Choose Your Words Carefully
If you used computer-based lists like me, then you probably enjoy some amount of automatic sorting by the list program. This is good, of course, but a way to make it even more effective is to choose your words carefully. What do I mean? Well, obviously I’m going to explain or this wouldn’t be much of a post would it?
Say you’re adding something to a list that already has several items, and this thing you’re adding isn’t as important, or isn’t something you want to do right away… The example I’ll use is adding content to a web page (since this is what made me think of it). Adding the particular set of content I will be adding for this project is not as important as doing some other things I’m working on for this project (like getting all the buttons and forms to work correctly). So, instead of calling this item (Next Action, if that’s not trademarked - which it probably should be) “Add content to xyz.html” … I’m going to say “Put content into xyz.html.”
Figured it out yet?
If I use the word “Add” my lists (and probably some of yours too) will put this action near the top (ie: in alphabetical order). But if I say “Put” then there are other actions that will appear before this new one (usually, since P is for “Pretty far down the alphabet.” Things that are more important to “Add” to the site (since I seem to be “adding” a lot of things for this project) will appear before things that are less important to “Put” into the site.
If you don’t have a program yet that lets you make and sort lists, I have to recommend AirSet. It’s still under development, but they’re adding features as fast as I’m adding posts. And they reply to their emails in a much more timely manner.
