The celebratory power of the TA DA! list

I’m a chronic list-maker. I come by it honestly–my childhood memories are sprinkled with my mother’s legal pads covered in notes–but I fell out of the habit after the baby. Now that I’m back at the desk, though, to-do lists are again mandatory, lest I waste my one precious work day each week.

Here’s an example of my weekly to-do list, which combines business stuff on the left, life stuff on the right, and a tracker on the bottom for daily tasks (please ignore that I wrote 5 instead of 6 for t...