101 Goals in 1001 Days

In my constant search for the perfect way to get organized, I came across someone's blog that suggested working on 101 goals in 1001 days.  (http://101goalsin1001days.com/about/) The idea is that you create a list of 101 things you want to accomplish.  These goals should be challenging, but doable.  In other words, you wouldn't list doing the laundry and you wouldn't list becoming debt free if you currently owe over a million dollars.  You could, however, list paying off your Sears card and/or paying off your car.  

Once you have your list of 101 items, you then list the steps necessary to reach those goals.  Or at least the first step you need to take.  Depending on the item, you may not know all the steps.  After you've done that, you make a third list of "Next Action" items.  This becomes your master to-do list.  At least weekly, you should review your Next Action list and check off and add items.  You should always have at least one item on your Next Action list for each goal.  

I'm slightly worried about my list of 101 things.  That original blog I read and the other folks working on their own 101 goals who had linked to it all mentioned that they'd had a hard time coming up with 101 goals.  Me, I had no trouble.  In fact, I had to cut quite a few items.  Several of my goals probably aren't doable.  For instance, I want to read all the books I own that I've never gotten around to reading, and that's a lot of books.  I could list my goal as reading ten of them, but I figured I'd stay more motivated if I listed them all.  And, since I know up front that the goal is not very realistic, I won't be upset if I don't reach it.  Same thing for my yarn.  Another goal is to use up all the yarn I have stashed away.  Well, I could knit 24/7 and not use up all that yarn in the next 20 years.  But I can work towards reaching the goal.  And then there's the debt thing.  Since I'm currently unemployed, paying off my Sears card is about as likely to happen as becoming debt free, but debt free sounds great and you never know - I may win the lottery and be able to pay off all my creditors.  So, I'm listing becoming debt free.  It's something to strive for.

I'd also like to note that on the list you see here, many of the items are rather open ended.  Some things are that way because I don't really know what my goal is.  Take "learn more about i-Photo" for example. In this case, I simply don't know what it is that I don't know.  Hopefully by August 5, 2013, I'll know everything.  For "learn more about the computer," I have a whole great big list of things I want to learn but there simply wasn't room to list it all on the sidebar.  There's also a few items like "wash windows" and "replace light bulbs."  While those things may not be a challenge for you, they are for me.  They are things that have been on my to-do list for over a year.  Hopefully, by putting them on this list, they'll get done.

My plan is to list my 101 goals down the side of this blog and I'll indicate which ones have been completed.  So, in no particular order....