccinations
- lists of people’s contact details
- lists of foods to try
- lists of places to visit
- Lists of bookings to make
- Lists of local expressions to learn
- Lists of events happening at home to remember while away, and
More on lists
So while we may all have many a brilliant thought, the trick in the end is remembering them when it counts. The added importance with travel is the limited ability to fix anything that has been forgotten post departure. To make life even easier, lists can of course be made on most of your portable technologies such as Smartphones, Ipads, tablets, Iphones and laptop PCs. In support of this idea, many globetrotters I have come across will give testimony to their list-making habit and your GTG highly recommends you grab yourselves a pen and some paper and get listing. Untill next week.
