My list.... a work in progress

Hello!

Day 16 already, how time flies. Yes, yes, I know I said the list would be up sooner, but I've been busy..... procrastinating. Takes a lot of time, y'know!

Seriously tho, I've been real busy with work. My roster over the next few weeks had a lot of short flights on it, and I don't like short flights, as they're all a bit rushed. I much prefer the longer 3+ hour sectors, where you get a chance to take your time with the passengers and get to know them a bit. So I've been sending lots of emails to other crew asking to swap onto their longer flights, mostly with success. The 'Sent Items' folder of my work email is just page after page of swap requests!

Anyways, enough excuses... I'm here now, and this is where things get interesting. So far, you've learnt a little about the project and a little about me. But that's like the garlic bread and parmesan cheese in this delicious 2.75-year long meal. NOW, ladies and gents, it's time for the masterpiece. The steaming hot XXL stuffed crust Vegetarian Supreme with fresh dough, sliced juicy tomato and extra sweetcorn part of the meal. That's right, all the way from, well, my brain.... Partly plagiarised from other people.... And in no way near complete.... it's MY LIST!!!!!

I'll give you the entire list so far, and then dissect it afterwards. So.... here goes:

1. Get a job as a pilot
2. Declutter my possessions properly
3. Go on a gameshow
4. Get my paragliding licence
5. Become a World Record holder
6. Throw a dart at a map and go there
7. Send 101 postcards via Postcrossing
8. Go on holiday with a group of mates - 'Epic Holiday'
9. Save a deposit for a house
10. Take self-defence classes
11. Camp in the Cairngorms (or similar) again
12. Read through all my ATPL books again
13. Go to a veggie cookery class
14. Create a good interactive website
15. Learn sign language
16. Write a letter to myself at the beginning of the project to be opened on Day 1001
17. Create a photography portfolio of some of my best pictures
18. Copy all important VHS videos to DVD
19. See Eddie Izzard live
20. Learn to play some chillout tunes on my guitar
21. Get a photo (old or new) blown up and printed onto canvas
22. Make 5 items of clothing using EL-wire/LEDs/funky lighting
23. Volunteer with an LGBT charity
24. Be a film extra
25. Get my list of '1000 Things' up to at least 500
26. Become a crack shot with a rifle
27. Help Mum to trace the family tree
28. Complete the Couch to 5k program
29. Run a 5k
30. Learn how to draw cartoons
31. Cycle from Crawley to Brighton
32. Cycle London to Scotland (or vice-versa) staying in youth hostels along the way
33. Cycle Lands End to John O'Groats ('End-to-End') for charity
34. See the Northern Lights
35. Drink 1 tonne of water
36. Invent something that goes on sale to the general public
37. Run a 10k
38. Get horrendously drunk with my best mate
39. Try out canoeing again
40. Build a target board for my slingshot
41. Achieve and maintain a healthy BMI
42. Improve my rollerskating skills
43. Skydive again
44. Visit London as a tourist
45. Visit a butterfly house
46. Continue to fundraise for London's Air Ambulance up to £10,000
47. Get a small tattoo (!?)
48. Create a YouTube video that gets over a million hits
49. Learn basic massage
50. Finish sorting through my photos and videos, burning the saved ones to disc
51. Send all my funny clips to You've Been Framed
52. Turn £10 into £1000 by buying from charity shops and selling online
53. Complete a course in a subject that interests me, but is completely non-work-related
54. Watch 101 movies that I want to see
55. Edit and upload my flight training video blogs
56. Say Yes to everything for a day, then 3 days, then a week
57. Mend a broken friendship
58. Create something amazing with materials from, say, Hobbycraft - think Wallace & Gromit!
59. Write and publish an e-book
60. Take part in an 'It's a Knockout' competition
61. Get some nice professional pics done
62. Visit an Air Traffic Control centre
63. Try 20 new youth hostels
64. Take Dad flying
65. Kiss someone in the rain
66. Fly (uninjured!) in London's Air Ambulance
67. Visit Canada
68. ...

So that's it so far. First thing you'll notice is that, for a list of 101 goals, dreams, tasks and ambitions, it's rather bland after #67! The truth is that the list is a lot harder to come up with than I initially thought. 1001 days is a long time, but it's not THAT long. I've thought about having entries like 'Own my own home' and 'Go into Space', but I do think they're a bit far-fetched at the moment. That's not to say that I won't aim to achieve them at some point during my life... I just don't see them as achievable in the next 3 years. As the project progresses, the list will get fuller and closer to 101. It also isn't set in stone - some entries are almost certain to be taken off as I change my mind throughout the course of the 1001 days.

I haven't organised the list into categories, because I did it before on my first attempt at the project, and I didn't like the way it looked. Hence, you'll find that the more important ones are closer to the top of the list... they're the ones that I thought of first!

A lot of people undertaking their own 101 in 1001 are using it to get the motivation to do things they've been putting off for ages, and I also have a couple of entries that would fall under the same category (18, 40, 50 and 55 are a few). There are also some items that I've never really seriously considered before (7, 33, 54 and 63 come to mind), but which seem to fit in with the spirit of 101 in 1001 quite nicely. All in all, a good mix. As I come up with more entries for the list, I'll add them, but to the bottom of this post.

Over the next few posts, I'll explain some of the entries individually in more detail, and update you on the progress I've made so far.

That's all for now. Feel free to add your comments, opinions and suggestions below. I'll try not to leave it so long until my next post :)

P

Me me me me me and me

HIYA!

