Psychology suggests making a shopping list is a sign of sharper thinking | Hacker News Reader

Psychology suggests making a shopping list is a sign of sharper thinking

economictimes.indiatimes.com

16 pointsColinWright20 comments

I recently turned to list making for offloading all the mental tasks and organizing my life better. Running low one ggs? "Hey siri, add eggs to my groceries list". Random thought I want to google? "Hey Siri, remind me later to look up XYZ topic". I've even setup a few iOS shortcuts that connect into my Obsidian notes so that I can quickly dictate notes about books I'm reading or ideas I want to capture for later writing.

I don't know if it makes me sharper but I am able to remain focused on the present and offload the thought to future me. This has been enormously helpful and makes me wonder why I never did it regularly beyond grocery lists. Even those lists would be a mad scramble of "what do I need" looking around and almost always forgetting something I need.

I have always loved writing with pen and paper, and making lists is the easiest. I have changed and tried many formats, and I will continue to tweak and simplify further. Right now, I use a simplified Bullet Journal Method to plan the day, from running errands to eating the frog. Of course, I do use a lot of digital tools too (Calendar, Emails).

I’m happy to say that I’m having success helping two elderly (an erstwhile teacher and a businessperson) remember things by just writing them down. Carry a pocket notebook attached with a simple pen.

Nothing fancy, put a dot or a circle, and start your list item. Done ones are ticked or crossed out, ignored ones are crossed out, and if the list fills up on a page, that is too behind › carry forward and re-write the item.

Early stage, but it seems to be working.

I don't use a list generally, because I have a fairly fixed path through my local grocery store and I know what I regularly need to stock up on. On occasion however, if I'm unsure, I'll close my eyes and browse the kitchen, pantry and linen closet in my mind's eye, to check the contents of the shelves. As long as the last time I looked at them matches reality, I get a pretty accurate inventory and can usually spot things I'm forgetting.

Recipes are the exception. If I'm cooking something I've never made before, there is no way I'm committing that ingredients list to memory.

I have set path as well but I don’t always know what is there in the fridge or pantry as my partner mostly cooks. So we make the list that I later sort to match my path at the shop. It speeds up my shopping a bit and sometimes I just pick something outside of the list for fun.

In that case, I'm pretty sharp.

Two things I have noticed.

1. When I leave the list at home before a long drive to shop, the really important items have to be recalled. This favors short lists in general. Seriously, for most personal tasks, if your list is longer than say, 6 important items, you are overloading both your workload and memory. My opinion.

2. Last night, I noticed that my shopping list disappeared "somewhere" in my trip, despite the fact that I tied a pen to the little notebook with a cord.

Age creeping in? Not really. The damn thing(s) had fallen (as usual) between the car seat and the console, as I discovered after unloading groceries. I am making plans to stuff that space with some foam or bubble wrap to prevent this most noxious (and knuckle-scraping) failure mode.

This has been a problem for how long? 120 years?

Sometimes, I take a phone photo of the list.

I only left the phone home once, but was close enough to home to go get it. Usually there's a bluetooth indicator on the now-ancient 2018 infotainment display.

> Better lists, fewer impulsive decisions

Not really, at least for me. "-)

Generally, psychology doesn't work for me. My daughter has an Honors Psychology degree, and I am advising her to tell me the opposite of what she suggests, in honor of my cantankerous and contrarian nature.

>1. When I leave the list at home before a long drive to shop, the really important items have to be recalled.

Just store the list on your phone? It's better ux too. Unlike with pen and paper, you can check off items with a tap and rearrange them arbitrarily.

I don't like taking the phone out of its slipcase any more than necessary.

(It's a small phone and perfectly fits a very old camera case that holds some adapters in a pocket)

Any more than to pay. The advantage to paying with the phone is that through regular but not constant use, I am very unlikely to misplace it.

As noted, I sometimes do both. I think that my old shopping app fell by the wayside (as apps sometimes do) and I never replaced it.

I use lists because I have terrible memory. When I pack for a trip I reuse a list I have been refining for years. When I buy food I use the list I have been filling all week. I have a dozen lists like that.

It’s not sharper thinking. If anything it’s compensating for a blunted memory.

Perhaps India is a different place, groceries wise, but in America I shop the deals. Are sirloin steak, chicken thighs, or Boston Butts on sale? What veggies, what pastas, starch, and breads (that don’t suck) - I do check the weekly ads ahead of time to gameplan but I never make a formal list. Maybe I bank on that meat sale and the quality looks like trash, what then, do I give up and go home? You have to think on your feet, your plan never withstands first contact with (corporate grocery stores)

The article has got nothing to do with India but is merely a popular psychology article published on a Indian News website.

It is about how even so simple a task as creating a shopping list is a sign of beneficial cognitive offloading and can be a marker of higher executive functions.

I start with a list but improvise if a deal presents itself. That way I don't miss the basics - "Did I forget the milk?" - but can still find that special buy.

Pile this into the bucket called, "being poor is expensive."

Similar to the benefits espoused by Atul Gawande in his "Checklist Manifesto".

Planning even a simple everyday shopping list is a sign of beneficial cognitive offloading and can be a marker of higher executive functions.

I can make a meal from any set of ingredients so I don’t bother with a list usually. As long as I get some general basics, it’s whatever.

In fact sometimes I’ll pick up random things in my grocery store… chaos testing if you will.

I make lists for things with more annoying consequences, like packing for trips or even checking out of a hotel.

Psychology suggestions opinion pieces (like this) are full of self serving bias and projection...

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