Every year, I make a long list of things I plan to accomplish. Some things are easy, some things are hard; some things are important, some things are trivial. I like my long lists, but Emily saw a suggestion recently that your yearly to-do list only have three to five things on it. If you cross one off early, you can add one to replace it, but at any one time the list should be short and sweet… or bitter, if that’s your jam.
This makes quite a bit of sense. My longer lists do nothing in terms of prioritizing what’s actually important to me. If I’m forced to pick five things that are the most important in that year, it will help me to see where I’m actually aiming, and might help me make the most of years that go by faster and faster as I age.
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1. Get a new job – I love bartending, and I want to keep doing it. So I’m not looking for an entirely new genre of work, but merely a new venue in which to do what I’m already doing. That will be easier said than done. I’ve got about 14 months of experience behind a bar now, and in Seattle that doesn’t really count for much. I’ve been out again trying to meet industry folks, because in the Seattle industry especially, it’s all about the people you know. I’ve got 10.5 more months, so hopefully before the end of 2015 I’ll have a new bartending home.
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2. Complete seven writing projects and submit them for publication – If I never get paid to write, I want that to be true because I am a failed writer, and not simply a writer who never really tried. Now that I’ve been doing the work again, it’s time to start finishing projects, editing the hell out of them, and submitting them to people who publish whatever that particular sort of writing happens to be. I’ve only tried that twice, and even that was half-hearted. It’s time to dive in and risk actual failure, especially since failure is often what must come before any sort of success.
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3. Run in an official 5k, lose ten pounds – I just recently wrote about running, so no need to go into detail as to why it’s my exercise of choice. With insomnia and depression, exercise and weight quickly become an issue if I’m not very intentional and disciplined. I’m already off to a good start this year in the weight loss department, and as far as running a 5k somewhere it’s just picking one and signing up. So… this one should be pretty simple to cross off if I just continue doing the work.
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4. Get my first tattoo – This one is already in the works, I just have to follow through with it. It happens this spring. Deposit is already down.
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5. Travel somewhere I’ve never been – I’ve also recently written about my desire for more travel. Our ability to do so is limited by the amount of money I make (or don’t make?) at my current job. We can’t go too far away this year to some exotic locale, but we can go on our first road trip in quite a while. We’re planning to head to Salt Lake City. A place I’ve never been, so it counts, and Emily has heard good things about parts of it. The destination could still change, but we are in the process of planning a fall road trip to get that all important adventure and discovery into our diet.
