101 goals in 1001 days

[jamesq]

101 Goals in 1001 Days.

Kiped from rato_do_perigo

I actually started this on March 1, 2006 with the end date being my 41st birthday on November 25, 2008. That's why some of the goals have already been completed.

The Rules

The Mission:
Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Why 1001 Days?
Many people have created lists in the past - frequently simple goals such as new year's resolutions. The key to beating procrastination is to set a deadline that is realistic. 1001 Days (about 2.75 years) is a better period of time than a year, because it allows you several seasons to complete the tasks, which is better for organizing and timing some tasks such as overseas trips or outdoor activities.

Some common goal setting tips:

• Be decisive. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it.
  
• Stay Focused. Any goal requires sustained focus from beginning to end. Constantly evaluate your progress.
  
• Welcome Failure. Frequently, very little is learned from a venture that did not experience failure in some form. Failure presents the opportunity to learn and makes the success more worthy.
  
• Write down your goals. It clarifies your thinking and reinforces your commitment.
  
• Keep your goals in sight. Review them frequently, and ensure that they are always at the forefront of your thinking.
  
• Make goals that are within your power to achieve - i.e. that don't depend on other people's participation (this is why "get some booty" is not on the list - it depends on someone else's booty being present. It's also why "clean the junk out of the garage" is not on the list - none of the junk is mine).

The Goals:

1. Post this list. Simple, easy, quick and gives me something I can cross off right away.
   
2. Finish this list - i.e. fill up all the entries.

Travelling:

3. Travel to the UK. Completed June '07
   
4. Travel to Las Vegas.
   
5. Travel to San Francisco.
   
6. Visit Dinosaur Park.
   
7. Go to kermie_canada and spookiemonkie2's wedding, with side trips to Seattle and Victoria. Well I didn't actually take the Seattle side trip, but the important part (the wedding) was done so I'm counting this as done.

That should be enough big trips for the next little while. Note to Vancouver Peeps - trips out there don't need planning, they just sort of happen.

8. Take the "Set Etiquette" course from MRC.
   
9. Take a basic cooking course.
   
10. Learn how to weld.
    
11. Learn how to sew.
    
12. Learn how to fire a gun.
    
13. Take a french class.
    
14. Start and finish my Java I course (CMPP-236).
    
15. Start and finish my Java II course (CMPP-256).
    
16. Start and finish my XML course (CMPP-209).
    
17. Start and finish my Object Oriented Methodologies course (CMPS-325).
    
18. Get my "Object Oriented Java Certificate of Achievement".

There, that's the education component taken care of. Here are some small tasks to space things out:

19. Read "A Confederacy of Dunces", which has been sitting on my shelf, unread, for years now. Crossed off because the machine was unrepairable and subsequently recycled.
    
20. Replace the power supply on bookpc, upgrade it's memory and HD to use as an AV computer.
    
21. Reassemble and sell/donate the P3/800 sitting in pieces on the office floor.
    
22. Reassemble and sell/donate the P3/700 sitting in pieces on the office floor.
    
23. Reassemble and sell/donate the P3/600 sitting in pieces on the office floor.
    
24. Reassemble and sell/donate the P2/400 sitting in pieces on the office floor.
    
25. Organize my cables.

Some home stuff:

26. Get the garage door opener fixed.
    
27. Get the attic insulation upgraded.
    
28. Apply for my Canada EnerGuide For Homes rebate. Got my cheque for $614.00 from the government. Woo!
    
29. Obtain a picnic table for the back yard.
    
30. Get the bike fixed.
    
31. Rebuild the shelving in the garage.

Some athletic stuff:

32. Run 100K during races (i.e. ten-10k races, but it could mean more shorter runs or less longer runners, so long as the total is 100k). 87K down - 13K to go as of 2008-05-11.
    • Forzani's Mother's Day '06 - 10K
    • CIBC Run For the Cure '06 - 5K
    • Forzani's Mother's Day '07 - 10K
    • Brain Tumor Foundation Spring Sprint '07 - 5K
    • Stampede Road Race '07 - 10K
    • CIBC Run For the Cure '07 - 5K
    • Royal Victoria Half Marathon - 22K
    • Forzani's Mother's Day '08 - 10K
    • Stampede Road Race '08 - 10K
33. Participate in a triathlon (Olympic standard course: 1.5k swim, 40k bicycle, 10k run). If none are scheduled in the 1001 days, I'll get someone to time me.
    
