Aiming for the World

When I’m presented with the question, “What would you like to do before you get too weak/retire/die?” I’ve always answered “travel around the world.”

Earlier this week I was spending some time setting goals for 2009. One of the things I did was to list out a few countries I’d like to visit next year.  After I’ve done that I decided to expand this exercise by listing out all the countries I’d love to visit and realised that I don’t really want to go to every country of the world like what Chris is doing. I only really want to go to 30 (plus 20 more that would be “nice but are not must go’s at the moment”).  What a revelation! I’ve always thought the number would be closer to 100 but 30 sounds very achievable. So I went on to list done the feasibility of visiting these 30 countries.

If I were to visit a country each year, I’d achieve my dream in 30 years. That’s alright, but that’s not very efficient. I could tackle the countries by regions, dividing them into the following: Western Europe, Scandinavia, Northern Africa, North America, Latin America and Eastern & Southern Asia. After working out a very rough estimate, I reckon I’d need about $6000 per one month trip to a region (it is possible to go on a much lower budget but I’m not planning to rough it out. Yet.). Quite a bit of money, but if I were to aim to cover a region say every three years, that would work out to less than $170 a month or under $6 a day.

Can I actually save $42 a week? Let’s see… My once a week cafe time costs $5. Our weekly movie date, $40. Magazines? $5. And I also have a habit of buying huge amounts of snacks each week – up to $25- worth. That’s a total of $75. If I were to save a little over half of that, I’d still have more than enough change to rent a film and get some popcorn. Of course the other question is, can I afford to take leave off work for a whole month? At this moment, the answer is no, but I think I’ll worry about that later. I realised that when you set a goal and work towards it, things have a way of working out in your favour unexpectedly and faster than you’d imagine so we’ll see. :)

31 Days of Lists – I Have A Plan

How do you keep to posting a list a day without running out of things to talk about or worse, ending up feeling like you’re doing a chore? Would you write down your grocery list every other day?

Well, for a start, you’ll need quite a bit of discipline. But I think, with proper planning, even the most commitment-phobic blogger can accomplish this task without resorting to listing mundane things for the sake of posting something. Creating a post a day for 31 days and sticking to a theme will seem less daunting if you have planned your posts ahead.

Remember micromovements? 1 whole month sounds like a very long time but how does 1 week sound like? Much more manageable, yes? If I divide my 1 month into 4 weeks, I only need to concentrate on writing for the next 7 days. And if I have a different theme each week, I only need to concentrate on one topic of interest per week. The advantage of doing this is that it helps me focus, generates anticipation for the reader and eliminate the need to post something, ANYTHING, just because I have to.

So, where do I start? Why, by creating a list of things to list for the next 30 days of course! Here’s my plan for March:

The Masterplan

1 The First List aka The Masterplan (you’re reading it)
2 Random Sunday

Week 1 – Theme 1
3 New Monday
4 Desert Island Tuesday
5 Wednesday Websites
6 Trivia Thursday
7 TGIF
8 Saturday Summary
9 Random Sunday

Week 2 – Theme 2
10-14 Themed Lists
15 Week 2 Recap
16 Random Sunday

Week 3 – Theme 3
17-21 Themed Lists
22 Week 3 Recap
23 Random Sunday

Week 4 – Theme 4
24-28 Themed Lists
29 Week 4 Recap
30 Random sunday

31 The Last List

I plan to further divide the days of the weeks into their own themes:
on Mondays, I’ll try something new;
Tuesdays’ lists are inspired by Desert Island Discs;
on Wednesdays you’ll get to see a list of websites I love;
Thursdays are for trivia and
on Fridays, I’ll list the things I’m thankful for.

I’m leaving my weekends open for random things because the last thing I want to do on a weekend is think. I’ll be announcing my theme for the week on Sundays and will do a recap on Saturdays.

A final note – the above is just a guide. I wouldn’t be too upset if I don’t manage to stick to it religiously. The most important thing for me (and you) is to have fun! Have a good March, everyone!

Related Links
National Blog Posting Month
SARK Micromovement

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