New Year’s resolutions don’t work for everyone. But for me, there is a strong pull to seize the opportunity for a fresh start and a clean slate. As I was preparing to embark on just such a round of slate-cleaning this week, I was reminded of some unfinished business.

Somewhere over the past couple of years, I developed the habit of jotting aspirational notes to myself as alarms in my iPhone. There, lurking alongside the jolting reminders that bleep and blurt at me throughout the day, I have planted these surreptitious directives that will (hopefully) tweak my unconscious as I scroll through my daily tasks and obligations.