34. Ride the bike to and from work two days a week during the summer of 2006 2007.
    
35. Do the Grouse Grind again

SCA Stuff

36. Recommend someone for an AoA. And she even got the award at HT/DS!
    
37. Become a grandmaster bowman using standard SCA royal round rules.
    
38. Become a combat archer.
    
39. Participate in an SCA war.
    
40. Learn how to throw knives

Some creative stuff:

41. Finish porn story #2.
    
42. Start and finish porn story #3.
    
43. Start and finish porn story #4.
    
44. Write in my blog more (specifically, at least two posts a week that are not memes/quizzes/crunchy. i.e. that have actual content).
    
45. Make a faux crossbow that shoots tennis balls.
    
46. Make a target butt for arrows/knives
    
47. Look into the legalities of archery practice in the city limits.

Personal stuff:

48. Ask out J.
    
49. Ask out X.
    
50. Ask out Y. This wasn't done, but it's also not going to get done so I'm crossing it off. Had an epiphany a few weeks ago and realized that Y doesn't really like me - she simply tolerates me because we have friends in common. That being the case I'll focus my attention on people who don't erroneously think I'm creepy.

Food

51. Have a meal at Charlie Don't Surf, a restaurant with a cool name I glimpsed in White Rock while taking the train to Seattle.
    
52. Have a meal at Tojo's in Vancouver
    
53. Take a woman out to Wild Wood.
    
54. Find a recipe for Lobster Cheesecake and make it. It was yummy! but really really expensive.
    
55. Make doughnuts using Dad's recipe.
    
56. Eat a deep-fried Mars bar

Fun Stuff!

57. Go to at least one movie a month for a year. You'd think this would be easy for me, but my movie-mojo has been drying up dammit.
    • January: Eragon, Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth.
      
    • February: Ghost Rider.
      
    • March: The Astronaut Farmer, 300.
    • April: Grindhouse, Hot Fuzz.
    • May: Spiderman III.
    • June: P3 - At World's End, Ratatouille.
    • July: Transformers.
    • August: The Simpsons Movie.
    • September: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
    • October: Life Free or Die Hard, The Kingdom.
    • November: Michael Clayton, In the Shadow of the Moon.
    • December: The Golden Compass.
58. Go to see live theatre in five different cities.
    • Calgary: Guys and Dolls, Moby Dick! - the Musical, Nine, To Kill a Mockingbird.
      
    • London: Wicked, Avenue Q.
      
    • Victoria: The Pride of Miss Jean Brodie.
      
    • 
      
59. Finish watching Jeremiah Season 1.
    
60. Start gaming Avatars again.
    
61. Start gaming Call of Cthulhu again.
    
62. Run the Skull Island one-shot.
    
63. Watch 10 "best picture" Academy Award Winners that I haven't seen yet.
64. Send surreal postcards to complete strangers in ten different countries.

