A Simple 5 Step Process for Finalizing Your Life List
There are a number of methods for developing your life list (see previous posts for my evaluations of 10 of them). After going through these methods, you’ll likely have a huge number of goals, making it virtually impossible to put together a plan to achieve them. Many of the goals are likely “tactically” focused, having to do with day to day goals, not life goals. There may be others not worded with enough clarity as to the real objective. You’ll need to to consolidate, evaluate, and refine your list. For me, I ended up with almost 250 goals after following the different methods - I definitely needed to refine them to keep my sanity (at least what sanity I still have).
I recommend this simple 5 step process for finalizing your life list.
1) Consolidate goals into one location for evaluation. As mentioned previously, I really like the SuperViva website, so I recommend using it for putting all your goals into one place. Use the SuperLister feature for adding a lot of goals at one time. Just paste in text of your goals, the site automatically creates separate goals, and lets you edit them before you officially add them to your list. Wow! Cool feature! The downside is trying to get your goals off of other websites. There isn’t always an easy way to export them. Just cut and paste from the site into a text editor, do some minor editing, and paste them into SuperLister.
2) Group goals by category for easier refining. Group the goals you are uploading (or already have on SuperViva) into appropriate categories for your life. For example, I used the following: Continuous Learning, Travel, Career, Family, Health/Fitness, Personal Finance, Relationships/Community, Entertainment and Unique Experiences.
As you group your goals, you will likely find that you need to refine your category definitions. I modified the Continuous Learning category to include experiencing new things, like sampling new food or trying a new activity like mountain climbing. I also wondered where to put my ‘be creative’ goal. My answer was to think of Health / Fitness as including mental health as well as physical health, so ‘be creative’ and ‘take time for myself’ fell into that category. The Career category was where I put ‘take a sabbatical’ and ’start my own business’. I also expanded my Travel category to include doing activities that normally would require travel, even if they weren’t at a specific location (e.g. taking pictures of sunsets since I don’t live at the beach - bummer!).
NOTE: This is a good time to backup your online goals. Export your goals from the site. It would be pretty rough if you lose everything - you would end up wandering aimlessly the rest of your life, with no goals to achieve!
2) Remove duplicates and merge specific goals. If you follow my recommendation of using different websites and existing lists for brainstorming ideas, you’ll likely end up with duplicate goals, and some goals that are similar to others. Delete the duplicates and reword the similar goals into just one.
3) Put goals that don’t quite fit on the Backburner. Another feature I really like about SuperViva is that you can move goals to a ‘Backburner’ list. This is very useful as you narrow your goals down. If there is a goal that doesn’t belong as a primary goal, but you still want incorporate it into your life somehow, move it to the Backburner section. This allows you to concentrate on the primary goals without giving up on your secondary goals. You can come back to them later when you establish the plan to achieve your goals.
4) Get Rid of Non-Specific Goals in Favor of Specific Goals. You’ll likely come up with goals that aren’t really specific enough to achieve (e.g. learn something new). Delete these, particularly when you have more specific goals that are similar (e.g. learn how to sketch). Keep specific travel experiences and delete the general ‘Visit Here’ goals. For example, delete ‘Visit Australia’ if you already have ‘Visit Sydney and Harbour Bridge’ or ‘Visit Great Barrier Reef’.
5) Move subsets of primary goals onto the Backburner. Some of your goals will be a one time life experience (e.g. watch a space shuttle launch, climb a mountain), others will be general life goals that will require a more detailed plan to achieve (e.g. maintain a fit and healthy lifestyle). Goals like ‘visit the doctor and dentist regularly’ or ‘exercise 3-5 times a week’ are all part of meeting this goal, so move them to the Backburner.
Another example are goals that will be completed when another goal is achieved. ‘Explore Anasazi ruins at Mesa Verde’ will be completed once you ‘visit all National Parks’. Make a note under the ‘visit all National Parks’ goal to ensure Mesa Verde National Park is one of the top priorities, and remove the specific Mesa Verde goal from the list.
Following this process, I went from almost 250 goals to a manageable 84 goals with another 40+ goals on the Backburner list. I still have some fine-tuning to go, but the 84 goals seem like a great start.
Anyone have other ideas on how you have fine-tuned your life list?