List as Presentation

December 17, 2025

While a list is a valid mental model, I’d say that a list is not the best user interface.

Questioning the List as presentation

The traditional view on prioritization is something like:

“Prioritization is about constructing an ordered list.”

or

“Prioritization is about choosing the tasks that matter the most.”

In general, the outcome of prioritization is a priority list. Either an ordered list with the top priority at the first position, or a bucket of “Priority 1” tasks.

Here’s why lists aren’t the best UI for prioritization:

1. Priority list makes you think that you need to order everything

   You don’t. You only need to identify what’s your #1. If you want to, you can identify your #2 and #3 so that you can plan your day. But that’s about it. Spending mental energy on deciding if something is #17 or #18 is wasted effort.

2. When the list is longer than the screen, stack ranking no longer works effectively

   Working with a stack-ranked list presupposes that you see the entire list. If the list is long enough, the user interface mechanism of drag and drop no longer works efficiently.

   You could say that the problem happened earlier, that the list is too long. And that you need to reduce the size of the list first. But how do you do that without prioritization?

   Sometimes backlogs are just long and there’s little you can do about it. Yes, you can split the list into smaller lists, but then this seems to solve the problem at a wrong level. If you use different lists for different projects, you end up with multiple lists per project.

3. Priority list itself can be a distraction when you’re in execution mode

   When you look at the list while in execution mode, it naturally puts back onto your mind all the tasks that you already decided aren’t the priority. Why to even look at them?

   You could say, okay, then I’ll look only at the top few tasks. Sure, but why? Really, you only need to know one thing: “What’s the next thing I should be doing?”

   You’re more likely looking for this:

   Your #1 priority

   Task A

   That’s it! When you’re in execution mode, that’s the only thing you need to know. When Task A is done, you’re ready to take the next item.

When and why you might want to use a list

A list as presentation is reliable because it’s simple and it’s complete.

1. Reviews

   Productivity systems often use weekly or monthly reviews. A list view is a good fit.

2. Verification and troubleshooting

   If you don’t yet fully trust the system you might want to dive into a list and verify that all the tasks are still there.