Clerical/Organizational

65. Organize my recipes.
    
66. Get rid of (somehow) those Dragon back issues.
    
67. Send in my 2005 taxes (which are only three weeks late and I owe money #@$^%).
    
68. Sort my paperwork.
    
69. Sort my comics.
    
70. Clean my home office.
    
71. Get rid of all my mediocre porn.
    
72. Make a will.
    
73. Move all my old website posts to LJ.
    
74. Tag all my old LJ entries.
    
75. Finish Tamara's DVDs.
    
76. Finish Sheldon's DVDs.
    
77. Finish re-casing my current set of DVDs.
    
78. Sell my Elfquest crap on eBay.

Consumer Whoring

79. Buy a kilt for SCAdian stuff.
    
80. Buy a formal kilt for the wedding.
    
81. Buy a utiliKilt, just 'cuz.
    
82. Replace the Comfy Couch with a new Comfy Couch.
    
83. Get a Comfy Chair that matches the new Comfy Couch.
    
84. Buy my next Macintosh notebook (which will use an Intel chip) entirely with change I have collected for this task. (almost, I used $1219.23 from change and the difference was made up with the money I got selling my old laptop)

Miscellaneous

85. Scatter Mom and Dad's ashes. About goddamn time too
    
86. Give 5 litres of blood (not all at once though).
    
87. Swim in the ocean.
    
88. Add ten items to the Calgary Wiki.
    
89. Research single's vacations.
    
90. Make a mix CD for Christmas 2006.
    
91. Friend (in an LJ sense) ten complete strangers.
    
92. Make a bolt-pack (a backback full of survival stuff, kept ready in case you need to "bolt").
    
93. Sell the last of my work stock.
    
94. Get good and loaded at least once. At Quad War - Twice!
    
95. Become a card-carrying socialist (i.e. join the NDP).
    
96. Hand off my "inspiration" ring to another person (who inspires me of course).
    
97. Go one week without using the internet at work for non-work reasons. Went nine days at one stretch.
    
98. Put the Christmas decorations away sometime before next Christmas.
    
99. Pay the house's mortgage down to below 100K.

And finally, the most important tasks:

100. Reach my goal weight of 198 pounds.
     
101. Keep it off until at least the 1001st day.

Comments

[rato-do-perigo.livejournal.com]

cool!!

You can also post it in this http://community.livejournal.com/mission101/

[jamesq]

I'll cross post when I've finished the list.

[ladyerwyn.livejournal.com]

You haven't scattered your parents ashes yet? If I were to scatter ashes that would be at the top of my list. Chop, Chop! Hop to it! Unless of course they wanted to be scattered in the UK or outer space.

You'll reach your goal weight in no time, if you're being a good boy. I've already lost 22lbs. I look and feel much better. Thanks for helping me to make the decision to do WW.

[jamesq]

I need to get my siblings' asses in gear. If it were up to me the scattering would have happened in 2004.

[jamesq]

That sounds like a great idea.

[evilscientist.livejournal.com]

->95. Become a card-carrying socialist (i.e. join the NDP).

Come.... join us....

[linden-tree.livejournal.com]

I wanted to add something like #64 to my list - and just wanted to look people up online or in the phonebook or something! How are you going about finding these random people?

[jamesq]

That's pretty much how I'm doing it. I've got three down so far (but not mailed out, because I want to scan them for a post later). I'm using this complicated algorithm:

1. Pick a country.
   
2. Pick a last name that might reasonably occur in that country.
   
3. Use that country's on-line phone book to get someone with that name or something like it.
   
4. Use their post office's website to get a mailing address with postal code.

So far I have Ireland, Germany and New Zealand ready to go.

I'm also including "quixote317" as a string on the post card so that they have some vague chance of finding their way back here. No return address though because that's too easy.

[linden-tree.livejournal.com]

That's perfect :D I was toying with the idea of writing a return address, but your way is much better!

[spanglespangle2.livejournal.com]

Ah! so that's why you friended me. Well, I take that as a compliment if it's going slow cos you can't find many interesting people!

I'm going to friend some random people too - interesting or not.

Re - your parent's ashes - did you hear the story last week of Keith Richards mixing some of his dad's ashes in a line of coke and snorting it? That may well be the ultimate rock and roll story!

Personally, I want my ashes to be shot up into the universe on a firework, on a beach. Not for a few years yet though..