It's only been a couple of hours since my first post, but I didn't want to make the first one some epic novel, so I'm breaking it all down into nice easily digestible chunks. A bit like when Mum cuts up my veggie-burgers for me.

So far, I only have two followers, and both of them are the same person (Hello James!), but the hope would be that I get hundreds of thousands more subscribers over the coming days, weeks, months and years. And for those luckily enough to stumble across or be directed towards this blog, I thought I'd introduce myself. I am pretty much the subject of this entire blog, after all.

So I'm Phill. And it's jolly well nice to meet you all. I'm 28, and I currently work as cabin crew from Gatwick Airport. My ambition is to be a pilot, as you'll see from the very first item on my list when I publish it later. I live in a shared house with 5 other people - 3 cabin crew, a teacher, and an IT bod. We have a ruddy good time here in our lovely little house, and as there's 4 of us that are cabin crew working strange hours, there are hardly ever any queues for the bathroom!

My parents live in West London in the house I was brought up in, and my brother, who is 6 years younger than me, lives down the road from them. We also have Tazzie the cat at home, who clearly had a degree in psychology in a previous life as he seems to know exactly how to get what he wants.

I have A-Levels in Maths, Physics and Photography(!), and a degree in Aerospace Systems Engineering. I also have a commercial pilot's licence, so achieving that ambition of becoming a pilot is not as far off as you might have expected (I just need someone to pay me for doing it now!).

I've been a vegetarian for 11 years now, for moral reasons rather than health, although the health benefits do show. I'm also gay, which has played quite a large part in my life over the last few years, certainly with my social life, as a lot of my friends - including my best mate - are gay and I met them through social groups and nights out on the scene. I'm single and have been for about two years, but don't really mind - it's a lot less stressful, it's cheaper, and I can concentrate on looking after me! I have a small but good group of close friends. My social life took a major hit when I moved away from London for the cabin crew job, but living with other crew helps as we're all in a similar situation.

I'm taking part in this project for a number of reasons. First up, I think it looks like a lot of fun. I'm hoping the project will give me the motivation to experience and do some amazing things, both for myself and others. I want to look back on my life when I'm older and see that I've used my time wisely... 'lived life to the full'. I've also realised I'm rapidly getting older... it's been particularly noticeable in the last couple of months. My first grey hairs have arrived (*GASP!*), and I also find that one long night out clubbing is enough to do me in - I need a couple of days rest to recover, which I never used to need. It would have been great to have started this project 10 years ago, but I can't change the past, and there's no time like the present, so now seems like an excellent point at which to get involved in something like 101 in 1001.

I'm a very methodical person - I think it's the Capricorn in me. I've created my own worksheet and checklist to help make things easier onboard at work (one colleague says I'm so organised that I should run the country, and calls me Prime Minister!), I have a daily 'To Do' list written out, my roster for the next two weeks is on my noticeboard so I know exactly what I'm doing, and I keep all receipts and go through bank statements every month, much to the amusement of my housemates. So the whole idea of a list to complete over the course of the 1001 days appeals to me. I get a lot of satisfaction from crossing things off my daily To Do list when they're done, so I think that'll also be the case with this project.

So that's me in a nutshell. I'm sure regular followers will get to know me a lot better over the course of the 1001 days. I'm planning to video blog alongside this written version, although I'm not sure quite how it will work without repeating most of what I've published here.

My next post will be my list (which oddly for a 101 in 1001, is only up to 55 items so far!), so stay tuned for the next instalment.

Laterz, peeps!

Introduction: Take Two :)

HELLO............. again!

How are you!? Mmm-hmmm, really..... did he? Nooo! With the....? And the....? On top of the....? Well I NEVER!

Aaaanyways.......... WELCOME! Welcome, one and all, to my sparkly new 101 in 1001 blog. Some of you may know that this is my second attempt at the Day Zero Project. My first attempt started on 1st Jan this year (2010) but, much like a Smartprice sparkler, fizzled out rather quickly. You can see all my posts (yes.... both of them) from my first attempt, here.

So, first up, let me tell you a bit about the project. The Day Zero Project, or what I prefer to call '101 in 1001', is an idea I discovered in a thread on the MoneySavingExpert.com forums. The concept initially came from The Day Zero Project website, which is where a lot of people track the progress through their 1001 days. I'm not a massive fan of the DZP website, possibly because there were a lot of errors in the programming when I made my first attempt at the project, but I'll still use the site for ideas and inspiration.

The project itself is a very simple concept - come up with 101 ideas, goals, ambitions and dreams... and then complete them in 1001 days, which is roughly 2.75 years. The items on the list can be anything you want, from crazy life-changing experiences (go into Space, travel the World) to things you've needed to do for ages but just haven't had the motivation or time to do (write a Will, declutter my stuff).

Today is actually my Day 2. I started yesterday for two reasons - the first was that the date was 10 October 2010, or 10/10/10! This also means that my finish date on Day 1001 is quite special too - it will be 6th July 2013, the relevance of which I'll explain in a later post. I probably should have started my blog yesterday, but I'd had a very busy few days beforehand and was absolutely worn out, so yesterday was my chillout day... the calm before the (good) storm, one might say!

For those who don't know me, I'll introduce myself, along with my current list, in the next day or so. For now though, I'll finish up by saying please do subscribe to the blog, and feel free to comment with any of your ideas, opinions, suggestions and more. I hope you enjoy following my journey.

Here's to the next 1000 days!