101 Things in 1001 Days

Women on Adventures surfing in San Diego in 2017.

Do more, do less, slow food, fast food, side hustle, quit your job, the messages around what to do with our time are endless, and everyone has an opinion about what is right. I do a lot. I’m always busy. I’ll let you in on a secret: there is a doomsday clock in my head that is constantly counting down my death day. Do I know when that day will come? Of course not, but what if I don’t do the things before it happens? I’m sure therapy would help, but for now, I try to organize my busy life into lists. 

Way back in 2015, I discovered a list-making challenge called "101 Things in 1001 Days," which was circulating through the blogging community at the time. I love a good list. I’ll write a list about anything. Books to read, movies to watch, hikes to hike, places to see, and words I think are funny. 

I wrote out my things to do list in my journal and then forgot about it because that’s how my brain works. I’m currently trying to learn Korean, and my poor tutor says things like “Jenny, do you remember when we talked about months and days?” She is so cute to think that I would remember anything except the new curse word I stumbled across on TikTok. 

But there is this weird science thing that happens when we write things down, and it happened to me when I created my first 101 Things list. I completely forgot what I wrote down, but somehow my brain started getting to work on the list. Why isn’t this happening with Korean! I’ve watched a lot of K-Dramas, hoping I would one day become fluent. 

Luckily, our brains are smarter than we are, and our subconscious works on these things in the background. It sees that you want to do it and then starts to make it happen, even when we don’t know it’s making it happen, which is really how I wish life worked. You want this? Okay, you just sit back and enjoy the ride.

When I looked back at that list years later, I had accomplished several, maybe even ¾ of the things. Without even realizing it, I planned trips for Women on Adventures based on my list and had a group of women who wanted to do the same things. Surfing in San Diego happened. I forgot my glasses, so I had to wear my contacts all weekend, which also meant that I couldn’t risk losing a contact in the sea, so the photos of me awkwardly standing on a surfboard also show my sexy goggles that I had to purchase at the surf shop. It was a wild ride that adventure. The list made me feel a bit like an overstimulated toddler who mastered walking but also needed a nap after the experience. But I did things so many crazy and sometimes scary things. 

I am sharing this experience with you because I used Claude.AI to write code that will create a PDF of your list of 101 things. All you have to do is start typing in the things you want to experience in the next 1001 days. It will calculate your end date based on your start date and give you a PDF of your list. Tada!

I’m making a new list, and can’t wait to let my subconscious start working it’s magic. I have shit to do and things to see. Maybe one day I’ll slow down and plant a garden and sip tea in it while admiring my green thumb, but I hate tea and would rather sit in a Japanese garden in Japan. 

If you need to slow down, then make your list around that: books you want to read or things you want to cook. There isn’t one way to live a life. There are billions of people in this world with billions of lives to live. I stopped feeling guilty about my busy ways and embraced my hectic lifestyle. It’s a life that took me to some wild places in this world, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Happy 101 Day!