Ta-Da List: How a Done List Shows Your Progress

A ta-da list, also called a done list, is a running record of what you finished today, written down as you go or at the end of the day. A to-do list shows what is left; this one shows what you did, including the unplanned work that never made it onto a plan. It takes a couple of minutes a day, and it is most useful on days that felt busy but looked empty.

Key Takeaways

• The list records completed work, planned or not, so a day full of interruptions still shows what you got done.
• Research on progress supports the idea: in a diary study of knowledge workers, making progress on meaningful work was the strongest lift to people’s working day, and monitoring progress helped people reach goals in a meta-analysis of 138 experiments, especially when progress was written down.
• The effect depends on how committed you already are. Looking at what you have done motivates more when commitment is shaky; looking at what is left motivates more when you are already committed.
• Keep it next to your to-do list, write one line per item, and include interruptions and help you gave.
• Keep both lists: the to-do list plans the day, the record of finished work shows what the day was.

What is a ta-da list?

It is a list of things you have already done. Each time you finish something, you write it down, so by the end of the day the list shows everything you completed, including the calls, fixes and favours that never appeared on a plan. The name plays on the “ta-da!” of a finished trick: the list exists to show you the result.

It goes by several names. Investor Marc Andreessen called his version an “Anti-Todo List”: in his guide to personal productivity, he describes writing each useful thing he does on the back of the 3x5 index card that holds his three to five tasks for the day. “Reverse to-do list” means the same thing.

A small piece of history: the best-known product with the ta-da name was a to-do app. 37signals launched a free service under that name around 2005, describing it as “a simple way to manage and share to-do lists online”, and retired it in May 2012. The meaning used here, a record of finished work, is a different idea.

Why does a done list help?

It helps because it makes progress visible, and visible progress affects both mood and follow-through. On a busy day, most of what you did never reaches your to-do list, so at five o’clock your to-do list says you achieved little. A written record of what you finished corrects that picture and gives you something concrete to review at the end of the week.

Three lines of research back this up, each with limits worth knowing.

Progress on meaningful work matters most to a working day. Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer analysed the diaries of knowledge workers and found that nothing contributed more to a positive “inner work life”, the mix of emotions, motivation and perceptions at work, than making progress in meaningful work, even in small steps. Their research was about what managers can do to support progress; writing your finished work down is a personal way to notice the progress you already make.

Monitoring progress helps people reach goals, especially when you write it down. A 2016 meta-analysis by Benjamin Harkin and colleagues pooled 138 experiments with 19,951 participants that randomly assigned people to monitor their progress toward a goal or not. Interventions that got people to monitor their progress helped them attain their goals (d = 0.40), and the effect was larger when progress was physically recorded or reported to others. Listing what you finished is a simple form of physical recording.

Writing down good things can lift mood, though maybe not for the reason you think. In a 2005 study, Martin Seligman and colleagues found that “three good things”, writing down each day for a week three things that went well and why, lastingly increased happiness and decreased depressive symptoms. A 2012 replication by Myriam Mongrain and Tracy Anselmo-Matthews found happiness gains again, but a “positive placebo” exercise did just as well, and the exercises did not beat the control on depression. The safe reading is that reflecting on positive, personal information helps happiness, and listing what you finished is one way to do that.

When a to-do list motivates more

Looking back at finished work is not always the better view. In four studies, Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fishbach found that focusing on what you have accomplished raises motivation when your commitment to a goal is uncertain, while focusing on what is left raises motivation when your commitment is already high. Which list motivates you depends on how much the goal matters to you.

In their studies, emphasising progress so far helped people keep going with a relatively unimportant exam or a first-time donation; emphasising what remained helped with an important exam or repeat donations. Applied to your lists, the record of finished work is most useful for work you are lukewarm about, such as a slog of admin or a new habit you are not sure you will keep. For a project you care deeply about, the remaining steps may push you further than the finished ones.

That is a good reason to keep both lists rather than replace one with the other.

How to keep a ta-da list

Keep one in four steps: put it where your to-do list lives, add one line each time you finish something, include unplanned work, and look back over it at the end of the week. It should take a minute or two a day. If it takes longer, you are writing too much per item.

