It started in the early 1970s, following a terrible television accident that left astronaut Steve Austin a man barely alive. "We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better...stronger...faster."
Let's update that for the 21st century.
To celebrate the return of Mutual Improvement we are kicking off a new effort we are calling: "How am I doing?"™ Our goal is not to turn you into a bionic freak addled with technology (though that sounds pretty cool). Our goal is much simpler - we want to create a system that will let you quickly measure where you are, where you want to go, and make a plan for getting there.
And we are inviting you to help us create it. After a round of brainstorming and lots of time reviewing the most popular goals on 43 Things, we came up with an initial list of 12 categories:
- Travel
- Money
- Career/work
- Health
- Diet
- Exercise
- Love/relationships
- Family/home
- Education
- Habits/self improvement
- Art/music/hobbies/culture
- Spiritual/religious
Our thought is, to build a system that lets you assess "How you are doing?"™ in each of these 12 categories as well as indicate which areas are of the greatest importance to you. Based on that data - we'll generate a list of goals that have been recommended by users to help people make progress in that area. After measuring whether you've accomplished the goals or not, we'll have a sense of where you are, and make a set of recommendations on goals that might get you ready for the new year.
What do you think? We'd love to hear what you think of the 12 categories -- are there some you'd combine, delete, or add? Do you think the users on 43 Things can pitch in to create lists of recommended goals in each of these areas? We'd love some feedback on the ideas behind "How am I doing?".
