Frustrated by your goals? Take them public with 43things. 43things asks, "What do you want to do with your life?", and you reply "go to Barcelona", "drink more beer", or perhaps "swim with sharks".
Much like Flickr, 43things knows what's hot. While Flickr tracks the most popular tags, 43things tracks the "zeitgeist", that is, the day's most popular goals. You may not be surprised by what you find here—"lose weight" is permanently at number one—but it's interesting all the same.
Perhaps more interesting is the ability to track the zeitgeist by city. Compare the goals of Wellingtonians with the goals of Londoners. OK, so a small sample size means a large margin of error, but the idea is there for all to see. Fascinating.
In setting out to achieve a goal it's nice to be able to draw on other people's experience and advice. 86 people have the desire to get a PhD. Five out of six people who have achieved this goal thought it was "worth doing". One achiever is even willing to help! Can one person have enough time to help 86 people with their PhDs? No matter, Google's ad-sense offers links to "Easy American Degrees".
I've signed up: here I am. Those of you who share my excitement about Flickr will notice something very cool. My 43things page shows my most recent Flickr photos. For someone who can still remember the days when the various shards of Microsoft Office didn't even share the same address book, this is very, very nice.
