Creating a Bucket List for Next Year

Podcast 202

As we enter the final three months of the year, now’s the time to start planning next year and I have a special way of doing this, and today, I’m going to share that with you.

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Episode 202 | Script

Hello and welcome to episode 202 of the Working With Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein and I am your host for this show.

Now, I know a lot of people think the best time to begin planning next year is around about the middle of December, but there is a problem with that. It doesn’t give you enough time to think. 

A lot of our desires and wants are buried deep inside us—hidden underneath a lot of the battle scars of failed goals we have picked up from past experiences and daily life and we need time to let these ideas surface and develop. 

Before we dive into this, I want to let you know that I have a few free materials you can use to help you. I have an annual planning template you can download from my downloads centre on my website—carlpullein.com, and if you are an Evernote user, I have an Evernote template you can get—the link for that is in the show notes. 

I should also say, if you are enrolled in the Time And Life Mastery course, now would be a good time to redo that course to get you motivated and lit up ready for the next eight weeks. 

Why eight weeks? Well, that’s how much time you have to spend letting your mind go wild. And that’s what you want to do. Just let your mind go wild and write out as many things as you can think of that you would like to, or might like to, do next year. 

Now, don’t worry, you don’t have to do all of them—that is likely to be impossible anyway—but for the next eight weeks, you want to be building a formidable list so that when we reach December you can start the second process—filtering the list into something smaller, yet incredibly inspiring. 

Okay, so why a template? Well, there are four questions and three lists you want to be building over the next eight weeks. These are:

Ideas: This is a list you use to just throw stuff into. They can be goals you missed this year (or in previous years), things you think you might like to have a go at such as learning a foreign language, or to paint or things you’d like to start such as meditating, a minimalism project or taking up a new sport. 

Some of these items will naturally fit onto some of the other lists in this template and when that happens you can move them.

Next up comes the first question. What would I like to change about myself?

Now this question is about looking at yourself and asking if there is anything you would like to change. Have you gained a few extra pounds over the last eighteen months or so and would like to lose them? Do you have a bad habit you want to change? Or something else? 

One of the things I’ve added to my list for next year already is to have the three wisdom teeth my dentist told me need removing, out. I’ve kept putting this dental work off because I hate going to the dentist—I associate these places with a lot of physical pain—yet I know I must face up to my fears and just get the work done. 

So look at yourself, and see if there are anything areas you would like to change. 

Next question is “What would I like to change about my lifestyle?”. Here you want to be thinking about where you live—would you like to move to another place? Are you happy with your present lifestyle? If not what would you change? 

Or it could be something material such as a new car, a bike or even having a new kitchen put in. Whatever’s been on your mind about how you live, get it onto your list. Remember, you don’t have to do any of these things, but getting them out of your head is likely to lead you down many different paths.

The second question is: What would I like to change about the way I work? Are you happy with your work today? Is there anything you would like to change? 

One thing that has been on my mind this year is moving my home office out to a real office space. Commercial property rentals are very cheap where I live these days and so I’ve added to my list to look into moving into a purpose build office and studio. This would help me to improve the quality of my videos, allow me to build a place where I could do webinars and so much more. 

Another area of your work life you may consider is your current position. Would you like to try for a promotion? Change your job or your company or even start your own business? With this question, there are a lot of possibilities. 

The final question is: What can I do to challenge myself? I love this question because it is asking you to step out of your comfort zone.

It can be very easy to get stuck in a way of living our lives and lose the excitement of something challenging. My dental treatment idea would fall under this category because what’s put me off from getting the work done has been my fear of going to the dentist. Facing that fear and doing something that will bring me better health and comfort later is something worth doing.

What if you have found yourself becoming a little too attached to your sofa over the last few years and you know deep down this is damaging your long-term health? Perhaps challenge yourself to do something like the from the couch to 5k challenge. 

Having two or three things you could do next year that would challenge you would do wonders for your energy and vitality. 

Next up we have our goals list. What goals will you set for yourself next year? Again, remember this is a provisional list. You don’t have to actually do anything about these goals. All we are doing is stimulating our brains to come up with ideas. The more ideas you can come up with the easier it will be to filter the list down to something more achievable in December. 

Are there any goals laying around that have been dormant for a while that you know deep down with one big push you could accomplish? Sometimes these goals may take multiple years—which could be why you’ve done nothing about them—perhaps next year you could do something that will get you started by breaking the goals down a little. 

If you’ve ever run a full marathon, for instance, we rarely go from nothing to running 26.2 miles. The goal is achieved step by step. Perhaps running a 10k in the first year then a half-marathon in the second year and finally a full marathon in year three. 

If you are a business owner, what goals do you want to set for your business next year? What will be your revenue target? How much growth do you want? This is the place to write these down. 

Finally, are there any things on your bucket list you would like to go for next year? We all have a bucket list. For some it may be written down, for others it could be in your head, but is there anything you’ve always wanted to do that you could do next year with a little bit of focus? 

Bucket lists are only useful if you are knocking things off from the list each year. Perhaps 2022 would be a great time for you to finally do something about it.

The whole purpose of this exercise is not to come up with a definitive list for next year now. The purpose is to engage your imagination and open yourself up to what is possible. Now it is not about how or why, it’s about “what”. How and why comes in December. 

This is a great exercise and you will enjoy doing it. There’s a sense of freedom you get with this exercise because you are not committing to anything. All you are doing is creating a list—a list that will energise you. 

Now, if you did this exercise last year, there is another step. Pull out last year's planning template and go through what you wrote out last year. I find this is a great place to start because things I put on the list last year, that didn’t make the final list could be put on this year's list. It’s also a great place to go to see how much you have progressed this year. That too can add a bit of motivation. You start to see how effective this little exercise is at moving your life forward. 

All great productivity systems are built on a foundation of long-term goals. When what you do each day is contributing towards what you want out of life and is not full of low priority, mundane stuff you have to do, or other people’s emergencies you start to feel more relaxed, happy and fulfilled. You have a greater sense that your life is going where you want it to go and that is what energises you. 

You’ll also be amazed at what you accomplish—just externalising what you want and doing something about it leads to you doing a lot more than you ever thought possible.

So, go get your templates. You can download it from my website or Evernote users can get the template from the link in the show notes. And remember to have a lot of fun doing this. You’re not committing to anything just yet. All you are doing is opening up your mind to possibilities. 

Thank you for listening and it just remains for me now to wish you all a very very productive week.