Side Quests

I’m a big fan of to-dos and checklists, and I’ve always wanted a list of personal side quests to complete in my lifetime. After seeing Chip Huyen’s list, I couldn’t resist making my own. A few of these keep their own score — the running and lifting ones read straight off the training log, the continents off the map, and the writing one off this site — so the numbers below are whatever is true today.

1. 1
   Work for a start-up with fewer than 200 employees
2. 2
   Watch a Lakers game in LA
3. 3
   Hike the Alps

   Travel

4. 4
   Run a half marathon under 2 hrs

   longest run 6.66 km of 21.1 32%

   Fitness

5. 5
   Run a full marathon

   longest run 6.66 km of 42.2 16%

   Fitness

6. 6
   Bench 70 kg x 10 clean reps

   nothing logged 0%

   Fitness

7. 7
   Scuba dive

   Saw a shipwreck 10 m down.

8. 8
   Work in Silicon Valley
9. 9
   Travel across Europe

   Travel

10. 10
    Fire a machine gun
11. 11
    Watch the 100 m final at the Olympics live
12. 12
    Visit all seven continents

    1 of 7 continents 14%

    Travel

13. 13
    Learn to surf
14. 14
    Get featured in a news article
15. 15
    Go to a concert

    The Local Train, Sanam, Sonu Nigam, Divine, Guru, KK, Javed Ali, Papon.

16. 16
    Write 100 blogs on my website

    5 of 100 published 5%

    Years

17. 17
    Go on a snow trek2023

    Kuari Pass.

    Travel

18. 18
    Visit Ladakh

    Travel

19. 19
    Fly in a glider
20. 20
    Go to an F1 race
21. 21
    Watch sumo wrestling in Japan
22. 22
    Make a LinkedIn post that gets 5,000 likes

    LinkedIn

23. 23
    Read 1,000 books, starting 1 Jan 2025

    7 of 1,000 read 1%

    The list

24. 24
    Learn a musical instrument decently well

Numbering is stable — a quest keeps its id forever, so #17 always points at the same thing. New ones get added to the end.