10 reasons why lists are bad.

While there are some good uses for lists, I see no good reason (trendiness; lack of originality?) for lists to be the only structures we use for displaying information. How about trees, hierarchies or some complex graphs?

  1. Every item is not equal. The nature of a list is to give each point equal representation, and this is rarely the case.
  2. Each item is not always independent. Although lists convey that the meaning of each bullet point is disjoint, there are sometimes complicated causal dependencies between the topics, which is not facilitated by list structures.
  3. The number of items in the list does not determine the topic's validity. Longer lists does not necessarily imply a better argument, precisely because of (1) and (2).
  4. Dilution of good ideas If we evaluate the strength of the argument (the list's topic) by its individual constituents, treating each item equally leads to the problem of giving the average weight to important points that should be highlighted.
  5. Overrepresenting bad ideas. A corollary of the previous point: judging an argument by giving equal weight to its argument's constituents can have bad consequences.
  6. Boring. No audience I've met enjoys being shelled with 50 rounds of PowerPoint bullet points in a single sitting. Sometimes list enthusiasts use lists to stand in for more stimulating materials, like graphs or visualizations.
  7. Exaggerated Titles. Many lists I've read speak as if they are a "top x items" from some even bigger list, but then fail to reference that parent list. With no basis of comparison they should not use the word "top." As a rule of thumb, if the author(s) are dishonest in the title of their list, the rest of the list will also be bullshit.
  8. Abbreviated Content. Often---especially in slide presentations---lists are given obscure or abbreviated descriptions that serve as mnemonics for the authors but confuse the readers.
  9. Generative Content. The pressure to make your list longer or stop at multiple of 5 or 10 may lead people to drag their lists on by introducing weak points. Of course, this pressure could lead to some good ideas. But that is why i will make this final point:
  10. Lists should only be used for drafting/brainstorming, not for final publications! Lists are a fine way for generating ideas, but bad for presenting them. If you plan to author a document that will be read by others -- please go through a few iterations of drafting between creating a list and presenting it!

5 ways to stop procrastinating.

I have seen a lot of content appearing these website/blog indices (Delicious, Digg) that are about avoiding procrastination. Many of them miss the obvious, so I've decided to fill them in:

  1. Stop using Reddit
  2. Stop using Digg
  3. Stop using Del.ic.ious
  4. Stop using MySpace
  5. Stop using Facebook

By Dustin Smith, 2007.