To-do or not to-do, taking the 'rebait' and pronoun pickle

Dear Rachel,

Wondering if you have some guru advice for organizing my life. I love to-do lists. The problem is, it doesn’t seem to help me get things done any more than I would without a to-do list. The list just grows until I need to make a new list. What’s your secret life hack?

– Eternal To-Do

Dear Honey Do-Do,

I recommend the nihilist’s approach. Stop thinking you will get everything done! You never will. Important things have a way of bubbling to the surface. Do what feels important to you. Maybe it’s what pays you. Maybe it’s something for someone you care about. Maybe it turns out that weaponized incompetence is a tool worth honing after all. You do you.

– Do to-do too-doo, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. So I get awful suspicious with cash-back offers and junk rewards from credit cards. But when I realize I could be saving 5% every time I gas up, I start to think … can I game the system?

– Johnny Cash-Back

Dear Rebate McEntire,

Oh, honey. The consumer never wins. Because if you can hack the system, they’ll shut you down. Sure, you can pay off your bill in full every month, take the rebate and call it a win. But forget to pay your bill just one time – or for one measly year – and they come after you. Or so I hear.

– Winning at life, Rachel

Dear Rachel,

I am in a pronoun pickle. I’ve hired the same petsitter for a year now. He asked me if I’d give a referral. Of course! Except the new client calls me and refers to he as “she.” I panicked and did my best to avoid pronouns altogether. Now I worry I didn’t correct this poor client before she meets the sitter, or worse, that I’ve been referring to her wrong for a year. What’s my way out of this?

– Bad Dog

Dear Done Messed Up,

Take on some phony foreign accent and drop pronouns from your sentences. Heck, just drop subjects altogether. What? Is a good idea. Dogsitter? Yes, done great job for Bad Dog. Very responsible. Would recommend. Five star. Also, what credit card debt? No understand what means credit card debt. Not on Bad Dog’s to-do list.

– Atta girl, Rachel