1. Put it next to your to-do list. A second column on the same page, the back of the same card, or a “done today” section in your app. If it lives somewhere else, you will forget it.
2. Add a line as soon as you finish something. One line, past tense, no detail: “sent invoice to Lee”, “fixed the login bug”, “called the dentist”. Writing as you go catches the small items you would forget by evening.
3. Include the unplanned work. Interruptions, questions you answered, help you gave a colleague. These are the items a to-do list never shows, and they often explain why the planned work slipped.
4. Read it back once a week. The week’s lists of finished work are the raw material for the look-back step of weekly planning: what you finished, and where the time went.

If writing as you go breaks your focus, write the list at the end of the day instead, as part of a shutdown ritual. You will miss some small items, but the main ones will be there.

Ta-da list vs to-do list

A to-do list looks forward and a list of finished work looks back, and the two answer different questions. The to-do list plans what you intend to do and keeps commitments from slipping. The record of finished work shows what actually happened, planned or not, which makes it the better tool for reviewing a day or a week and the worse one for deciding what to do next.

The risk for a list of finished work is real. A list of finished work full of email replies and small tasks can feel productive while the important work waits. If it keeps showing small, easy items and none of your priorities, it is telling you something useful about busy work.

What one day’s list looks like

Here is what one workday’s record of finished work might look like. Each item is one line in the past tense, and the planned items are marked, so you can see at a glance how much of the day went to work that was never on the plan:

• Sent the Q3 report draft to Ana (planned)
• Answered three client questions about invoices
• Fixed the broken link on the pricing page
• 45-minute call with the new designer (planned)
• Helped Sam find last year’s contract
• Booked flights for the conference (planned)

Only three of six items were on the plan. Without the list, the day would look like three tasks; with it, you can see that half of what you finished was unplanned work, which is useful when you plan tomorrow.

How FocusBox shows what you finished

FocusBox records the tasks you complete in it, so the planned part of your list of finished work keeps itself; add unplanned work as a task and tick it off to include it. Its Daily Shutdown, one of the app’s planning rituals, shows what you finished at the end of the day and rolls the rest to tomorrow.

The Reports dashboard shows your completed tasks by day, week and month. When you finish a task, FocusBox can also play a short celebration animation, such as confetti, lasting from 1 to 10 seconds, which you can turn off in settings. It is the app’s own small “ta-da”.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a ta-da list?

It is a running list of what you have finished, written as you go or at the end of the day. It records planned and unplanned work alike, so it shows what you actually did, unlike a to-do list, which only shows what is left.

What is the difference between a to-do list and a done list?

A to-do list looks forward and holds what you plan to do; a list of finished work looks back and holds what you finished, including work that was never planned. The to-do list helps you decide what to do next, while the record of finished work helps you see progress and review where your time went.

Does writing down what you finished actually help?

Research on progress suggests it can. A meta-analysis of 138 experiments found that monitoring progress toward a goal helped people reach it, more so when progress was physically recorded. Diary research also found that making progress on meaningful work is a major lift to people’s working day. Listing finished tasks is a simple way to record that progress.

What is an anti-to-do list?

An anti-to-do list is a list of what you have finished rather than what is left, a name used by investor Marc Andreessen. Each time you do something useful during the day, you write it on the list, so by evening you have a record of everything you got done, including work that was never on your plan.

Should I write down finished tasks during the day or at the end?

Writing each item as soon as you finish it catches more, especially small and unplanned tasks. If that interrupts your focus, write the list at the end of the day as part of your shutdown routine. You will miss a few small items, but the main work will be recorded.

Sources

• Amabile and Kramer. The Power of Small Wins (Harvard Business Review, May 2011; accessed November 2026)
• Harkin, Webb, Chang, Prestwich, Conner, Kellar, Benn and Sheeran. Does monitoring goal progress promote goal attainment? A meta-analysis of the experimental evidence (Psychological Bulletin, 2016; accessed November 2026)
• Seligman, Steen, Park and Peterson. Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions (American Psychologist, 2005; accessed November 2026)
• Mongrain and Anselmo-Matthews. Do positive psychology exercises work? A replication of Seligman et al. (2005) (Journal of Clinical Psychology, 2012; accessed November 2026)
• Koo and Fishbach. Dynamics of self-regulation: How (un)accomplished goal actions affect motivation (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2008; accessed November 2026)
• Andreessen. Pmarca Guide to Personal Productivity (pmarchive.com; accessed November 2026)
• Greater Good in Action. Three Good Things (UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center; accessed November 2026)
• Heinemeier Hansson. Ta-da List: Until the end of the internet (Signal v. Noise, Basecamp, January 2015; accessed November 2026)