End of the List

[glinda]

My personal challenge for this year was to do two things a month from my list, and over the last six months I've apparently actually managed that! Admittedly half of them acutally happened during September as I frantically ran around trying to finish off nearly done challenges and grabbing a couple of pieces of low hanging fruit. While I only managed 40 things from the list this time round I did in fact end up with a considerably less challenges unstarted. Normally I end up with a third done and about 50% unstarted whereas my unstarted was more like 25% this year. (Though it actually looks more like 33% because I admitted to my failures in a couple of places and apparently they don't count seperately but move themselves back from 'in progress' to 'not started'.) So I guess I was better at picking things that I was actually keen to do rather than thought I 'ought' to do. I certainly had lots of adventures in the process both completing challenges and trying and failing so that was definitely worthwhile. (For example I completely failed at the monthly sound recording sessions but having it on the list made me remember to take my sound recorder places so I have a collection of recordings from all sorts of places I wouldn't otherwise.)

As always coming to the end of these lists is a good way of taking stock over how my life and priorities have changed over the last couple of years. Last time I did this one of my challenges was to find a new job which I achieved fairly early on but which involved moving to a new town so completely unended my life and my priorities - this time I had 'save up enough for a deposit on a flat which took me longer but having bought a flat at the start of the year my priorities and achievements have all revolved around that.

I'm not going to start a new list until the new year, I want to give my next set of ideas more thought and planning this time round. Also there's a few of my 'nearly done items' that I think that I might actually be able to finish by the end of the year without a hard deadline hanging over me. We'll see.

No. Items Completed: 40

Completed
Donated Blood
Tried Bubble Tea
Went on a picnic
Grew some herbs
Tried 10 different types of tea
Did the 30 day song challenge
Wore nothing black for a whole week
Attended an academic conference
Gave up alcohol for a month
Read a book in Gaelic
Eat at 10 new restaurants
See a ballet
Gave up alcohol for 3 months
Read 10 Non-fiction books
Make 5 new soups
Take Vitamin D daily for 3 months
Saw an Opera (Carmen)
Visited a distillery
Travelled on a Steam train
Donated 20 books to charity or bookswaps
Eat at another 10 new restaurants
Visit 10 Museums/Galleries I've never visited before
Grow some vegetables (spinach and spring onions)
Watch 25 documentaries
Save up enough for a deposit on a flat
Re-learn to crochet
Read 10 books of poetry
Read another 10 non-fiction books
Expand my Gaelic vocabulary by 100 words
Learn some basic programming
Read a book series
Visit the standing stones at Callanish
Buy a piece of original art
Listen to a new artist every month
Learn to roll sushi
Go to 25 gigs
Learn to tie a Bowtie
Listened to 5 Radio/Audio Drama Serieses
Don't eat fried food for a month
Read more books than I buy over the course of the challenge

Progress Made
Do the 50 books poc challenge (35/50)
Ask 20 friends to suggest one film, and watch them all - (watched 3/20)
See 26 films I've never seen starting with each letter of the alphabet (22/26)
Watch a movie from every year I've been alive (18/35)
Bake something new every month for a year
Listen To The Observer’s 50 Albums That Changed Music (28/50)
Finish 10 craft projects that are lingering about half-finished (8/10)
Complete the A-Z travel challenge - (12/26)
See at least 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites (3/7)
Complete a big cross-stitch project
Enter 5 writing competitions/Submit 5 short stories (1/5)
Watch 5 children's films not in English (3/5)
Read 10 new-to-me SF Masterworks (2/10)
Donate blood another 5 times (1/5)
Cook with a new ingredient every week for a year
Contribute to 5 collaborative sound projects (1/5)
Do the 12 films poc challenge (4/12)
Watch 5 DVD boxsets I already own (1/5)
Get caught up on Welcome to Nightvale (Reduced backlog from 3 years to 1 year)