Getting rid of “someday”: 101 Things in 1001 Days

I’m challenging myself to accomplish 101 things in 1001 days.

A first glance, this doesn’t seem like much - obviously we all do much more than 101 things in about 3 years’ time. The sticking point is that I have to accomplish 101 things that I identify ahead of time; as you might imagine, they’re a bit more exciting than ‘brush my teeth’ or ‘go to the grocery store’.

Why am I doing this? Because like so many people, I have a list of things that I’ll do someday – bake bread from scratch, visit a major attraction in the Western US, take a yoga class, etc. I’m tired of talking about doing these things someday. And more to the point of this blog, these are the kinds of things that I imagine doing when I’m there – that place where I’m living life as I want it to be.

It’s easy to make excuses for myself right now – I don’t have an oven, I can’t visit the Western US because I’m in Africa, etc. In 3 years, who knows where I will have been. Surely I could make excuses forever. But I’ve realized something in the short time that I’ve been contemplating how far I am from there: it’s pointless to put off everything that I want or need to do until I get there. There are plenty of steps I can take no matter where I am – some are even ideal to take now, in my somewhat unorthodox living situation.

So no more someday (which, presumably, is the day that I’ll get there). I may not be able to radically overhaul of my life, and quit procrastinating on everything that I want to do (anyone who knows me well knows procrastination is embedded in my DNA) – but I am going to do 101 things in 1001 days.

This is not a totally original idea. There is a web-based group devoted to this very concept, and so I concede whole-heartedly that I stole their numbers (101 and 1001). I like the logic of using 1001 days, because our typical period of resolution (1 year) is not always long enough to accomplish things we want to do. Maybe we won’t have the time, money, or opportunity this year. It’s easy to say “Not this year…maybe next year!” But three years, that’s much harder to dismiss on a whim. If you can’t find time to do something in three years, how badly do you really want to do it?? This may not be true for everyone, but for me (mid-twenties, not married/no kids, minimal responsibilities) three years is still a big playground where anything is possible. So I’m doing 101 things now, not someday, because I really do want to do these things. When will be a better time? Maybe never.

I also adapted the idea of how to define your ‘things’. These things are actually what we in the development world call ‘objectives’ – they are specific, measurable, appropriate, realistic and time-bound (1001 days). Being the planning dork that I am, I developed my objectives from the wider goals I have for myself (e.g. cultivate baking skills, explore your own country and culture, try out new types of exercise). Each ‘thing’ (objective) that I complete is in support of a broader area of self-improvement (goal).

Would I have done some of these things anyway? Maybe. But I might not have thought about how the experiences could further my larger goals. I’ve also been meaning to do many of these things for the last almost-three years, since I graduated college, and I haven’t. So in the next almost-three years, I plan to cross 101 things off of my ‘To Do’ list. Regardless of how many I might have done anyway, having a list of things that I’ve accomplished will make me feel like I’m moving forward…I dare say, closer to there.