The My100 List and a Planner Geek's Poor Planning
For those who aren't planner geeks, let me preface this with a short explanation. Hobonichi Techos are a line of Japanese planners (though they print English versions) from Shigesato Itoi's (yes the Mother Series / Earthbound Videogame Guy's) company, which started with a blog (“Hobonichi” is a Japanese contraction of his blog's title translated as: “Almost Daily”). Every Planner, Techo or otherwise comes with a few features, one of which is called the “My100” and it's a blank list of 100 entries you can check off. There's a variety of ways to use the list. I could say a lot more about these planners and it is taking all my willpower not to. You're Welcome.
If you were to look at my Hobonichi Techo's My100, I picked 100+ things I wanted to experience. No I'm not kidding about the plus sign, I put more than 100 items on a list of 100. Do not recommend!
Most of those were books. Young Adult books. If you saw my post about my book slump, you're probably chuckling at my hubris in January of 2022. Part of the cheating also came from putting multiple series as one entry, even after being advised not to do that.
This is really laughable with the Visual Novel series Umineko no Naku Koro ni (or When the Seagulls cry), which I was really into when they were first coming out (in Japan), but never finished. I had decided, 2022 was gonna be the year I finish Umineko!
I have heard (though I couldn't cite it) that the total English word count of the eight entries of that series is longer than War and Peace. In retrospect I should have at a minimum split it into Umineko and Umineko Chiru (known as Umineko: Question Arcs & Umineko: Answer Arcs in English). That's still a large demand, that's 4 episodes per entry. When these games were coming out, you got 2 episodes a year (because there were two Comiket conventions in a year). Even at much younger, I don't think I ever read more than 2 episodes, possibly 3, per year. It was laughable devoting one entry to it and starting in October (because that's when the episodes take place).
Also, Young Adult novels aside, the fact of the matter was several things: * I wanted to experience more than 100 things. * When I make strict lists like this I rebel and don't stick to the list. This is part of why I used to bullet journal before I found a way to use Hobonichi Techos in a manner I like. * When I put 10 games from my backlog down, I failed to account for the fact videogames I wanted to play would continue to come out, and I do not play nearly as many hours of videogames as I used to. * My brother (who I don't think knew about my list) wanted to do a video game trade with me, so I've been devoting many hours to Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition because I finally got him to play Hades. To be clear: I don't regret this exchange, it was 100% a great choice, it just hadn't figured in. * I've heard a symptom of ADHD is never completing games / TV Series you like, and when I saw a meme about this, it... explained a lot for me. Because as my Nintendo and Steam End-of-Year features will show: I didn't beat a single video game this year. * Putting down fruit to try doesn't work when Inflation attacks grocery stores and you'd feel guilty asking for something you're not even sure you'd like. * Having two separate lists of musicians to listen to, and focusing on the ones from the non-My100 list. * Having computer problems for like half the year making it really hard to beat any of those PC games. * I didn't complete a single TV Series I put down, because my brother also hates finishing series. I'm on season 5 of She-Ra, before we suddenly switched to Adventure Time, and now we're watching Pokemon Journeys (well that part is my fault).
To be clear, I accomplished some things on my list. I listened to new (to me) Musicians. I read some books. I accomplished about 10 things.
I want to do another My100 next year (in my A5 English Cousin! So excited) with a similar theme, but I think this time I'll do a few things differently: 1. No cheating with single entries for series. Either just the first book, or all the books. 2. Do not fill out the entire 100 entries out before hand. I will leave at least half the list blank to fill in as I go (right now I'm suspecting even less). Because I did read a decent amount of books this year, and that should count for something, but don't because there's no space on the list to change them out. 3. Possibly make a master list of experiences or ideas in Notion, so if nothing else, if I hear about a musician I want to listen to, I can add them to the blank spaces, or put it off until 2024. 4. Regardless, while I want to do better than 10%, I should probably not expect to complete the entire list if I'm going to use it this way.
Have you woefully misused a planner before? It'd be nice to know I'm not alone.
Feel free to at me on the Fediverse, please provide context though.