I have been thinking recently about goals and dreams and plans and missions and all of that, in various contexts, Then I stumbled upon this meme on a personal finance website: List 101 things you want to do in the next 1001 days.

Here’s the idea: Everyone needs goals. Our lives are more successful, more satisfying, we are more engaged in them, etc, when we have goals towards which we are actually working.

Most of us think of a bunch around New Years and drift away from them by mid-February. Some of us take another, narrower stab at them for Lent. (I think my money mindfulness is getting easier, by the way!)

But many goals take longer than just a few months, some even longer than a year or two. But you can make significant progress on any goal within 2 years and almost 9 months.

For example, 1001 days from today is Wednesday, December 23, 2009.

I thought when I first read this that it would be great to play this game, and I started writing goals. I thought I was doing great getting to 101, and that most of mine were at least semi-reasonable in the 1001 day timeframe. But I was organizing them in clusters, so I wasn’t sure exactly how many I had.

I popped over to SuperViva to enter them in my “Life List” and discovered that, in fact, I’d only managed to come up with 43. Hmmm. More than doubling that and staying within the 1001 day time frame was just not realistic.

Then I noticed an interesting link, Ted Leonsis 101 Goals. Now, it happens that Susie of SuperViva and I both formerly worked for Ted Leonsis, but somehow I had previously missed the fact that he has a famous list of 101 life goals (77 of which it looks like he has achieved), which he wrote at 25.

101 life goals looks a lot more exciting to me than padding my next 1001 days list with hollow goals like cleaning the bathroom or the garage. Not that these are not worthy tasks that I need to work on — I’m just not sure I want to call them goals. (The garage, maybe. But not the bathroom.)

Anyway, I’m now working on that list and I’ll share it when I get it into good shape. And I’ll designate some portion of the list to tackle in the first 1001 and 101 days.

If you want to play too, check out SuperViva for ideas and community and structure, and also Triplux, which lists people who are doing 101 in 1001 and provides this guidance:

The Criteria:
Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on my part).

Some common goal setting tips:
1. Be decisive. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how you plan to achieve it.

2. Stay Focussed. Any goal requires sustained focus from beginning to end. Constantly evaluate your progress.

3. Welcome Failure. Frequently, very little is learned from a venture that did not experience failure in some form. Failure presents the opportunity to learn and makes the success more worthy.

4. Write down your goals. It clarifies your thinking and reinforces your commitment.

5. Keep your goals in sight. Review them frequently, and ensure that they are always at the forefront of your thinking.

JD, on whose blog I found this idea, also recommends:

I encourage you to make a list of your own dreams. What would you like to accomplish in the next few years? Even if you don’t list 101 things, you could surely list a dozen. Make that list. Print it out. Post it someplace prominent so that you’re reminded of your goals daily.

What, you might ask, has this got to do with cloth diapering?

Before Noah was born, I planned to use a mix of cloth and disposable diapers. I felt bad about the landfills full of disposable diapers, but I knew I was too lazy to use cloth exclusively.

I ordered some fancy high-tech cloth diapers from the Internet, and one day a few weeks after Noah was born, I gave them a try.

Within 20 minutes, he had one of those horrible breastfed baby, every 3-4 days, toxic poopsplosions.

Bye-bye cloth diapering. At least for now.
A month or so later, I tried again.

Astonishingly, the exact same thing happened.

Well, motherhood has made me smarter. I know a pattern when I see it, and that pattern was over.

But during our recent bouts of thrush, the diaper rash has been awful. Combine that with having a bigger boy who drinks a lot of very watery “Jooooose!” in the evening, and who (knock on wood) doesn’t really poop overnight.

I started inserting the absorbent inserts for my fancy pocket diapers into Noah’s disposable diapers at night. And they worked! Until the morning after sushi, when we didn’t change him as soon as usual, so I found myself washing seaweed poop out of the cotton insert.

“Hey wait!” My brain slowly realized. If I had the fleece part touching the poop, like it’s designed to do, this would be much easier.

So we are now using cloth diapers at night. And have been (mostly) for the last ~3 weeks. I think this is a good balance for us, and I’m feeling good about my goal to be a reasonably environmentally responsible family.

I know that some of you are huge cloth diaper experts. Right now, we have 6 wonderalls with a variety of inserts.

I want to get a few more super-easy pocket/all-in-ones, but that are cuter and more fun than the basic white I have now. And I want to get a bunch more inserts. The big fat cotton babies inserts with the snaps are pretty much unwieldy. I kinda like the hemp babies, but he drenched through 2 last night.

Do you have any specific recommendations for lazy moms with a big hard-drinking boy?