Keep a Someday List
Your daily task list is clogged with dreams: learn Italian, visit Japan, read that 900-page novel, finally organize the garage. They are not today's work, but deleting them feels like giving up — so they sit there, guilting you daily. The someday/maybe list is the GTD answer: a parking lot for dreams, reviewed monthly, that frees your daily list to be about today.
TL;DR / Quick Fix
Quick fix: a someday/maybe list parks your dreams — books, trips, skills to learn — so they stop clogging daily tasks. Review it monthly: if an item still excites you, promote it to a real project; if not, delete it guilt-free. Capture the dream, park it, move on.
Follow these steps
- Create the list. One page or one note titled Someday/Maybe. It lives alongside your task system, not inside your daily list — separation is the point. The GTD basics treat it as a first-class list, not an afterthought.
- Dump every 'one day' item into it. Brain-dump all of them: trips, skills, books, projects, purchases, experiences. Getting them out of your daily list and your head is an instant relief — they were never today's work.
- Review it monthly. Once a month, read the whole list. This is the magic: items that still spark get promoted to real projects with next actions; items that have gone stale get deleted without guilt. Dreams expire — let them.
- Promote deliberately. When a someday item becomes a real goal, move it out of the list and into your active projects with a concrete first step. 'Learn Italian' becomes 'download the app and do lesson one Tuesday.'
- Delete ruthlessly. An item you have skipped for six monthly reviews is not a dream, it is clutter. Deleting is not failure — it is honesty that frees attention for what you actually want.
- Keep capturing new ones. New dreams arrive constantly. The habit is: capture the dream the moment it appears, park it on the list, and return to today's work — never let a someday item camp on today's list again.
What NOT to do
- Do not mix someday items into daily tasks. One list for today, one for someday — blending them is exactly the clog this fixes.
- Do not review it never. An unreviewed someday list is a dream graveyard; the monthly review is what keeps it alive and honest.
- Do not feel guilty deleting. Outgrowing a dream is growth, not failure — the list served its purpose by holding it until you knew.
- Do not promote everything at once. Three active projects is plenty; promoting ten someday items just rebuilds the clog elsewhere.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from a bucket list?
A bucket list is static and sentimental. A someday/maybe list is reviewed monthly and feeds real projects — it is a working document, not a poster.
What belongs on it vs my task list?
Anything you genuinely might do but not this week or month. If it needs action within 30 days, it belongs on the task list; otherwise, park it.
Can it be digital?
Absolutely — a note, a list in your task app, a dedicated page. The format does not matter; the monthly review does.