How to Create and Manage Your “Bucket List” Before You Kick
There’s a new movie out promoting the idea that we should all be jumping out of airplanes, eating caviar and visiting the Wonders of the World before we finally croak. But is preparing a bucket list full of cliché items the right thing to do? Is it productive?
Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman star in The Bucket List. It’s a hilarious flick about two terminally ill men who escape from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die. The movie is generating all sorts of interest among the millions of people who have dream lists. Bucket List items include all the usual things that one would expect to find in a Hollywood dream list: skydiving, driving fast cars, indulging expensive tastes. It includes visiting the usually considered ultimate travel destinations like the Great Wall, Great Pyramids, Taj Mahal, etc.
The movie’s premise may resonate with many, but it is a flawed one unless the “bucket list” is created and managed in a way that reflects our individual true passions, interests and desires.
If you are going after the bucket list items, but going through long arduous processes to get to the items, than what the heck are you doing? What’s the point? Isn’t that like playing golf in the rain where you are walking around 99% of the time getting soaked and only 1% of the time swinging at the ball? Wouldn’t it be better to golf on sunny days and find other things to do on rainy days? Wouldn’t that make the whole golfing experience a better one? This is similar to people who hate their jobs but continue in them anyway, while always looking forward to weekends and the occasional holiday. How do they justify it? Are you among them?
A bucket should not be full of impulsive stuff that we pick up as we go along through life. It shouldn’t be like grabbing a chocolate bar off the display rack. Nor should it be filled with stuff that other people talk and dream about unless it truly resonates with your aspirations. Chasing other people’s dreams would be like having a hole in your bucket.
The most satisfying things to go into the bucket for most of us are those that are part of a larger context. For example, visiting the Great Wall as part of supporting a family member or friend competing in this upcoming summer Olympics in Beijing would likely be a more meaningful experience than buying a package Great Wall tour from a travel agent. Developing that larger context or framework is something that can and should take careful and thoughtful consideration. It often takes hard thought and hard work to develop.
Here are our suggestions for creating and managing your Bucket List:
1. Make sure you get satisfaction and joy from your day to day stuff. Don’t suffer the 99% to get to the 1% you enjoy. Make the whole experience an enjoyable one.
2. Don’t buy into your ideas and turn them into goals right away. Mull them over. If you weigh them carefully, you’ll probably find you can improve, replace or cancel them while enhancing your overall life experience.
3. Make a plan and enjoy the process. Planning is not optional. It is a generally accepted as being a requirement by most of the experts in the field of setting and achieving goals.
4. Review list items often to make sure you still want to do it. The bucket list should be open ended. Maintain enough flexibility that you don’t become a slave to your own list. Make sure you keep working on adding new items while completing others.
5. Find ways to make each goal more meaningful. Include dimensions of quality within the items on your list. If you involve like minded people in group activities, you’ll likely get much more from the experience than if you don’t. For solitary pursuits, take steps to ensure you get the most from the experience.
6. Document and share your goals for added enjoyment. If life is worth living, it ought to be worth writing about so commit some of these planning steps to writing. Writing the stuff down is a proven technique for turning goals into reality. Sharing them with others helps to cement your commitment to the goals and to bring others into the process. Don’t involve pessimists or nay-sayers in the process.
7. Don’t get obsessed with big “retail” goals. You are not required to share your secret fetish goals, or any goals for that matter, with others if you don’t want to. One strategy is to identify public and private goals and only share the public ones. Keep quiet about the private ones. Financial goals are often ones that are wise to keep private. But do celebrate your private accomplishments as you would your public ones. Don’t worry about it if they aren’t big or flashy.
8. Ensure your goals are consistent with who you are. Or reshape them to suit your style and preferences. For example, introverts and extroverts alike can enjoy a certain travel destination like say the Eiffel Tower, yet experience it quite differently.
The bottom line here is that you should find meaning and happiness in everything you do. Don’t get hung up on trying to compete with Nicholson and Freeman to get through their Hollywood list before the bucket tips.
WRITER'S BIOGRAPHY
TatsuyaNakagawa
Peter Paul Roosen and Tatsuya Nakagawa are co-founders of Atomica Creative Group , a specialized strategic product marketing firm. Through leading edge insight and research, sound strategic planning and effective project management, Atomica helps companies achieve greater success in bringing new products to market and in improving their existing businesses. They have co-authored Overcoming Inventoritis: The Silent Killer of Innovation, now available.
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Comments
blerg says on February 26th, 2008 at 11:37 am
What a terrific article! I knew there had to be a reason goals kept slipping onto my Someday/Maybe list: they didn’t really resonate with me in the first place. Thanks for the suggestions!
