Lists, lists, and more lists

Three and a half months left. Even though I’m down to the last quarter of my epic year, I’m still making changes to my list. For example, one of my goals is to hike the Great Trail

(aka Trans Canada Trail) in Alberta. I recently listed the trails that form part of the Great Trail in the province. There are over 60 of them! What a coincidence! So I now have “The Great Trail hikes” as part of my 60’s list. This is one I am skeptical about completing in time. One trail that I’m working on is over 80 km. To add to the complexity, it’s a day’s drive away, which means I need a weekend. And, because I need to return to my car, every kilometre I do on the trail is doubled. So to complete a 80 km trail, I’ll have hiked 160 km, necessitating multiple weekends. And that’s just one trail. So now I’m looking at the shorter trails. If I focus on those, I’ll have a better chance at completing more of them within my time limit.

Other changes that I have made include removing “having a bath.” I have always enjoyed having a bath while reading a book. So I thought I would take great pleasure in having excuses to increase my bath time. However, after only four baths, I realized that reading a book in the bath is no longer as enjoyable as it once was. Not only am I reasonably uncomfortable lying on the hard surface, but the water gets cold too fast! And my water tank is too small so when I try to heat my bath back up again, it doesn’t work so well. Off the list it goes.

I added “outdoor stairs” to my list. Within one month I had completed the task of completing 60 flights of stairs and these were all indoors. With all of the hiking I’m doing in Edmonton’s river valley, I’ve realized how many outdoor stairs there are to climb. So they were put onto the list. I also added “not using credit cards.” Hopefully, by the time I have completed that task 60 times, my credit cards will take their rightful place as emergency use only.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, And she’s off!, I completed two tasks by the end of September. In October, I was able to complete one more task. In November, another two. Then in December, I had a break from work and I was able to focus a lot of my time on my 60’s list. I completed eight tasks over my Christmas break! It was after that successful period that I realized I could accomplish my lofty plan. So I started to map out my tasks and goals. Particularly on the weekends, I created lists to identify which tasks I needed to complete or to reach a specific level in order to complete the following month. Even though the frigid weather for most of February stalled my efforts somewhat, my momentum was maintained. In January and February, I knocked off seven tasks while in March, another five. The table below illustrates my successes so far. In future blogs, I’ll talk about my experiences in accomplishing specific tasks.