Aim Lower, You're a Mess.

'To-Do' lists, the 'Finch' app, and getting out of bed in the morning.

When you’re sinking and the bare bones of survival get mired in dread, keeping yourself alive seems an impossible task. Brushing your teeth, washing your face, lifting one foot after the other and placing both on the ground—the little chores grow giant and the large ones grow impossible.

I know who you are. You’re not a clean girl. You’re filthy. Your room is a graveyard of dirty clothes and abandoned hobbies. The blaring of your ignored alarms pierce my ears every morning. You haven’t washed your face in two days and I can smell the swamp of Monday’s dishes from here. That dust-covered copy of Meditations isn’t fooling anyone—it’s 2 PM and you’re still in bed.

I’m gonna give you the same advice that every fucked up YouTube productivity guru will tell you, except I’m gonna do it better than Ali Abdaal, Nathaniel Drew, or any of those Matcha Latte wellness girlies ever could. I’m gonna say it like you’re a child and I’m your fed up parent.

Make a fucking to-do list.

I’m not talking one of those highbrow to-do lists written in bullet-journals with Muji pens by people with remote jobs, glass skin, and Apple watches:

Affirmation: Today I will practice mindfulness.

[ ] Write one essay

[ ] Meditate one hour

[ ] Go for a morning jog

[ ] Grocery Shop

[ ] Read 'Five Hour Work Week'

[ ] Listen to Podcast

[ ] Cook dinner

[ ] Journal

I’m talking about a Bronze-ranked, Level 1 to-do list. A humble one that you’d be too embarrassed to show your friends. One that’s scrawled out on a crumpled piece of paper littering your desk. I’m talking a to-do list that keeps you alive.

It seems like taking care of ourselves in the most rudimentary of ways is a generation-wide struggle. Sponsored reviews of an app called Finch had already been slipping between the reels of my Instagram algorithm for weeks by the time my roommate told me they downloaded it.¹

Finch is essentially a To-Do list that gamifies the fundamentals of self-care by letting users create a Tamagotchi-esque pet that’s rewarded whenever something like 'Wash Your Face', 'Make Your Bed', or 'Do the Dishes' is checked off. The unlocking of achievements and accessories for one’s pet utilizes Pavlovian conditioning to help users rebuild their habits of self-care. Finch seems to recognize our generation’s inflated demands for dopamine and meets them with a supply of colorful affirmations and animated rewards. My roommate often tells me that her pet—a non-binary penguin named Darrel²—is off traversing the Italian countryside on a vacation funded by her night routine.

@tylerandgeraldIt’s so positively addicting. It’s called @finchcare! #2023resolutions #selfcaregoals #mentalhealthaction #2023goals

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As of writing this, Finch currently has over 348k reviews on the App store and an average rating of 5 stars. It’s #2 on the Health and Fitness charts and is ad-free.

“So it’s basically just a To-Do list then?” I ask my roommate. “What makes using the app so much more enticing?”

“It’s easier to take care of something else than it is to take care of myself.”

Her eyes drift back to her phone.

“Life may be scary,” she reads aloud, “but I’m brave.” It’s Darrel’s daily affirmation.

---

The To-Do list, of course, is in no way a new prescription to the overwhelmed. I’m no stranger to the tired, digital sighs that come in response to the To-Do list being recommended as a solution, and I get it. When getting out of bed is already a huge hurdle, the recommendation of a To-Do list can come across with the same resolute sting as phrase like “PickYourselfUpByYourBootstraps.” Usually, the advice comes from Cold Shower people who say words like

“Discipline, Mindfulness, Tidiness”

as if they’re ideas you’ve never considered before. As if these words don’t sparkle on the horizon of wellness like beautiful cities you fantasize about living in. They’re right, of course, but we’ll roll our eyes because our roads to these cities zig-zag through dangerous neighborhoods; they’re paved with heavier stones.

But a to-do list isn’t a cure-all. It’s a life vest. It’s the buoy you cling to when your body burns out from paddling while lost at sea.

I’ve tried it all. Pomodoro, Notion, Post-its on the Mirror, Sharpie on the insides of my forearms. Sometimes when it gets really bad, I’ll make a chart, and my roommate will reward me with Awesome Job or You Did It! stickers. Now, I mostly write my to-do lists on a colored-paper notepad I stole from an old server job.³

My therapist of the last couple years recently retired. In our very last session, she told me she was proud of me. I shriveled like I usually do in response to that sentence and writhed as she commented on my growth over the last two years.

When we first started seeing one another, I’d wake up at nine A.M., rip open a thirty-rack mid sesh, and confess that I hadn’t showered in days.

“Make a list,” she’d tell me. “Even if it only has one thing on it. Even if it’s something basic. What’s one thing you want to do for yourself today?”

I’d mutter something like drink water or fold laundry, acts so simple they felt ridiculous to write down. I wrote them down anyways. The dopamine of checking them off was enough to remind me that I had accomplished something.

[ ] Wake up

[ ] Brush teeth

[ ] Drink water

[ ] Leave your room

[ ] Sleep before 1 AM

[ ] Eat something

“Take care of yourself,” my therapist ended our final session with the same note she always did. It shocked me how little I needed that reminder anymore.

I won’t pretend I don’t fall apart sometimes. When I lost my job last month, the colored-notepad came back out and I reverted to Bronze rank, Level 1:

Wake up, Make Bed, and Clean Room all returned to my 'To-Do's with a clerical seriousness. Some days, the tasks are bigger. Some days, they aren’t. Regardless, the list grounds me.

“When you burnout, you have to teach yourself how to survive again,” my roommate wisely utters as she shows off Darrel’s new accessory.

A to-do list is a safety net. It’s the skeleton of survival.

The first thing you need to-do is:

1. https://finchcare.com/

2. Darrel the non-binary penguin

3. Here’s a funny little list I found the other day.