draliman on life

A shopping list (noun) is a list of items needed to be purchased by a shopper, a grocery list is a the most popular type of shopping list– including items that need to be procured on the next visit to the grocery store. It’s time to get extremely personal.  Share your grocery list with us! Scan it, snap a photo, or write it out.

Making a list can be a daunting prospect for the uninitiated. Without proper preparation, your list could go very badly wrong! I hope that this guide will help you to get the most out of your lists.

We’re going to concentrate today on one of the most common types of list – the “shopping list”. To explain, this is a “list” you might make before you go “shopping”.

There are two main reasons for making a shopping list:

1. You have a tendency to go a bit crazy so you make a list and stick to it. That way you return home with the toilet rolls and milk and only toilet rolls and milk, rather than augmenting your shopping trolley with a six pack of beer and a new flat screen television set.
2. You always forget something – without a list you’ll be taking your coffee black and wiping… well, enough said.

Here are a couple of lists I made earlier.

Note the poor handwriting – an unreadable list is useless! For example, on the top list, the very top item reads “pizzas”, not “pixies”, and the fourth item down on the left is “pickled onions” rather than “disabled chins”. Imagine what a fool you would feel when asking the shop assistant where the disabled chins are! The pixies, however, are to be found in aisle three, apparently.

To make your list, any spare piece of paper may be used. There’s no hard and fast rule, but I like to use a paper block. I’m currently using one I got while on my holiday in Wales – take a look below.

See how it cleverly it opens up to reveal the paper within! It’s a great source of paper and when not in use, a great decoration for your coffee table.

Once you are feeling confident in your lists, you may try reusing them – refer to the lower of the two lists in the illustration. You should attempt this strategy when:

• You are confident in making, and in using, lists
• Many of the items on your new list will be the same as those on your old list
• You have not already thrown out your old list

On the lower list, see how I’ve cleverly reused the list by scribbling out the items I no longer need.

Finally, be sure to think carefully before making your shopping list. Try to list the items in the order they appear in the shop, not in the order in which they appear in your head. Take a look at the illustrations below. The route on the left was followed by someone using a well-thought-out list. The route on the right… well, I think it speaks for itself!

I hope that this guide will prove useful to those of you who plan on embarking on designing, and using, lists. Remember, lists can be fun to make, and useful too!

Happy list making!