I wrote most of this list when I was in college or grad school, I think. I just went through and updated it for 2020 (I had a lot of references to iPods and CDs). If you can think of your own, put it in the comments.
1. Make 100 lists of 100 things—100 things you want to do before you die, books you want to read, places you want to go, albums you love, whatever.
2. Listen to your whole music library.
3. Get a coloring book and crayons and revert to your childhood.
4. Play with sidewalk chalk.
5. Make a posterboard-sized collage.
6. Clean out your desk.
7. Clean off your computer’s desktop and clean out the downloads folder.
8. Read a whole book in one sitting.
9. Put on a play in your backyard.
10. Write a long letter to someone you haven’t seen in a while.
11. Learn a new hobby or skill.
12. Watch all the episodes on your favorite YouTube channel.
13. Blow up a whole package of balloons.
14. Write a sestina.
15. Make a meal using everything in your fridge.
16. Bake something from scratch.
17. Fill up a notebook in 24 hours.
18. Make a poetry collection for a friend.
19. Wash your car.
20. Write a sonnet.
21. Write down every single detail of the room you’re in.
22. Make a piñata and give it to a kid.
23. Write goofy haiku.
24. Learn the alphabet in sign language.
25. Dig out CDs you haven’t listened to in a while (assuming you still have a way to listen to CDs).
26. Read a kid’s book out loud.
27. Memorize the “to be or not to be” speech from Hamlet.
28. If you have an art book, flip through it and look at the art.
29. Cover a page in doodles.
30. Type out the numbers one through one million in words.
31. If you have a blog, write a post every hour for 24 hours.
32. Go on a walk through your neighborhood.
33. Read through the “Q” section of the dictionary.
34. Get a coffee can and make ice cream.
35. Record yourself reading something out loud.
36. Take pictures of your elbows.
37. Turn a Styrofoam cup inside-out.
38. Watch a whole season of a TV show. This should not be an issue for many of you.
39. Write a 500-word story.
40. Edit that story down to 100 words.
41. Put together your own magazine.
42. Tie-dye a shirt.
43. Give yourself a haircut.
44. Wash your dog.
45. Fold 1000 paper cranes and make a wish.
46. Write out the lyrics to your favorite album.
47. Make a playlist of your 50 favorite songs of all time.
48. Learn your voice part in the Hallelujah Chorus. If you don’t know what your voice part is, go find out what your vocal range is and proceed from there.
49. Read to a bedridden person. (If you’re reading this during the COVID-19 pandemic, do it through FaceTime or something, don’t be an idiot.)
50. Clean out your hall closets.
51. Ask your grandparents how they met.
52. Fold your laundry, you heathen.
53. Meditate.
54. Secretly do something nice for someone you don’t like.
55. Write your congresspeople.
56. Play scales on your instrument of choice.
57. Draw a tree.
58. Do some yoga.
59. Reorganize your books.
60. Find a new blog and read all their archives.
61. Pick a word, then learn how to say it in 10 languages.
62. Write a review of the last movie you watched.
63. Do the “loves me, loves me not” thing with a daisy.
64. Clean your house from top to bottom.
65. Shave someone else’s head.
66. Get a small child to do your hair.
67. Draw things on your hands.
68. Make homemade skin care products.
69. Go to sporcle.com and see how many games you can beat.
70. Write sentences where each word starts with a consecutive letter of the alphabet (e.g., Aphra Behn came down eating fudge, giggling happily—“I’ll just keep leaving my newspaper open; perhaps Quincy stayed, though upset, very wary (x-rated?), yet zealous.”
71. Have a conversation with one of your old stuffed animals.
72. Write a letter to your future self.
73. Write your will.
74. Do a tasting of the food (or drink) of your choice.
75. Cut up your old t-shirts and do something interesting with the scraps.
76. Call or text everyone whose numbers are in your phone.
77. Go through all your photos.
78. Play checkers with yourself.
79. Remember #11? Go teach someone else how to do it.
80. Stand on a corner with your phone and dance to the music.
81. Try to make a list of everyone you know.
82. Look up all the churches in a 5-mile radius and pray for them.
83. Read a magazine.
84. Have a picnic in your living room or backyard.
85. Call someone and leave a poem on their voicemail.
86. Answer the Pivot questionnaire.
87. Answer the Pivot questionnaire for a fictional character.
88. Draw a self-portrait.
89. Buy all the birthday cards you’ll need for the next year.
90. Clean out your car.
91. Cut out snowflakes.
92. Mail something to yourself.
93. Look up stuff in your public library’s catalog.
94. Look up a show on tvtropes.org.
95. Trade music libraries with a friend or family member for a day.
96. Write your own personal mission statement.
97. Take ten minutes to eat one cookie.
98. Write a thank-you note to your parents (assuming that they weren’t abusive).
99. Write a research paper.
100. Go ye, therefore, and make up your own list of projects.
