End of the Year Planning Tip #13 – Create Wish Lists

With Christa, the Christmas Elf with a Plan – 13 December

Today Christa is making lists … Ideas for Date Night w/Herbie … Gift Ideas for Herbie … Movies I’d Like to See w/Herbie …  I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the photo she’s gazing at is of Herbie.  It appears that Christa’s End of the Year Planning Tip is to create wish lists.  I think there’s quite a few things we might want to create some lists of.  Let’s explore the possibilities and how this can be helpful in our planner.

What is a Wish List?

Another common name for a wish list, is a bucket list. I prefer wish list, because I grew up hearing bucket list as being a list of things you hope to do before you die.  I suppose dying didn’t hold much appeal, so I have never really embraced that term.  But yes, wish lists and bucket lists are things I’d like to do, or might like to do in the future.

A wish list can be open ended and just a repository of ideas related to a specific subject that you can refer to when you need ideas at a future time.  Imagine you have kids and are at a birthday party for one of their friend in the middle of the winter and another parent mentions something the did with their kids the previous summer.  And you say to yourself, I’ll have to remember that next summer when it’s hot outside and the kids are bored.  If you don’t write it down, what are the odds you’ll remember it.  So if you have kids, you could start at list of fun, free/cheap places to go/things to do that you could refer to whenever you need an idea. 

Or you can make a shorter list of specific things you hope to do this year.  Maybe you’ve challenged yourself to get out of your comfort zone, so you are collecting ideas and choosing one each month to complete.  It wouldn’t matter if you started out with 12 ideas on 1 January and added three or a dozen more through the year.  You could always choose one each month based on appeal and feasibility at the given time and save any leftovers for the next year.

How to Create and Use Your Wish Lists

Creating a wish list is as simple as taking a sheet of note paper and giving the page a title.  You can number them, or not.  You can add check boxes, or not.  You can cross them off if you complete it and don’t need it again.  You can cross something off the list, if you change your mind about it being on the list.  It’s your list.

For many types of wish lists – notably, books and movies – there are lots of printable pages that could be used to both capture ideas and track progress.  Or you can have a simple list of ideas for books you want to read and a cute printable to record the books you have read.

More Examples of Wish Lists

Here are a few examples of things you might like to create lists for:

• Books
• Movies
• TV shows
• Live shows
• Concerts
• Places to visit (local, weekend getaway, further away)
• Classes you’d like to take
• Hobbies you’d like to try
• Recipes you’d like to try
• Restaurants you’d like to try
• Gift ideas (by person – might also double as a record of previous purchases)
• Things you are interested in buying (and need to investigate the value and/or save up for)
• Date Night Ideas
• Friends Night Ideas
• Podcast to listen to
• Blogs to check out
• Ideas for your home
• Favorite quotes
• Inspirational/motivational quotes and sayings
• Brain dumps
• Party / holiday ideas
• Kids activities

I bet you can come up with a few of your own.

Summary

Wish lists are an easy way to capture all those bits of information that we come across save them for when we need to remember them.  It’s like handing a note to your personal assistant to hold on too until you ask for all the note with ideas about something in particular and they hand you a list.

If you’ve missed any of Christa’s previous End of the Year Planning Tips, you can head back to Tip #1 by clicking here.

Happy Planning,

Linda