Over three months ago, I posted the last monthly update about my Day Zero (101 things in 1001 days) project. I started DZ just a few months after moving into my "new" house, and right after my younger daughter graduated from high school, starting on July 1, 2010 and ending on March 29, 2013, presuming I counted the days correctly. I had a lot of life-revising to do back then. Sort of like re-starting your computer from scratch. A "cold boot" in [old-fashioned] computer terms.
I knew I needed to create structure in my new life, hence "newfutureahead" (this blog was one of my 101 things) so the ready-made structure of the Day Zero Project was appealing. I fashioned my list to combine a "to do" list, a few "bucket list"-type projects, and a number of aspirational goals, as well as a couple of things I hoped to do often enough to become a habit.
After I jotted down a number of ideas, I found that my best approach was to categorize them. During my 1001 days, I completed all 8 that were labelled "Financial/Legal", all 4 "Entertainment" (I surpassed my number of books to read and movies to watch relatively early in the process), and finished all but one of the 9 "Family and Friends" goals. The last of those was to help D#1 get her driver's license which didn't fall inside the deadline, but has since been accomplished!
Only 18 of my goals remained untouched at the close of the project! Almost half that number, in "Home Improvement" or "Recreation," were not undertaken because of physical or financial limitations. The rest were mostly "Education/Self-Development", though there were two unstarted quilts in "Hobbies" and one entry under "Charitable/Religious" that was never available to me within the time frame. I made some degree of progress on 6 other goals, mostly related to "Health," on which I know I need more focus.
Overall, DZ was a positive experience for me, helping me to do just what I set out to do: get specific things done while remaking my life in a larger sense. I'm beginning to put together a list for a follow-up DZ project, to begin at some unspecified future date. About a third of that list will be the unfinished (and un-begun) items from DZ1, along with a number of actions that I want to keep doing actively. With my younger daughter beginning her senior year of college in about 5 weeks, there will be more re-structuring to do before long.
For the one or two of you who read here, my blog isn't going away. I hope to do some catch up posts that are travel- or quilt-related, and then to try to be more regular in posting. See you soon!
