10. Putting things together into a list seems to connect them. Surely you’ve seen lists where some elements don’t quite seem to fit—or where the organizing principle seems forced. Not a problem. It’s a list. The title connects individual elements, even if that connection is artificial. You can be philosophical about this: Bogus lists encourage people to think about possible connections. Or you can be realistic: A lazy writer spots 10, 15, 25, or 42 items that can fit under a title, no matter how ill the fit.

9. Lists are quotable, searchable, Tweetable. Honorable bloggers, Tweeters, Facebookers, and FriendFeeders will link back—but they’ll probably use one item at a time. Great! Just make sure topic phrases are less than 140 characters long and paragraphs run less than 140 words. You’re on your way to big-link love. A good 20-item 1,600-word list probably results in 10 times the links of a single discursive 1,600-word post or article and probably takes less than half as long to write.

8. Lists are typically made up of short independent paragraphs, great for people with short attention spans. If you believe some gurus, we’re all losing our ability to concentrate for long periods of time—and a “long period of time” might be the time required to read a coherent, single-focus article or even an 800-word column. But almost anybody (except possibly those who have become true Twitterphiles) is able to focus long enough to read an 80-word paragraph—like this one.

7. Lists almost write themselves. Not only can you throw in things that don’t belong, you can reuse the same topic phrases (full sentences are so 20th century!) with slightly different slants and wordings. Once you have your topic phrases (or websites, or what have you), writing the paragraphs couldn’t be easier. If your list is of websites, you describe each one. If there’s substance, it’s still easier to write a list element than most any other paragraph. That’s particularly true because …

6. Lists eliminate the need for smooth transitions. Hey, it’s 2009. Writing a coherent sentence is becoming a postgrad skill. Writing a coherent paragraph is hot stuff. Good editors expect that you’ll connect those paragraphs to create a narrative flow. Why, I’ve had editors (Hi, Michelle!) forbid subheadings in columns to force me to think about the flow of an entire column. But nobody expects one list entry to flow into the next entry; they’re supposed to change abruptly.

5. Lists neither require nor reward full attention or close reading. We’re all supposed to be multitasking—reading while watching TV while texting on a cell phone. Lists suit multitasking: Half a minute’s reading (10 seconds’ reading!) gets you through a single paragraph, and if all you really get is the topic phrase, that’s OK. For that matter, slowing down and paying full attention to the list won’t help much: There’s nothing deeper to understand.

4. With luck, you can expand a list into a manifesto, then into a best-selling book. Not only can you build popular blogs from nothing but lists, you can make much more from them. What might have been a plain list can, with lots of near-repetition and other easy creative effort, become a manifesto. Then you need only add a couple more paragraphs after each point and shazam! You’re a best-selling author.

3. Numbered lists imply ranking without requiring actual effort. After all, this article isn’t just some random number of items. It’s 10 items and they’re numbered from 10 to 1. That must mean the 10th item is least significant and the first item most, right? The beauty here is that you don’t have to demonstrate significance—it derives from the act of numbering. What? You think No. 4 is more important than No. 1? Well, you’re entitled to your (obviously wrong) opinion.

2. People love lists. Why not? They’re easy to read, they rarely require deep thought (or even shallow thought); they can be quotable. Sometimes you get entire magazine issues consisting of nothing but lists—and you can bet those issues are widely read. Fifteen ways to seduce your neighbor; 10 ways to speed up Vista; the top 25 reasons X will do Y. The possibilities are endless, but the lists are never long enough to pose reading challenges.

1. Lists are easy ways to write articles and columns—much easier than actual writing. This column was inspired by a worldly personal computer magazine that had a “special list issue” where all the articles were numbered lists (instead of half or so, which would be typical). I noticed that the issue was remarkably fluffy and must have been unusually easy to put together. So was this column.

Quod erat demonstrandum. No, Michelle, I won’t pull this stunt again for at least 5 more years.