dataframe to list of dicts

df = pd.DataFrame({'Name': ['John', 'Sara','Peter','Cecilia'],
                   'Age': [38, 47,63,28],
                  'City':['Boston', 'Charlotte','London','Memphis']})

datadict = df.to_dict('records')

In [20]: timeit df.T.to_dict().values()
1000 loops, best of 3: 395 µs per loop

In [21]: timeit df.to_dict('records')
10000 loops, best of 3: 53 µs per loop