Why I write a list of "100 Great Things That Happened This Year" every December
Looking past the highlight reel
Hey everyone,
I’m sorry this one isn’t a video! Things have been a bit too manic recently to edit one together for this, but I wanted to share a little end-of-year ritual I’ve been doing for the last four years or so.
It’s not a resolution, and it’s not a productivity hack. It’s just a list. Specifically, a list of 100 Great Things That Happened This Year.
I picked this habit up from the writer and artist Austin Kleon, who has published his own list annually for a long time now. The premise is super simple: you write down 100 things from the past year that were good or even great.
You might think 100 sounds like a lot. And honestly, it is. But, that’s kinda the point. If you only had to write down 10, you’d probably stick to the big, headline events: “Moved to a new city,” “Got a new job,” or “Went on holiday to India” etc. But when you have to find 100 things, you’re forced to dig a little deeper. It forces you to look beyond the highlight reel that got posted on Instagram and find the small things you’d otherwise forget. You start remembering the peaceful afternoons with a friend, that specific restaurant you went to so often they started recognising your order, or that time you fixed your bike by yourself and it didn’t fall apart or break... (speaking from experience here!)
Paraphrasing Kleon, he says the practice isn’t about ignoring the bad stuff, but about actively hunting out the good. It’s a way of proving to yourself that, actually, a lot of life happened this year.
Hannah Smith (from Worderist) mentions that she started doing this to combat the end-of-year blues, and she writes the letter as if it was to her future self with a list of 100 good things to look back upon. It turns the rearview mirror into something to smile about rather than think “where did the time go!?” or “what did I do this year!?”
For me, it’s just a nice way to close the chapter of the year. It forces me to focus more on the small things and recognise them as “great”.
Here are a few random ones from my list this year to show you what I mean. They range from the life-changing to the very, very small:
- Moving into our new home in Kyoto
- Picking Gingko Nuts from trees at the side of the road with my father-in-law
- Visiting Yasujiro Ozu’s grave
- Finding my new favourite cafe — Lush Life
- Picking up a very beautiful and very old Sony radio cassette player
- Getting my Japanese driving license and driving around Kyoto in a lovely Daihatsu Kei truck
- Learning tree pruning from a Japanese gardener
- Receiving a few packs of liquorice from friends in the UK (I’m a sucker for liquorice, and cannot buy it in Japan at all. Please send me all your unwanted liquorice!)
I get a lot of value from doing this. It’s fun, it’s free, and it leaves you feeling surprisingly full. If you have a spare hour and a notebook (or a Notion page or whatever), I highly recommend giving it a go. You might be surprised by how much “great” actually happened.
What would be on your list?
Thank you for being here,
🍃 SJF
Thank you for reading. If something here struck a chord, reply by email — I read every one, and it's the closest this little site has to a comments section. You can also follow along by RSS.