As a kid, I remember my father at the dining room table in the morning jotting down his to-do list for the day on his mini legal pad as he sipped coffee and took in the busy goings on in our household. I remember his orange or brown or red Paper Mate felt tip pens scratching out instructions to himself in perfect architect block script. My father could make a grocery list look like a precise set of life specifications. But he made lists or, as he told me more than once, it was gone.

— Lists by Kurt Harden

I hope one day my kids make the same observation when they're older, especially that last sentence. Lists are better at remembering to do things than we are.