Need ideas for short term life goals (not job/family/health/weight-related)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Dopers, I need ideas for a few new short-term goals. They should be free or nearly free, so travel is out. So are “bought” experiences like bungee jumping or riding an hot-air balloon. Weight loss usually makes these lists, but I had a gastric bypass so that one is already covered.

The best ideas would yield a tangible product or some kind of proof that yes, I did it. Proof I can put in my scrapbook. :slight_smile: But it should fit in a scrapbook, and not take up much more space. I could take up something creative, but that takes up time and what would I do with all those paintings, pottery etc? No room in my home. Sell them on Etsy?

In these lists, usually “working on my family relations” is high on the lists. And I know it should be on my list too, but I really don’t know where to start. My contact with my family is patchy, making more *real *friends (not aqaintances) is hard, and my marriage could use some work but I’ve nearly given that up and I currently settle for an okay status quo.

Ideas should take some guts, but not too much work, time or effort beyong the skills I already have. I want to make the most of my skills, not develop new ones, not with a toddler demanding all my free time.

But I do want to have something interesting going on besides my job, household, childcare, and my ever ongoing various attempts at self-improving. So I hope Dopers have some ideas.

**Ideas of mine that fit those criteria so far: **
[ul]
[li]Dabbled in politics and made it to the ballot;[/li][li]Got to be a model for a magazine [/li][li]Got on the Dutch jeopardy[/li][li]Made an on-line album out of really old family pictures a niece put online and asked my old aunts for help with the captions and the who’s who and dit what’s; [/li][li]Tradition of going to pick wild brambles with friends and make dozens of jars of jelly with self-made labels as gifts throughout the year;[/li][li]Various low-cost home improvement projects.[/li][/ul]

Ideas I still need to do:
[ul]
[li]-run a 5 k or 3 ka race[/li][li]-?[/li][/ul]

2

Train to run a marathon?

Also, as a fellow dutchman, I’m kind of curious about this dutch jeopardy. Which show was it? Twee voor twaalf? Met het mes op tafel?

3

Twee voor twaalf. I started a tread about it elsewhere on the Dope. It didn’t take up much time: enlisting went by mail, screentest and ability testing was one day, including travel, and the recording was another day. Costs were just for the travel on the testing day. I made it to round two, mostly due to lack of strategy. :slight_smile:

Thanks, but marathons are out. For my existing skill set, training for a 3 km race two months ahead is already a huge goal. I’m a 43 year old woman, btw.

4

Read 100 library books over the next six months.

To make it interesting, you could cover all the genres you care for. So for me, that would be science fiction, non-fiction (science, sociological, historical), coming-of-age stories, Southern Gothic, works of the Harlem Renaissance, and all the books of a great contemporary writer (I’m working my way through all the Philip Roth novels, for instance).

You will not have anything tangible after this, but you will have a lot to talk about.

If you don’t know how to, you could teach yourself to knit. Get a children’s (library) book and some cheap yarn. You can always make your toddler and other family members scarves, and you can also give them away to a homeless shelter or something.

I can understand wanting a free goal, but one that doesn’t require learning new things? You’re limiting yourself and making me question what the hell is the point?

5

The library books one is interesting, but it costs too much time. I already have to take the day off if I want to read, which I still manage to do (although I read mostly non-fiction about practical stuff). Knitting, same thing, besides that would take practice to get good at and that would take time which I don’t have. I guess I’m looking more for projects then hobbies. All the projects I listed cost me very limited time.

Learning new skills is not always necessary to get into a new project. When I got active for my political party, I just needed skills I already have, like coming up with ideas and some PR-know-how. I did have to learn a few new things (like campaigning with social media) but I could learn on the job. One training session, two talks, a couple hours in the evening of delegating tasks by e-mail, and I was done.
I’d think that learning how to knit decently and practicing and doing it till I got a scarve would cost a lot more time. Besides, if I want a real lovely scarf of hat, buying one on Etsyis easier.

