I have a ton on my plate right now with working full-time at Global Crossing as a Business Analyst, working nights and weekends with the MyMinderz team to launch their next wave of applications, and in my spare time, when I'm not having a social life, working on creating a national awareness campaign called TextSmart.
I love every minute of it, but I also have a list of things that I have been wanting to do over the past 5 years that I have yet to do.
Today, I start on my list of 101 unique tasks that I've always wanted to complete, but always gave excuses for not completing.
This is Matthew Ray's "No More Excuses" List:
- Take Guitar Lessons (I've had one for 5 yrs)
- Learn 10 songs to play on the guitar (0/10)
- Learn to speak Spanish Fluently/improve what I know (LiveMocha and/or SpanishPod)
- Buy a house or rent out a Classy Loft Apartment with a spiral staircase and balcony
- Complete my U.S. Lincoln Head Penny Collection that my grandfather from Mom's side and grandmother from Dad's side started and handed down to me when I was younger (year 1909-present)
- Take Yoga Lessons and apply them
- Finish decorating and painting my current apt
- Cook 1 brand new meal a week at home (3/143)
- Go try out a "Singles Mingle"
- Go an art exhibit at the Rochester Memorial Art Gallery 3 times a year (0/9)
- Go to two RMSC exhibits each year (0/6)
- Learn all current countries and their capitals in the world (195 currently; 192 in UN)
- Print out and Frame 12 of my best photographs taken from my road trips
- Take a professioal photo shoot with my brother and send to all our family members that are still around
- Travel to Hawai'i (2nd to last state I have yet to visit; North Dakota is the other)
- Buy a MAC laptop
Buy an Amazon Kindle (one more step to going green and paperless)- Travel to the Galapagos Islands
- Pay off my debt
- Pay off my car (Honda Civic '00)
- Donate a garbage bag or more of my old clothes
- Buy a new bike and actually use it during the summer months
- In a round of 18 holes of Golf, get a under a 100 strokes
- Go to a new restaurant once a month (1/31)
- Enter 3+ photo contests (0/3)
- Win a prize or honorable mention in at least one photo contest that I enter
- Organize and catalog ALL my past Uncles belongings (antiques, paintings, statues, etc) from around the world
- Find a way to hack into my old harddrive to grab my old music (5,000+ songs)
- Launch my blog site to consoledate all my social sites, etc.
- Double my annual income at least one more time
- Launch my three other content-driven sites I have plans for (0/3)
- Have more low key nights in with a movie, boardgame, dinner, coffee, converstation (non-out-till-2am-bar nights)
- Go on a date (maybe from the singles mingle I'm going to attend..its been a while since I've been in the dating scene)
- Get 1000 people to follow me on Twitter @MatthewRay
- Read the 1st Harry Potter Book; read the rest if I like it (0/1)
- Get a pedicure - I hear its worth it
- Travel to Montreal for a long weekend
- Donate all my clothes and start fresh buying a whole new waredrobe
- Use the dry cleaners regularly
- Volunteer at a soup kitchen
- Run a 5K
- Go to a U2, Muse, ColdPlay, or Spearhead concert (travel if neccessary and make a long weekend out of it)
- Take my Business Law CLEP test and Graduate with an MIS from RIT
- Get Lasik Surgery...unless talked out of it
- Visit a Psycic (tarot and palm reading)
- Visit a nice zoo and aquarium - Not the Rochester zoo
- Go to a new Cirque de Soleil
- Help 5 people complete an item on their 101 in 1001 (0/5)
- Learn to play a full song on my grampas "Blues Harp" Marine Band Harmonica circa late 1800s (Key of G)
- Put $20.00 into a savings account with every goal completed (2/101)
- Learn to Dance (be it Salsa, Tango, Waltz or Ball Room)
- Go on at least 3 spur of the moment day/weekend trips each year (0/9)
- ReDesign/Restructure my "Our Drive To Alaska" site
- Have a cookout party on the rooftop patio at my apt building on the first beautiful weekend this spring 2009
- Revise my Facebook Page and get rid of the dumb applications I've collected and never used.
- Revise my LinkedIn Profile at least every quarter as needed (0/11)
- Complete Tim Ferriss' "Ideal Lifestyle Costing": http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/lifestyle-costing/
- Help someone on the side of the road change their tire when no one else will stop to help
- Travel somewhere to go skiing (besides Bristol Mt.)
- Read Guy Kawasaki's, "Reality Check" (in progress)
- Read Malcolm Gladwell's, "Outliers"
- Find 2 more favorite red wines besides Ménage à Trois (0/2)
- Go Scuba Diving
- Go cross-country skiing at Mendon Ponds
- Go see 2 movies at Charlotte Beach over the summer (0/2)
- Go to the Little Theatre at least once a month (0/31)
- Take time-off work to go volunteer my time and build a house/school/church overseas
- Go on a camping and whitewater trip in summer of 2009
- Visit Austin, Texas to see a Bob Schneider Concert
- Visit family in South Carolina
- Go the the Public Market in Rochester (never been)
- Read 5 books that someone else suggests (0/5)
- Watch 10 movies that someone suggests (0/10)
- Get new responsibilities OR change position at Global Crossing
- Successfully get 5 new people to monetize their company/sites/themselves on Twitter (2/5)
- Help someone get a Facebook Page up for their company or band
- Help get WorkAlertz into 100 markets (1/100)
- Go to another Rochester Social Media Club Event
- Spend a day at Darien Lake
- Go rock-climbing (indoor)
- Invest in a Wii
- Test drive a car I'd want to buy but can't afford today
- Learn to smoothly drive stick shift
- Take a digital photography workshop
- Create a frame by frame picture video and post it to YouTube/Vimeo
- Spend the day on a beach (not Charlotte Beach)
- Successfully run the national TextSmart campaign
- Listen to Pink Floyd's, "Dark Side of the Moon" and watch Wizard of Oz
- Find 9 more things to do (6/9)
- Make a YouTube/Vimeo Music Video Playlist (Possibly MixTube...)
- Join a HotShots Volleyball Team for a season
- Contact Guy Kawasaki and explain to him who MyMinderz is and how he will love to talk about them (with success or no success, I'll still reachout)
- Go to a Roller Derby somewhere
- Take my Mom to a Destruction Derby - Can't believe she wants to go to one (shes never been and neither have I)
- Successfully run @RocTwestival
