“Is that your to do list?” a co-worker leaned over and asked me in our boss’s staff meeting last week as he pointed to the sticky note taped to the front of the notebook I carry around work to capture anything I need to write down the old fashioned way — with paper and pen — rather than in a digital format.

“No,” I whispered back, “it’s just the super important part of my list that needs to stay more in-my-face-than everything else.”  I turned my laptop toward him, showing him a scrolling spreadsheet.  “This is my to do list.”

Being on the creative side of marketing to my more analytical side, he smiled and said, “I don’t need no stinkin’ list.”

Like most working parents, with all that’s on my plate at work and all that’s required to run a busy household of six at home, lists are how I roll.  They don’t keep things from occasionally falling through the cracks, but they do help reduce the number of things that fall through the cracks.