Someday·Maybe list

The Someday/Maybe list is an organized “parking lot” for projects and possibilities that a person may want to pursue later but cannot or does not want to act on now. Its significance lies in keeping an option available without allowing it to masquerade as a present commitment: the idea is recorded, revisited at intervals, and reconsidered when circumstances change.

Purpose and place in the system

The list belongs to a broader distinction between actionable and nonactionable material. Some items require no immediate action but should still be kept; without a clear place for them, they can blur together with active work in piles, stacks, and lists, leaving it difficult to tell what needs doing. The list holds the possibilities that cannot currently move forward but should not be forgotten altogether.

This arrangement also answers a problem of mental capacity. In the book’s analogy, short-term memory functions like a computer’s RAM: it has limited room for incomplete and undecided matters, while conscious attention is better understood as a focusing tool than as storage. When an unresolved possibility keeps returning to mind without being captured in a trusted system, it can draw attention and generate worry without producing progress. Recording it for later review moves the burden of remembering out of the mind and into an external structure.

What the list holds

The examples show that the list can contain ambitions as well as ordinary interests. A partial list includes getting a bass-fishing boat, creating promotional videos of staff, setting up a not-for-profit foundation, and setting up remote-server access at home. These are not presented as tasks already in motion; they are possibilities retained for future consideration.

The list can also be divided into subcategories suited to the kinds of options a person wants to keep visible. Suggested examples include CDs to consider, videos to rent, things to do with the kids, and seminars to take. Such groupings give unlike possibilities a place within the same holding system without turning them into a single undifferentiated inventory.

The deciding feature is not that an item is unimportant, but that action is not appropriate yet. The example of a brochure for the local symphony makes the distinction concrete: a program of interest is still four months away, and uncertainty about the reader’s travel schedule makes an immediate decision premature. The possibility can be preserved so it remains available for reassessment if the reader will be in town.

Review and reconsideration

A Someday/Maybe list only serves its purpose if it is reviewed periodically. The book recommends scanning its contents during the Weekly Review, alongside open loops and projects, active project plans, Next Actions, Agendas, and Waiting For items. This regular examination keeps the possibilities from becoming a forgotten archive and gives the person an opportunity to decide whether circumstances now permit action.

The list therefore holds options in suspension rather than resolving them once and for all. Its contents can remain uncommitted while still being retrievable and reviewable. That balance matters: a possibility need not occupy current attention merely because it has not been rejected, but it also need not disappear simply because the time is not right.

Distinction from dated reminders

The book describes two systems for incubating matters that require no immediate action: the Someday/Maybe list and a tickler file. The latter is designed to bring something back on a designated future day, in effect mailing it to oneself for later receipt. A calendar can serve a similar date-specific role: it might prompt someone on March 15 that taxes are due in a month, or on September 12 that Swan Lake will be presented by the Bolshoi at the Civic Auditorium in six weeks.

The Someday/Maybe list, by contrast, is presented as an ongoing collection of possibilities to revisit at regular intervals, not simply a set of items assigned individual reminder dates. Together, these methods preserve the difference between a future option awaiting reconsideration and a matter tied to a particular date. The list’s practical value rests on that distinction: it keeps the future open while leaving the present’s actions clear.