Pending tasks and goals

I am trying to communicate that I wish I could have done something.

That "something" would be a ____________ for me.

Since I speak Spanish as a first language, I am biased to think of the direct translation of our idiom. That would be something like "pending account" or "pending assignment". "Unfinished business" also comes to my mind but it sounds too gangster-friendly. These are "pending tasks and/or goals", but I don't believe that is the correct term to use.

I was wondering if those translations fit there. Some examples that come to my mind:

Learning how to dance is a __________ for me.

I still have to re-write the ending of that story; it is a _______ for me.

I should have done something for her at the time. I'm doing this now to pay off that _________.

EDIT

The answers are great. I was looking for something that could be written in a book. I add some more formal examples.

We have made progress working with mouse models but working with a primate model for this disease has been a ________.

Decreasing the gap between the highest income quantile and those under the poverty line has been a __________ for this government.

Solution 1:

Consider outstanding. By itself, outstanding often indicates excellence, but it can be used to capture the idea of pending as well:

continuing to exist : unresolved < a long outstanding problem in astronomy > (MW)

continuing in existence; remaining unpaid, unresolved, etc.: outstanding debts; outstanding questions on procedure. (Random House)

It's often used in conjunction with the word still. Taking a couple of your examples, I'd say:

We have made progress working with mouse models, but working with a primate model for this disease is still outstanding.

The task of decreasing the gap between the highest income quintile and those under the poverty line is still outstanding for this government.

It's definitely a more formal way of speaking than to-do list or bucket list, so it's not necessarily optimal for everyday speech with friends. But it works well in professional contexts.

Solution 2:

You could say it's on your to-do list.

This works for your first two examples but not really for the third:

Learning how to dance is on my to-do list.

I still have to re-write the ending of that story; it's on my to-do list.

Solution 3:

If you are trying to describe an item that you want to achieve, but haven't done yet, you could use bucket list:

: a list of things that one has not done before but wants to do before dying (Merriam-Webster)

Note that this term is usually referred to in the context of "things I want to do before I die," and so tends to be "bigger" things, but could certainly apply to the examples you have listed:

Learning how to dance is on my bucket list.

I still have to re-write the ending of that story; it is a bucket list item for me.

I should have done something for her at the time. I'm doing this now to cross it off my bucket list.

Solution 4:

I cannot post comments so I will try to expand to an answer.

I do not have anything to back it up, but if you modify your sentences a little you could put in "yet to be achieved" in more formal ones.

Incorporating "yet" in the informal can work too (apart from the third one, it is tough :) ) for example:

"I have yet to learn to dance".

Does not sound too bad. I think the "yet" expresses it the way you want, to some extent. :)