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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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My 2020 Ta-Da and To-Don’t Lists

Sep 18 Leave a Comment

2020: The year our to-do lists died a fiery death. I’m still living by my to-do list, of course—I couldn’t survive a global pandemic without one. But the items look a lot different than I thought they would, they’re getting checked off slower (much, much s-l-o-w-e-r), and some things have been removed altogether.

Gretchen Rubin (author, researcher, and happiness extraordinaire) often talks about a happiness habit she calls the “Ta-Da List.” Rather than putting so much pressure on ourselves to keep up with our long to-do lists, or beating ourselves up over all the items we didn’t get done, she recommends creating a list of all the things we did get done. Ta-da!

But behind every ta-da list is a healthy to-don’t list. To make space for every single thing I did, there are a thousand unseen things I didn’t do. As the wisdom goes, you have to say no to some things in order to say yes to the things that matter most.

I think we all need a bit more ta-da in our lives right now, as well as a bit more transparency with our to-don’ts. So in that spirit, I offer you my lists. I hope these will remind you that nobody is doing it all, and that in a season where it feels like we’re living each day over and over again, spinning in place rather than moving forward, you actually have done something.

You cooked and cared and loved and hugged and surely placed at least 72 grocery pick-up orders.

You kept people alive.

You grew.

You lived.

My 2020 Ta-Da List

  1. I’ve survived a global pandemic for 6 months and counting.
  2. I parented two small humans while working full-time from home without childcare for 5 months and then helped them make the transition to a new daycare. (PRAISE THE LORD.)
  3. I launched my first book! (As stated above, without childcare, during a global pandemic.)
  4. I started running again, just to feel free for a few minutes each week, and I adopted a “do a little bit each day” approach to working out.
  5. I enjoyed my reserves of “the good stuff”: the good shampoo, the good soap, the good coffee, the good candles.
  6. I (we) ate dinner outside every time we had the opportunity.
  7. I thought outside the box and embraced partial solutions like this Enneagram 1 never has before.
  8. I ordered a lot of takeout. (Like, a lot.)
  9. I tried my best to stay in discomfort in conversations and reading.
  10. I let myself dream small, and it felt really good.

2020 To-Don’t List

  1. I don’t wear real pants. Like, ever. Some people say you should dress for your job even if you’re working at home, and I wonder if those people take sick pleasure the feeling of a waistband digging into their mom flesh. I sure don’t. On days I’m feeling fancy, I put on my nice yoga pants. On days I can’t think about even one more thing, I wear my pajamas all day and then go to bed in them again that night.
  2. I don’t tell myself to enjoy this time or look for any kind of mythical silver lining. I’m in one of the most privileged positions in all this, and it still sucks.
  3. I don’t keep up with photos like I used to. I used to have a monthly routine where I purged phone photos, edited and exported all Lightroom photos, backed everything up to the cloud and my external hard drive, and selected pictures to include in our yearly photo book. I haven’t done that since April. (I also haven’t made the 2019 photo book yet.)
  4. I don’t bathe my kids enough. Though I am getting better about that now that they’re in school.
  5. I don’t do anything productive after the kids’ bedtime. This has always been true for me—I’m braindead by 8 p.m.—but it’s more important now than ever before. It’s the one time in the day when I’m not beholden to anything, and I need it to stay that way, even when the to-do list piles up.
  6. I don’t watch (much) TV. Occasionally I’ll watch an episode of The Babysitters Club if I’m between books. But that time between putting the kids to bed and falling asleep on the couch an hour later is so precious that I use it to read because that’s what fills me up. (Okay, and I sometimes Dan and I watch our favorite songs from Hamilton.)
  7. I don’t clean my house. I tidy, yes. But I rarely clean. I have a monthly cleaning service, and I try to keep up with counters, but my floors are disgusting between visits, as are my bathrooms.
  8. I don’t do any extras. I know most of us aren’t going anywhere right now, but somehow there is still a lot happening? I’m not doing extra Zoom calls, meet-ups, or hangouts. I’m not learning Reels. (God help us, can they please go away now?) I’m focusing on a very narrow set of priorities right now, and everything else is getting cut.

The Enneagram 1 in me hates that I couldn’t make this list go all the way to 10, but we’ll just end this here and call it an act of grace and self-compassion, okay?

I’d love to hear from you: What’s the highlight of your 2020 ta-da list? What belongs firmly on your to-don’t list?
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series “Make A List.”

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Filed Under: Creativity, Intentional Living Tagged With: creativity, expectations, intention, mental health, ta-da list, to-do list

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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
The last day of school hit different this year. 💔 My tears at kindergarten graduation were not about how my first baby is growing up too fast. They were tears of gratitude that she’s growing up at all—something that should not feel spectacular, but does.

Swipe for some first day/last day comparisons and an outtake that I adore. 💜
There was a huge, complete rainbow outside Eamon’s bedroom window after his birthday party, and I can’t think of a better celestial celebration for our rainbow baby/big boy. 🌈
Our little Eamon baby is 3! 🎉 Though he will be Our little Eamon baby is 3! 🎉 Though he will be the first to tell you that he is not a baby—he is Eamon Boy, and he is a big kid.

Eamon is sweet and wild and silly and will do anything for a laugh, instantly charming everyone he meets. He is just as likely to tackle you as he is to request a hug and a kiss.

Eamon talks all the time and stretches out the last word of every sentence like it’s a question, but he also loves to communicate with roars and growls. No surface or object is safe around him, as he climbs and jumps off everything and will declare anything from a pillow to a plate his “rock” and throw it like he’s an Earth Giant in Frozen (we’re working on it).

He is obsessed with Dan, smitten with Selah, and thinks I’m just okay, at best—but he is my best buddy if the other two are unavailable.

This past year, Eamon went to Six Flags, Lake Geneva, and Disney World, and he has mastered his balance bike. Basically, he always wants to go fast and/or get as close to flying as possible.

Eamon, you are pure joy and delight, the brightest ray of sunshine, and the dreamiest rainbow baby. Happy birthday, my sweet boy! ☀️🌈💜
Or, “What does it say about me that the first po Or, “What does it say about me that the first poem I’ve written in a year is a list of things that make up my personal hell and I actually had to cut this down because I had so many/too many thoughts on the topic?” It’s fine, everything is fine.
This year was absolutely brutal. It also facilitat This year was absolutely brutal. It also facilitated some of the best decisions of my life, many born out of deep pain. Starting a new job, because the old one no longer fit. Getting vaccinated, to protect myself and others as we muddle through another pandemic year. All but quitting writing and social media, because I simply didn’t want to do it anymore. Most importantly, starting on Zoloft, because I needed it desperately. Those tiny blue pills quite literally saved my life.

The first half of 2021 was one of my darkest seasons, and the second half—thanks to modern medicine and my own intuition and the possibility of remote work, thanks to Selah starting kindergarten and me taking care of myself and being able to look at my kids and truly delight in them for the first time in a long time—was one of my happiest ever.

Holding both halves tenderly as we cross this next threshold. 💜
Selah Marie is 6! She started kindergarten this ye Selah Marie is 6! She started kindergarten this year and firmly entered world of big kids. Her confidence in every area has skyrocketed, from climbing her new playground to sounding out words to talking to new friends. She blows us away every day with her kind heart, generous spirit, and innate sense of empathy. She is tenderhearted, curious, affectionate, and hard to impress, and we adore her more every day. Happy birthday, Selah! 🧁 🎉 💜
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Brittany L Bergman is a for-profit blog. Any company that I collaborate with is chosen by me and fits the theme and readership of my blog. At times, posts may contain affiliate links or sponsored content, which is never at any charge to you.

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