Open up your Scanner Daybook and give yourself four to six blank pages or get a large piece of paper, as big as possible, so you can add to it at will. Then, in the upper left-hand corner, writing as small as you can, begin a numbered list of anything and everything that interests you, that has ever interested you, or that might ever interest you if you live to 105 years old. Really do this, because writing them down makes them real, and part of the problem has been that you’ve kept them somewhere in the fog of assumptions, where they’re easy to lose. Think before you write any entry. I don’t want you to write things like, “I want to learn about 1. African history, 2. Asian history, 3. European history….78. Physics, 79. Math, 80. Quantum mechanics…120. Hungarian, 121. Greek, etc.” This isn’t an exercise to see how many things there are to do on earth. It’s an exercise to see how many things you would really enjoy spending time with. You should include:
- Everything you’ve done already
- Everything you wish you could do for the first time
- Everything you wish you’d be doing all through the years to come
- Everything you’d like to do once or twice only
That means that before you make an entry, you must sit for a minute or so, with your eyes closed if you can, and imagine yourself actually involved in that activity in real time. (Alternatively, you can write for 2 minutes in the present tense: "I am opening my book on Medieval Safety Pins and reading the first page. It’s about a crypt that was found in 1345…the afternoon passes and I’m still turning the pages…") Be there, as much as you possibly can. If the fantasy feels as good as you had hoped, it passes the test and can go on the list. If it’s scary but thrilling, it also goes on the list. But if it’s just the title of some field that appeals to you, be sure to think about it carefully before you write it down. If you like, you can give yourself a few days to finish this exercise. Carry a small notebook with you and jot down interesting things that pass the test. Then bring the list home with you and add the new entries to your Big List in your Daybook. When you’re done, sit back and take a long look at how much of that paper you’ve covered up. If you didn’t cheat, I’m betting you’ll discover that you’re truly interested in only a few dozen, at the most a hundred, activities. Possibly, just possibly, more.
But not everything. Nowhere near 1,000 things.
And that means you’ve just scored a very big win in the game of What’s Possible, because no one can do everything. You knew that. That’s why you were doing nothing. But everyone can do many, many things.
Think about it. Maybe you don’t have to feel stuck anymore. You may be interested in many, many things and you might add to their number every year, but it will never exceed, in real time, the realm of possibility. Now you can get started on the first one or two (or three or four) that are most easily within reach, today if you like, in the knowledge that you’ll be able to do the same with other activities on your list. And you’ve got a great chance of getting through most, maybe all of them. And a fine chance of actually feeling profoundly satisfied in every one of your interests.
Incidentally, it’s not a bad idea to open up another page in your Scanner Daybook or keep that notepad with you and
start a list of all the things you don’t want to do! It’s amazing how satisfying that list will be, as well! Every item you write down should make you feel better. "Pole-vaulting. Oh good, I don’t have to do that one!"
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Get your Big List of "1,000" things you want to do before you die.
Now, one at a time, take a slow, careful look at some of the items on your list and think about how long it would take for you to get what you want from each one. You don’t even need to know what to call the reward you’re after—it just has to be what you really want from that experience. To get the most out of this experiment, you have to imagine yourself actually doing that activity, have a sense of where you are and what you’re doing. Don’t limit your conclusions to the quick answers your mind deals you. If you take the time to actually walk through a fantasy, you’ll get more information than you can from any amount of theoretical information. Keep the following questions in mind.
- What do you really want to know about this area of interest?
- What would you most enjoy doing with that information (if you had a magic wand)?
- Who would you love to talk with about this subject if you could talk to absolutely anyone?
Then, after you finish imagining each item, note on your list how much actual time would realistically be needed for you to be satisfied. Would it take an afternoon as it did for Ralph? Or an hour, a weekend, a month, 5 years? Once you understand what you’re looking for, the answers will come easily, because the truth is, that you know them already.
Even if it’s only in your imagination, when you think about the reality of doing what you’d love, something happens. That feeling of deprivation you thought you had to live with goes away and you start understanding what it feels like to be satisfied. Soon those assumptions you made about wanting everything, needing a lifetime to investigate each thing you wanted, and most of all, the hopelessness of doing anything at all will be gone, driven away by the bright light of reality. And you’ll be just a step away from ending your self-inflicted deprivation and choosing one of the once-unattainable items of your list and actually starting it. Today.
I hope you will make time for both parts of this exercise, but please be sure to do at least the first one this week. In a new comment on this page, tell us: Did you complete your list? Have you previously been stopped from doing anything because you thought your list was going to be way too long? Were you surprised by the length of your list? Were you surprised by the time it would actually take to satisfy your interest in each of these items? Did this get you started on any of your interests? After you share your experience, read the rest of the comments and reply to a few.
Please be sure to subscribe to future comments on this exercise or to check back here on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning for new ones.
Use the Next link (up above the title) to continue on to Exercise 2: Your Interest Index Binder after you are done adding your comments.
This was a very time-consuming, but valuable exercise for me. I found that my list was not nearly as long as I thought it would be. In part, I think my list is shorter than I thought because I actually followed the directive to envision myself doing what I thought I wanted on the list. I found myself eliminating quite a few of the things I had listed after engaging in that practice. I eliminated some of the items because of lack of true desire, some because I realize this 62-year-old body won’t be able to handle what it could when I was 25, and some for safety reasons (e.g. it doesn’t seem especially safe to visit Russia).
Exactly what happened to me too. Thank you for sharing. (My English isn’t so good. So I’m thankful when somebody else describes their experience)
Actually my „want to“ List is so short now, that I‘m not sure if I‘m still a scanner.
Coming out of summer travel and with the kids beginning school I’ve been feeling hopeless about catching up on family operations and finding time for a specific project. After writing down twenty-six interests and crossing off two as sufficiently done I’m feeling like it might be possible to get on a somewhat sustainable schedule. I added up the time I’d allocate across the list and it totaled less the number of non-sleeping hours in a week.