Marelisa says on February 26th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I think that creating a “bucket list” (or a list of 100 things to do before you die) is a great way to expand your sense of who you are and what you’re capable of. Even if your day-to-day life is routine and completely unglamorous, doing something outrageous once a year–such as jumping out of a plane or visiting an exotic destination–can bring back the sense of life as a daring adventure.
Bobbi says on February 26th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
One of my bucket list items is to live in another city, in fact, it’s to live in a city, as the exburbs of SoCal hardly qualifies as city. But I can’t for now. So I think about what it is about NYC, Boston and Wash DC that calls to me. Like art museums, good theater and patronizing neighborhood shops whenever possible. And those are the elements I make sure I’ve got in my life. Oh, and subscribing to the NY Times and Boston Magazine so my goal and my pleasures are in front of me everyday. Thanks for the reminder to stay on track. ~Bobbi
Adam says on February 27th, 2008 at 8:26 am
The first thing I thought of was food items that come in buckets. I could only come up with chicken and popcorn, but I’m sure there are others.
Vince says on February 27th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
A good free website to create and manage your bucket list is: http://www.my50.com/
with the possibility to browse other people public bucket list or get ideas from the different categories.
With a little luck, maybe you’ll bump into mine, just don’t tip it.
Mathias says on July 6th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
I think “bucket lists” is a great thing. I have done this “bucket list” thing before even seeing the movie with Freeman and Nicholson (great movie by the way). I have some 120 listed experiences I want to do before I die. I do fill in new ones when I have completed something on the list.
I went to Rome last August (2007). Big dream of mine since I was aged 16. Next thing I am planning now is a luxurius 14 day trip to New York that will include helicopter tour above New York City, limousine trip from and to the JFK airport. Me and my younger brother will live at The Carlyle Hotel (5 star hotel) during the whole visit. Yes, it will be expensive for sure. The budget is well above $20,000. Call me crazy, but it is all paid for at this moment. This will be a great way of ending year 2008 (we will be in New York from December 26th, 2008 to January 8th, 2009).
Take care of yourself, but plan the financials though. You want to reach your dreams without going bankrupt:).
Now, why not sit down for 30 minutes and list at least 50 items you really want to experience before not being able to do them? What “you” want not what “others” want.
When you have listed the item, then plan one of them in detail and set a deadline on them. Otherwise they will be only paper. You need to research a little. As Tim Ferriss says “Your dreams cost less than you think”. It is all about how you plan it all.
Dr. Robyn Silverman says on August 4th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Great article!
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately as well. Between the movie and Randy Pausch’s recent death, I’ve found that it’s make my clients take a bit of inventory on their own lives. Are they really doing something meaningful? Are they filling their time with the right things?
I agree with your idea of planning. It’s so important to do so– scheduling things in and saying where and when it’s really going to happen is the only way it has a chance of getting done. Don’t you find that people wind up shifting all this great, valuable stuff to the back burner? It’s like, the bucket list may be front and foremost in their minds one day and then on the top shelf the next.
Thank you for your resources– I thought this might be helpful to you as well-
http://drrobyn.wordpress.com/2.....mily-life/
Best regards,
Dr. Robyn
Cassidy says on December 7th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I’m working on my own ‘bucket list,’ because I really want to make the most of my time while I’m alive. This article really helped me weed out the items on the list abd gave me perspective as to what I really want.
Paull Hamilton says on January 1st, 2009 at 7:59 am
What a wonderful site. I have seen the film and that blew me away as well. We all have to be aware of our mortality, all life is finite, but obviously not something to become morbid about. It would be marvellous if we all could achieve our own bucketful of ideas, not everything would be possible but at least to have several ideas so that something at least would be possible. We all should have something to aim for, that is what makes life worth living.
http://www.paullhamilton.com
Celes | The Personal Excellence Blog says on September 7th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I love your first point about writing a bucket list. For sure, it’s pointless if people are creating bucket lists and getting the items on them just for the sake of it. At the end, it’s not that one moment of achieving the item in the bucket list we’re going for. It’s the whole process of life, and making it richer.
I’ve recently created my bucket list of over 100 items, and wrote a detailed article on how people can create their bucket list (and 100 things you can consider putting on your own bucket list). If lifehack.org readers are interested, they can read more here: http://celestinechua.com/blog/.....e-you-die/
Penelope says on January 7th, 2010 at 10:00 pm
GREAT!!! LOVED IT!! well, i liked it and it was ok.
Keith says on January 20th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
I have survived major brain tumor at least 2 strokes work is geating very difficult. I have been thinking about making my own bucket list.
One item is to relocate to the Northwest, with in the next two years.
HOME SKILLET says on January 21st, 2010 at 1:05 am
I totally back up the fact of making a bucket list for I have one myself.