Today's task: make a to-do list

Tamsin Kelly wonders why we feel the urge to write things down before we do them

Like most women, I am an obsessive list maker. Late at night you'll find me gearing up for the next day by starting a new to-do list.

	Note to self: Tamsin Kelly and her fridge, which is papered with a collection of her lists

My fridge is so papered with lists it resembles a modern art installation: Ludicrous List Lady. There's the shopping list (which I always forget to take with me), the to-do house list (ranging from the dismal "Buy light bulb" to hopeful "New kitchen"), the children's weekly activities, wishful meal plans and my tired-looking New Year resolutions ("I will lose a stone, I will finish the novel").

But the mother of all lists is the one that sits on my desk. It's an inch thick, each week's A4 list clipped to the last, the left-hand column entitled Work (otherwise known as making money) and the right side Home (or how to spend money with minimal enjoyment - pay electricity bill, present for Susan, piano lessons, collect dry cleaning, etc). Throughout the week, I add items, circle others that are becoming increasingly urgent and even cross some out (ideally in a different colour). If I'm overwhelmed with inertia, I'll retrospectively add items just so I can cross them out and feel I've achieved lots.

I thought my list-making was obsessive compulsive until I spoke to Linda Jones, who admits: "I used to start my to-do lists with 'Get up'." And Jennifer Whitehead, who says: "I quite often begin with 'Make a to-do list', followed by 'Cross things off to-do list'." I've always believed lists were a way of creating order from chaos. But perhaps they're just displacement activity dressed up as organisational genius. A quick and scary calculation: I probably spend at least 10 minutes every day writing lists. That's 70 minutes a week - more than 60 hours a year. In the time it takes to write down what I'm going to do, I could have done it and gone away for a relaxing weekend.

Writing "Clear out shed" is the easy bit. It's doing it that's the pain, which is why it's still on my list three years later. Then there's the space between real life and list life. For instance, I never write "Have coffee with best friend and start work two hours late". Despite my lengthy shopping lists and meal plans, I still find it impossible to feed a family of five for three days without yet another supermarket trip.

I'm in awe of my friend Justi's fat book of lists. The front is dedicated to the mundane minutiae of life, but the back is full of ideas for outings and clippings about concerts, plays and exhibitions. She even goes to some.

Men don't seem to write lists in the same obsessive detail, at least at home. "A woman's list will always be two or three times longer than a man's," says Cary Cooper, professor of organisational psychology at Lancaster University. "Men do very short work-orientated lists to make themselves feel important. It's still the women who are juggling work, running the home and looking after children. As a consequence they tend to be better at time management and multi-tasking. Lists are essential for women to help focus on all these different commitments and prioritise them." So, that's a relief. The reality is that I'm not sad and lacking in spontaneity: I'm super-woman.

The letter of the lore

Don't

Do