These Lists Will Change Your Life
Things I've Been Enjoying - January 2, 2025
Happy New Year!
Thank you for reading this newsletter for yet another year. Time continues to fly by, and I’m doing my best to appreciate every minute of it. There may come a time when I’m too busy with other projects to write these each week, so I’m especially grateful for the opportunity to continue doing so right now.
I’m kicking off the new year by sharing my favorite lists from the past 366 days. Some are meant to motivate you, others to help organize your thoughts and simplify goal-setting, and a few are just plain entertaining. I hope you find one that resonates with you. If you do, bookmark it! These are great resources to return to time and time again.
I always try to stay optimistic, and I have a strong feeling that 2025 is going to be an exciting year for all of us. Let’s make it happen!
Much love.
Matt
Here are some Things I’ve Been Enjoying:
I’m beginning with the same link I shared at the start of 2024, 8 Lists You Should Be Keeping. Maybe you worked some of these into your life last year. Maybe you were going to but forgot. Well, now’s a perfect time to start them for real! They can be as simple as a note on your phone. Start now, you won’t regret it.
Going to the moon was never popular, fidget spinners don’t work, and bulls can’t see the color red. Kent Hendricks is back with 52 Things I Learned In 2024, my favorite list of fun facts every year.
For those of you who like movies, here’s a list of every film I watched in 2024. It’s interesting to see that, despite getting AMC A-List, the number of movies I watched this year was about the same as I watched last year. However, the percentage I watched in theaters (21%) was triple the amount I watched in theaters last year (7%). That was the goal! I love seeing movies in theaters!
What’s better than a “Best Books of the Year” list? Taking 69 of those lists and distilling them down into one definitive master list showcasing the absolute best books of the year. The top book appeared on 33 of the lists!
Golden horses in Siberia. A jade mask in Guatemala. A wall beneath the Baltic Sea. These are just three of the Top 10 Archeological Discoveries of 2024.
Do you know how to pronounce Zendaya? How about Barry Keoghan? Shein? Here’s a list of 2024’s most mispronounced words, and how to say them correctly.
On a similar note, here’s a fairly accurate list of current teenage slang. I know lists like this are cringe to zoomers who think it’s sus that unc is trying to learn the tea, but I say - let em cook!
Writer Kevin Kelly, famous for his “1,000 True Fans” piece, once gave his children 68 bits of unsolicited advice on his 68th birthday. This year he returned with 101 Additional Advices - things he wishes he would’ve been told at their age. Lots of sage wisdom in here.
For a somewhat funnier, partially crowdsourced version of the above, I recommend Jacob Falkovich’s 100 Ways To Live Better.
And finally, here are 100 Tips For A Better Life.
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