A finite list, generally geographical in nature, which I can tick off until eventually complete.
My challenge to visit every 1km×1km grid square in Greater London is a good example, even if technically it was more of a tickygrid than a tickylist.
A good tickylist is well-defined and finite.
A good tickylist is challenging but doable.
And a good tickylist can be a lot of fun.
A good tickylist would be "visiting all the London boroughs".
There are 33 London boroughs and all you have to do is set foot in each of them.
In reality a little further definition is required.
What counts as "setting foot in"? (I say vehicles and trains don't count)
Are we including the City of London? (I always say yes, pedants say no)
And what timescale are we talking about? (any time ever, or since a certain date?)
If you're a diamond geezer reader living in London I'd hope you have indeed been to all 33.
But I suspect a lot of Londoners haven't, maybe even a majority.
» Hillingdon's easy because it contains Heathrow, but Harrow's much harder.
» Newham's probably a dead cert, but Havering's much more easily missed.
» Bromley's huge, but who ever makes a special effort to go to Bexley?
» Croydon has a certain magnetism, but Sutton's very easily skipped.
Personally I've been to all 33 boroughs in the last three weeks, but I'm not normal.
A bad tickylist would be "visiting all the pubs in London".
Sure it'd be fun to do, but also expensive, over-abundant and utterly imprecise.
What exactly is a pub anyway, where's the dividing line with 'bar' and 'restaurant'?
Even if you take Camra's definition and use their database, at last count it contained over 4000 pubs and by the time you got to the end of the list it would be horribly out of date.
A better tickylist would be "drinking in a pub in every London borough", or "drinking in every Fullers pub in London", because they're much better defined. You could just try "how many different London pubs can I drink in?" but that's not a tickylist, that's a quantitative challenge.
Here are some tickylists I've completed:
✔ Ride the whole of the tube network (n.b. not necessarily every scrap of track)
✔ Ride every London bus route for at least one stop (I've done this twice, in 2018 and 2022)
✔ Enter or exit every London station in zones 1, 2 and 3
✔ Stand at the highest point in each London borough
✔ Cross every bridge across the Thames in London
✔ Set foot in every (ceremonial) county in England
✔ Set foot in every (preserved) county in Wales
Here are two tickylists I've not completed:
✘ Enter or exit every London tube station (I'm pretty sure I've never been to North Wembley)
✘ Ride the full length of every London bus route (The Ladies Who Bus achieved this awesome target)
These two failures might surprise you. Both tickylists are very much on brand for me, but my long-term record-keeping is insufficient to tally the former and I can't afford the ridiculous amount of time needed to complete the latter.
Here are some tickylists I'm doing well with;
✔✘ Visit all the nations of the UK (like many Britons, I've never been to Northern Ireland)
✔✘ Visit every English city (just Carlisle, Lancaster, Sunderland and Ripon to go)
✔✘ Visit every 100km×100km grid square in England & Wales (just NW, OV, SM, SR and SV to go)
✔✘ Visit the 50 largest English towns and cities (Sunderland, Warrington, Huddersfield, Oldham and Blackburn remain)
✔✘ Visit the 22 principal areas of Wales (I'm just over halfway)
And here are some tickylists I'm never going to complete:
✘ Visit all 92 football league grounds (I'm stuck on 3)
✘ Visit every European country (I've only managed 12 out of 44)
✘ Have sex in every London borough (still 22 unbonked, it turns out)
✘ Walk the length of every British B Road (I stopped after the first 26)
✘ Buy a coffee in every London Starbucks (sorry, you may have mistaken me for someone else there)
Now that I've completed my London grid square tickylist I could really do with another tickylist to keep me occupied. Something plausible, doable, affordable, enjoyable, even mildly formidable, and not just a never-ending quantifiable challenge.
And you might consider tackling a tickylist too. All you need is a good idea within your scope of capabilities and a list on a sheet of paper or in a spreadsheet. If you've not yet been to all 33 London boroughs, seriously, start there.
