101 Goals in 1001 Days

This page summarizes my 101 Goals in 1001 Days project, inspired by  Day Zero.

We all have things we want to do in our lives, but I’ll bet you have some goals/tasks floating around, such as New Year’s Resolutions, that you just never manage to complete. Well, the idea for the 101 goals project is to set some clear, non-trivial goals and actually try to accomplish them within the time parameters (1001 days, which comes to about 2.75 years). So, perhaps this project will inspire you to set, keep, and achieve some goals of your own.

Note that these “goals” are things that I would like to do—things that, 1001 days from now, I can look back on and say “I am glad I accomplished that”. So the point is to make stretch goals—tasks that take some effort to complete. I suppose you could make a goal of “do this week’s laundry”, and you might feel a sense of accomplishment in completing that task. But the spirit of the exercise is to try to make your targets something that will enrich your life or somehow add value to your career, family, or self beyond the mundane. Also, you want to phrase your goals such that they are demonstrably completed or not—try not to make nebulous or squishy goals. Something like “learn Icelandic” is a bit vague, since how do you know when you have learned enough Icelandic? Rather, “take an Introduction to Icelandic course” is definite, since you have either completed the course or you haven’t.

My starting date for this project is 3 July 2008, which makes an ending date of 31 March 2011 (calculate your own ending date here). My list of 101 goals is below, and I’ll keep track of completed ones using notation like this. Some bullets below represent multiple goals—these are denoted [#/n], where # represents how many I have completed so far, and n represents the total number for that item.

Just remember, it’s all about the journey.

And now, my current 101 goals:

Culture

Profession

  • submit two academic articles [2/2]
  • submit two academic grants [2/2]
  • draft a nonfiction book proposal
  • draft a nonfiction book
  • give four academic talks [4/4]
  • attend four events at the university [4/4]
  • create an R software package
  • create one new academic course from scratch
  • rewrite my knowledge engines course
  • create slides, lecture notes, homeworks, exams for two academic courses [2/2]
  • submit a paper jointly written with at least one other faculty member from my university

Growth

  • work through The Weekend Novelist by Robert Ray and Bret Norris
  • draft a fiction book
  • draft a fiction book proposal
  • make an audio recording of me reading Beowulf
  • blog at least three times/week for four straight weeks
  • blog on average once per day for four straight weeks
  • learn and write something in applescript or Objective C
  • learn and write an iPod/iPhone application
  • learn and layout something in Adobe Indesign
  • implement this 101 goals list online
  • revisit and update this list in 90 days
  • create a new list of 101 goals before this one is completed
  • read four novels by Corey Doctorow [1/4]

Fitness

  • get down to 12% body fat [ from ~ 20%, currently down to ~ 14.5% ]
  • be able to jog 10 miles in one session
  • be able to swim 50 meters underwater
  • exercise for four hours / week for four straight weeks
  • be able to swim a half a mile in one session
  • be able to hold a handstand for one minute
  • set up a home gym

Music

  • learn to play and memorize three songs on bagpipe [0/3]
  • complete a ukulele course
  • complete a guitar course
  • learn to play four Beatles songs on ukulele or guitar [0/4]
  • record four songs [0/4]