If you haven’t seen or heard about the movie The Bucket List I suggest that you see it ASAP. The lessons of the movie fit so well with what we’ve been experiencing watching the Olympic athletes as they compete. Being in the Olympics and winning a gold medal I’m sure was on many of their bucket lists and one of their 50,000+ life goals.
In the movie the two men who realize they are dying decide to start living. They write down a list of all the things that they want to accomplish before they “kick the bucket.” Then they spend the majority of the movie doing the things on their list. One of my favorite parts of the move is when they are talking on top of a mountain about the meaning of life and one of them shared that an ancient life philosophy is that you’ve truly lived when you’ve found joy yourself and helped someone else find joy.
Your bucket list can be big goals like discovering the purpose of life and traveling all over the world to small things like everyday moments. In fact on the special Diane Sawyer did on 7/29/08 tributing Randy Pausch and Randy Pausch soon after he passed away, Randy mentioned his bucket list in his conversation. He said that his bucket list “the gems in his life” are the everyday things and moments that he has together with his family. While watching that special with my husband, he noted that “bucket lists must be a common thing now.”
The Bucket List ties in wonderfully with the concept that I recently read about in a great book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. He describes a six-level model for reviewing and prioritizing your work. Here’s what he says, “In order to know what your priorities are, you have to know what your work is. And there are at least six different perspectives from which to define that.” He uses an aerospace analogy because it has a lot to do with altitude:
- 50,000+: Life
- 40,000 feet: Three- to five-year vision
- 30,000 feet: One- to two-year goals
- 20,000 feet: Areas of responsibility
- 10,000 feet: Current projects
- Runway: Current actions
Here’s a few thoughts that he has on each, starting from the bottom up.
- Runway: Current actions – the accumulated list of all the actions you need to take like calls, emails,agenda etc. He states that we probably currently have three hundred to five hundred hours’ worth of current actions to do right now!
- 10,000 feet: Current projects -David predicts that we typically have about 30 – 100 projects going on at one time including both our personal and professional projects.
- 20,000 feet: Areas of responsibility – These are the 10 -15 keys areas within which you want to achieve results and maintain standards such as customer service to maintaining your health.
- 30,000 feet: One- to two-year goals – Just like this states, these are your yearly goals that you define both personally and professionally.
- 40,000 feet: Three- to five-year vision – Projecting three to five years into the future generates thinking about bigger things in your life like retirement planning, the environment, globalization.
- 50,000+: Life – This is the “big picture” view. Why do you exist? Why does your company exist? What do you want to do in your lifetime – your bucket list? All the other aspectives defined above really lead up to this one, according to David.
Now what do you do with this information? Here’s what I’m doing and planning to do for both my personal and professional life.
- Runway: Current actions – On a weekly basis I currently write down the actions that I need to do for the week for each of my current projects. After reading this book, I’m taking it one step further and being more specific about defining the next action to move me forward. For example, before I might have written down, update the home page of my website. Now I step back and think about really what is the next current action first. So before I can update my homepage I need to review it first.
- 10,000 feet: Current projects-I decided to write out my current projects in three categories: professionally, personally and ones with my husband/family. I listed on one project per page and listed all the current actions needed for each one. Already I have 25 professional projects. He said the value of doing this is documenting 100% of your incompletes and writing everything out of your head onto paper in one place. Even though it’s overwhelming to see how many current actions and projects I have, I’m clearing the space to complete them.
- 20,000 feet: Areas of responsibility – I do this already in my mission, vision and values process which encourages you to define the roles of your life and the overarching vision you have for each role both personally and professionally. (Don’t forget to get my free gift below.)
- 30,000 feet: One- to two-year goals – Under each role I write down my CC-SMART (see previous post) yearly goals for each personal and professional role.
- 40,000 feet: Three- to five-year vision – I have my life visions decades. I had a vision for when I turned 30 and now I’m defining my vision for when I turn 40, which fits into the 3-5 year vision for me.
- 50,000+: Life – This part really inspires me. I have many things in my head of I want to do in my bucket life, but have never take the time to write them down. On the way home after seeing The Bucket List movie, I asked my husband what is on his bucket list and ideas for our bucket list. I was so jazzed to talk about it, but unfortunately we were driving home late at night after the drive-in movie so my husband was tired and not quite getting into the conversation as I hoped. So I’ve decided that I’m going to write down my bucket lists for the different roles in my life. This will include having that conversation with my husband and later as our young boys get older to talk about our family bucket list. Right now I’ve created file folders to capture my bucket list ideas and 50,000 life goals. I will take time in the next couple of weeks to write them out.
So, now what are you going to do?
Happy Living,
Janae Bower
Janae Bower of Finding IT – Inspirational speaker, award-winning author, training consultant
p.s. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to take advantage of my free gift to you around developing your personal mission, vision and values at www.findingIT.com.
Tags: 3-5 year vision, bucket list, David Allen, Diane Sawyer, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivit, guidetohomebasedbusiness.com, Janae Bower, life goals, mission, Olympics, Randy Pausch, SMART goals, values, vision, www.findingIT.com
