{"id":104,"date":"2010-06-21T14:03:10","date_gmt":"2010-06-21T19:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/21\/the-art-of-the-top-10-list\/"},"modified":"2018-01-04T22:36:44","modified_gmt":"2018-01-04T22:36:44","slug":"the-art-of-the-list","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/2010\/06\/21\/the-art-of-the-list\/","title":{"rendered":"The Art of the List"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Lists have always been a great way of organizing your thoughts but in this era of ever-shrinking attention spans they can also make an effective communication tool. Here are the top reasons why I think lists work so well:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Lists force\u00a0writers to organize their thoughts.<\/li>\n<li>The basic structure of a list is simple and easy to understand.<\/li>\n<li>Lists eliminate fluff.<\/li>\n<li>Lists help break up content into manageable chunks that are easy to scan.<\/li>\n<li>The average four-year-old can count to 10 &#8230; which means that the current\u00a0U.S. market for top 10 lists is estimated at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.census.gov\/popest\/national\/asrh\/NC-EST2009-sa.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">285,706,894<\/a> people.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Bonus Lists:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/story\/story.php?storyId=101056819\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">10 Reasons Why We Love Making Lists<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/USA\/2010\/0620\/A-yachting-trip-The-10-worst-BP-gaffes-in-Gulf-oil-spill\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Top 10 BP Gaffes During the Gulf Oil Spill<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/id\/2257823\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The three rules about conspicuous consumption for embattled CEOs<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2010\/HEALTH\/06\/27\/daily.pleasure.real.simple\/index.html?hpt=C2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">10 Ways to Find More Pleasure Every Day<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/node\/1659056\/print\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">10 Lessons From the Coolest Company Anywhere<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2010\/TECH\/web\/06\/29\/your.blog.unpopular\/index.html?hpt=C2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Is Your Blog the Unpopular Kid?<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hooversbiz.com\/2008\/11\/25\/killing-off-a-vampire-project\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">How to Kill a Vampire Project<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fastcompany.com\/3023229\/leadership-now\/4-science-backed-reasons-our-brains-love-lists\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Why our Brains Like Lists<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A counterpoint (i.e. lists suck):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/jasonseiden.com\/4-reasons-why-i-suffer-from-list-overload\/4 \" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Reasons Why I Suffer From List Overload<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.feld.com\/wp\/archives\/2011\/12\/top-10-reasons-top-10-lists-suck.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Top 10 Reasons Top 10 Lists Suck<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>Update: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>January 2, 2013<\/strong> &#8211; Umberto Eco says that we like lists because we don\u2019t want to die: <a href=\"http:\/\/m.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2012\/12\/umberto-eco-on-why-we-love-lists\/266728\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">http:\/\/m.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2012\/12\/umberto-eco-on-why-we-love-lists\/266728\/<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>June 18, 2013<\/strong> &#8211; Derek Thompson discusses the \u201ctyranny \u201d of lists on the Atlantic: \u201cIt\u2019s well understood that lists and rankings can be fixed. But \u2026 research makes a bigger claim: That fixed rankings can dupe us into liking things that we wouldn\u2019t have liked if they hadn\u2019t been ranked more highly. The placebo effect of most-popular lists suggests that better-reviewed meals might actually taste better; more-downloaded songs might actually sound better; articles with more Facebook likes might actually feel more delightful to read. When we outsource our navigation of the world to other peoples\u2019 opinions, we lose, in a small way, our ability to individually evaluate the quality of our experience.\u201d (Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/business\/archive\/2013\/06\/the-tyranny-of-most-popular-lists\/276847\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">http:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/business\/archive\/2013\/06\/the-tyranny-of-most-popular-lists\/276847\/<\/a>.)\n<\/li>\n<li><strong>December 12, 2014<\/strong> &#8211; An overview of 30 years of Top 10 lists on David Letterman (link: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/arts\/culturebox\/2014\/12\/letterman_top_ten_a_statistical_analysis_of_30_years_of_top_ten_lists_from.single.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">http:\/\/www.slate.com\/articles\/arts\/culturebox\/2014\/12\/letterman_top_ten_a_statistical_analysis_of_30_years_of_top_ten_lists_from.single.html<\/a><\/li>\n<li><strong>January 1, 2018<\/strong> &#8211; Lists as a bulwark against the chaos of 2017: &#8220;[Lists] have also, in their way, made arguments\u2014for stability, for schedules, for the general assumption that some things must transcend the caprices of individual people. Those lists have, with all their sweeping assessments of movies and TV shows and albums and books and people\u2014with all their cheeky declarations about the proper way to arrange those declarations in the first place\u2014reclaimed some of the order that 2017 has so effectively destabilized.&#8221; (link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/entertainment\/archive\/2017\/12\/the-quiet-radicalism-of-the-year-end-list\/549293\/\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/entertainment\/archive\/2017\/12\/the-quiet-radicalism-of-the-year-end-list\/549293\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lists have always been a great way of organizing your thoughts but in this era of ever-shrinking attention spans they can also make an effective communication tool. Here are the top reasons&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[142,78],"class_list":["post-104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information","tag-list","tag-organization"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2695,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/2695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideasillustrated.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}