Publish young adult novel.
Design subversive T-shirt line.
Form all-girl Weezer cover band.

I’ve been writing to-do lists like this for years. The items may change, but few are checked off as completed. When goals are confined to notebooks—or even worse, kept in your head—they’re pretty easy to ignore or even forget. Meet 43 Things. The networking site by Seattle’s Robot Co-op (who also run 43 Places, 43 People and All Consuming) lets you put those dreams out there, track your progress and actually make things happen. The all-time No. 1 goal on 43 Things? “Lose weight.” The goal achieved by most people: “Fall in love.”

The Petri Project, written by Swivel editor and RIVET contributor Brangien Davis, is a new blog companion to 43 Things that chronicles the big and small changes people are making in their lives every day. It’s only a few weeks old, so catching up on the small backlog of posts should be easy enough to cross off your list.