My 101 Things in 1001 Days project is done.  And I hardly noticed.  My enthusiasm for, and awareness of, this project definitely petered out in the end.  I knew it ended sometime in October, but I thought the date was later in October than it was and so my plans to do a few last minute things fell through.

That said, I really enjoyed the project.  It inspired me to stop putting things off.  It kept me from looking at my busy life and saying, “I’ll get to that someday.” It got me out of my comfort zone at times.  It inspired me to look around and ask questions about what it was possible to accomplish and what I wanted from myself.  The snappy way the numbers fit together was something great, too – a silly little mental hook to grab my attention.

On the downside, I’d say two main problems arose: it was too long a period and had too many scattered goals.  All those goals in all sorts of areas of my life – they were hard to remember, and I had no system of checking in with them. As for the first point, 1001 days is a long time.  I changed over that period, and the things that were passionately consuming me at the beginning weren’t always something I was interested in by the middle.  I’m a passions and projects person, and so my enthusiasm tends to move topically from time to time.  While I had left wiggle room by not completing the list before starting, it still left me with goals I wasn’t necessarily still committed to achieving.

In the end, I completed 48 of the 101 – - 47%. 14 are partially completed.  I’m really pleased with that.  I knew from the beginning that I probably wouldn’t get it all done and I wasn’t going to let my perfectionist tendencies get all harsh and judgemental on me.

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Treetops in Lace

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Some of the highlights:

  • drawing every place in which we slept during our European sabbatical in 2008
  • family downhill ski lessons
  • having an entirely handmade Christmas gifting
  • becoming a Lifetime member at Weight Watchers (50 pounds off!)
  • running my first half-marathon in Budapest
  • taking a watercolour painting class
  • finally eating Thai food in a Thai restaurant
  • planting more trees and bushes in the yard
  • rereading all of Jane Austen
  • doing yoga three times a week for 6 months
  • talking about goal-setting, fear, and perfectionism with my daughter

A few of the failures:

  • phoning my grandparents once a month.  I just don’t like the phone.  I wrote lots of letters, but they still need more from me.
  • learning constellations – I still want to and I still look up often.  Just didn’t get a few of the seasons in.
  • reading certain books – I’ve learned a lot about myself and my reading habits.  First of all, many of the books I wanted to read were unavailable at our small local library, even through interlibrary loan.  I also read for a vacation, and most of the books I choose were ‘good for me’ rather than ‘a wonderful place to visit’.  Lastly, while being a reader used to be a defining element of my personality, it now has plenty of other hobbies and interests vying for my spare time.  And I have less spare time.
  • I can’t believe I didn’t write the letter to the provincial government.  I must have mentally composed it 30 times.  I’ll write it this month.  Stupid.
  • the photo albums – Oi.

What I learned from this was:

  1. I need a shorter time period
  2. I like things grouped topically
  3. I need to pick a few important things
  4. I need a mechanism for checking in and reminding myself

I’ve moved the page for this off of my main tabs, but you can still find it off the About Us page. Here’s a direct link, too.

Stay tuned for my new version of goal setting tomorrow.

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