Stolen To-do Lists

  1. Leonardo da Vinci’s To-Do List (1490s)
    In his late 30s, while working in Milan, da Vinci filled his notebooks with observations, inventions, and questions, constantly pushing the boundaries of art and science.

    • Calculate the measurement of Milan and its suburbs
    • Get the master of arithmetic to show you how to square a triangle
    • Examine the crossbow of Maestro Gianetto
    • Find a book that deals with Milan and its churches
    • Discover the measurement of the sun promised me by Maestro Giovanni Francese
    • Get the master of hydraulics to tell you how to repair a lock, canal, and mill in the Lombard manner
    • Describe the tongue of the woodpecker

  2. Johnny Cash’s To-Do List (c. 1973) In his early 40s, at the peak of his career, Cash jotted down a simple list of personal priorities.

    • Not smoke
    • Kiss June
    • Not kiss anyone else
    • Cough
    • Eat
    • Not eat too much
    • Worry
    • Go see Momma
    • Practice piano
    • Help someone

  3. Woody Guthrie’s New Year’s Rulin’s (1943) On January 1, 1943, at age 30, folk singer Woody Guthrie drafted a set of whimsical yet earnest resolutions for the new year.

    • Work more and better
    • Work by a schedule
    • Wash teeth if any
    • Drink very scant if any
    • Write a song a day
    • Read lots good books
    • Keep hoping machine running
    • Love everybody
    • Wake up and fight

  4. Henry Miller’s Commandments (1932–1933) While struggling to complete Black Spring, Miller wrote a list of working rules for himself in Paris.

    • Work on one thing at a time until finished
    • Start no more new books; add no more new material to Black Spring
    • Don’t be nervous; work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand
    • Work according to program and not according to mood; stop at the appointed time
    • When you can’t create you can work
    • Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers
    • Keep human; see people, go places, drink if you feel like it
    • Don’t be a draught-horse; work with pleasure only
    • Discard the program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day; concentrate; narrow down; exclude
    • Forget the books you want to write; think only of the book you are writing
    • Write first and always; painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards

  5. Susan Sontag’s Rules + Duties for Being 24 (1957) In her journal at age 24, Sontag listed personal rules and obligations to discipline herself.

    • Have better posture
    • Write Mother 3 times a week
    • Eat less
    • Write two hours a day minimally
    • Never complain publicly about Brandeis or money
    • Teach David to read
    • Don’t criticize publicly anyone at Harvard; don’t allude to your age; don’t talk about money; don’t talk about Brandeis
    • Shower every other night; write Mother every other day

  6. Virginia Woolf’s Resolutions (1931) On January 2, 1931, Woolf sketched out intentions for the next “lap of the year” in her diary.

    • “Here are my resolutions for the next 3 months; the next lap of the year”
    • “To have none; not to be tied”
    • “To be free & kindly with myself; not goading it to parties; to sit rather privately reading in the studio”
    • “To make a good job of The Waves”

  7. Joan Didion’s Packing List (1970s) Printed in The White Album (1979), Didion kept a packing checklist for reporting trips.

    • 2 skirts; 2 jerseys or leotards; 1 pullover sweater; 2 pair shoes; stockings; bra; nightgown; robe; slippers; cigarettes; bourbon
    • Shampoo; toothbrush and paste; Basis soap; razor; deodorant; aspirin; prescriptions; Tampax; face cream; powder; baby oil
    • Mohair throw; typewriter; 2 legal pads and pens; files; house key

  8. Jonathan Swift’s Resolutions When I Come to Be Old (1699) At age 32, Swift jotted rules for himself to follow in old age.

    • Not to marry a young woman
    • Not to be peevish, or morose, or suspicious
    • Not to tell the same story over and over to the same people
    • Not to be covetous
    • Not to neglect decency, or cleanliness, for fear of falling into nastiness
    • Not to be positive or opiniative
    • Not to sett up for observing all these rules; for fear I should observe none

  9. Thomas Edison’s Things Doing and To Be Done (1888) On January 3, 1888, Edison recorded a long list of inventions and tasks in his notebook.

    • Cotton picker
    • New standard phonograph; hand turning phonograph
    • New slow speed cheap dynamo; new expansion pyromagnetic dynamo
    • Deaf apparatus
    • Electrical piano
    • Long distance standard telephone transmitter which employs devices of recording phonogh
    • Telephone coil of Fe in parafine or other insulator
    • Platina point trans using new phono recorder devices
    • Good wax for phonograph; phonographic clock
    • Large phonograph for novels, etc.

  10. Virginia Woolf’s “Linen at Asheham” List (1918) At age 35, during her recovery at Asheham House between 1912–1919, Woolf wrote a domestic inventory inside a notebook’s back cover under the heading “Linen at Asheham.”

    • “Sheets & pillow cases” (enough for a house party)
    • “Linen left to be washed”
    • tally of household items like tablecloths, towels, textiles — in neat, engaged handwriting documenting her domestic world during convalescence