That time I actually did something about my bucket list

It's late 2018 and there I was, writing down all my wishes for 2019.

The list included a myriad of items, from boilerplate things like go more to the gym, eat more vegetables and stop drinking Coca-Cola, to more aspirational ones, such as be less of a prick, finish that portfolio, release an EP on Spotify and last but not least, learn German.

If all of that sound familiar to you, is because it is. Let's face it, we write bucket lists as a yearly reminder to ourselves of how far we are from were we want to be and, somehow, that give us a weird short-lived sense of accomplishment.

That realisation made me wonder about why we keep lying to ourselves year after year, it also made me wonder about the whole purpose of even doing it.

The Framework is Flawed

I rambled about it for a while and the, now obvious outcome, was that the framework of bucket lists is deeply flawed and lead only to frustration. Although it felt like an epiphany to me, that conclusion was around for as long as the world talks about Agile, GTD, Pomodoro and the subsequent uprise of to-do apps.

Why it took me so long to realise that?

Am I that stupid? Maybe. In the other hand, it's also not strange to us the that the things we do for a living are often secluded to the professional sphere and we tend not to bring them to our personal lives.

I am a Designer, right? As a Designer I am committed to bring joy to people by making their experience with the world around them a tad bit less frustrating. I do that by understanding what the stakes are, what is working, what is not working, what can/should be challenged.

Because I’ve been a Designer for over a decade, the techniques I use to design solutions sort of became a passive skill that helped me get through some complex challenges in life, and that made me wonder:

Why am I not actively applying that skillset to the world of small things around me?

Another stupid statement. Or is it not? Just think about it for a while: are you bringing back to your personal life all the cool soft skills from work that make you the best at what you do?

Are you, really?

The Uninspiring Conclusion

When I started to write this article I thought of sharing how…

I broke down the bucket list wishes into action items;

I also thought on telling you how I clustered them by relevance, complexity and duration;

I even thought about saying that sometimes the best course of action is to put yourself on a situation that you are forced to commit, like that time I took a whole month of vacation days from work and signed up for an intensive german course;

…but all of that would be of no use because we all have our own particular way of doing things.

This article is supposed to be only a friendly reminder for you to take a good look around and gauge which soft skills you have that can help you to materialise all those romantic wishes from last year's bucket list.

What about you? What's your secret technique?