6

I still don’t really understand . You don’t want a hobby or to learn a new skill. You don’t want to take up too much time with it either. You just want a project? Why? Just to fill empty time that is apparently very limited in size, so limited you can’t even read a couple of pages of a library book?

I would say you could learn how to cook a new dish. That’s a project, though it might require you to go out and buy some ingredients. And it requires learning something new. So I guess that’s out.

Start a journal. Hey, this doesn’t require learning anything new, but it will require writing every day. But if you can’t fit in a few pages of leisurely reading, maybe you can’t fit in writing?

If your schedule is that jammed pack and your brain is that resistant to taking on challenges, then maybe you could pull the rocker out onto your front porch and just watch the traffic go by. Free, easy, and doesn’t require that much time. Yes, that’s a snarky response, but I honestly think you’re putting strange limits on yourself and it’s frustrating to see.

Maybe I take the desire of lifetime learning for granted? I wouldn’t be satisfied with projects that didn’t require acquiring new skills. In fact, I’m having a hard time imagining enjoyable projects that don’t require learning something new.

7

Monstro, I appreciate you muchly as a Doper, but you’ve made clear you don’t see what I mean. Perhaps I should rephrase as “Toddler mom needs ideas for projects that keep me interesting that cost little or no extra time”.

8

See how long it takes to grow your hair to a certain length - say to your waist. Keep a note of who suggests you cut it to make it grow quicker. I did this once, it was hilarious, took me 4 years.

And no, I didn’t cut it.

Buy a cook book of some sort and cook every recipe in it - I have a cook book that’s for “one pot meals” or something (I may have lost it in a house move) and I always fancied seeing if I could cook everything in it.

Learn a foreign language, the more obscure the better (that way no one can criticise your accent/pronunciation)

Try to get a rose, or other flower, named after you.

Set up a system for betting on horses, perhaps go by only betting on 5 y/o grey horses, and see how much you win or loose at €1 per horse, per race (each way bets)

See how high of a score you can get on Spider Solitaire with one deck, my current record is 1288 points (I have a screenshot)

Change your name to something unusual and preferably unpronounceable to human beings, see how many people will address you by said name, then change it back to your original name, but spell it different (eg your name is Sarah, change it to wotjosnteron, and back to Sayrah)

(if wotjosnteron turns out to be a real name, I’ll pass out)

Set up a PO box and ask people to send you postcards from wherever they live (or give out your real address, if you’re feeling brave/stupid)

Rent a movie by a director you hate, or staring an actor who makes you cringe. Post about it in MPSIMS

Start keeping a weather diary, just using photos taken from your window.

9

Improve your handwriting. Everyone ought to go on a crusade to improve their handwriting once a decade or so. Try an old-fashioned script.

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How do you feel about drawing? It just needs a cheap sketchbook and a pencil, plus 10 minutes a day to commit to sketching or doodling. Sometimes you could do it while the toddler is drawing too.

Or photography? One well-composed photograph per day.

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Can you give us a little more information about what you mean by this? Do you want a project that gives you something to do/talk about with others that doesn’t revolve around your career, spouse, or child? Can your spouse or child be involved or do you want this to be something that’s only you?

I ask because the photography idea reminded me of a project that a friend has undertaken. When her daughter was a year old, she decided to take one photograph a week of the girl with one out of each month to be the essentially same photo (same place in the home, same angle and lighting, similar pose) for comparison.

Each week she takes 4-12 photographs in a session and uploads the best one to her computer. When the photos started adding up (daughter is now 7), she started a variety of separate folders for ease of viewing- one that is all of the comparison photos, one that’s the best picture from each month, and one that’s the best picture for each season.

It takes very little time and is basically like digital scrapbooks of her daughter growing up.

12

Learning a musical instrument? I found some ipad apps that are very inexpensive and do a nice job of teaching the guitar in short intervals. Went out and bought the cheapest used guitar I could find. Now I watch the five minute lesson and practice that until I am confortable. I can sit on the couch during family time noodling around on the guitar and learning something new, and still have family interaction.