What is a Bucket List (2024)

FAQs

What is a Bucket List? ›

A bucket list is a list of the experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime. A bucket list is an itemized list of goals people want to accomplish before they “kick the bucket” — or die.

Anyway, bucket list is a list of items that you would wanna experience in your lifetime. The term originated from the phrase 'kick the bucket '(meaning “to die”) + list, hence a “list of things to do before you die.”

It was coined by the American and British screenwriter Justin Zackham in 1999 when he drew up “Justin's List of Things to Do before I Kick the Bucket” which he shortened to “Justin's Bucket List”. The first item on his list was to have a screenplay produced at a major Hollywood studio.

Without a doubt, the most popular experience on someone's bucket list had to do with travel—and 77% of our survey indicated that they had some sort of travel goal on their personal lists.

It's based on the much older phrase kick the bucket, a colloquial way of saying "die." A bucket list is an inventory of all the things you'd like to do before you die; yours might include running a marathon, getting a tattoo, seeing the northern lights, or writing a novel.

An anti-bucket list is at its essence identifying what we no longer want in our lives.

It allows us to reflect on what matters most to us, on our personal values and identify important life milestones and experiences that we want to have before a certain milestone in our life ( e.g. high school graduation, college graduation, before retirement, before we die).

Having a bucket list isn't for everyone — it depends on you and how you find fulfillment. But it helps motivate you in your everyday life. It can't hurt to dream big, so here are some things to consider if you're going to write one.

A recent Stanford University School of Medicine survey of 3,056 people found that 91% of them had a bucket list — things they want to do before they die.

What is the average bucket list? ›

Accomplish a personal goal (78.3%) - learn something, run a marathon, write a book. Achieve specific life milestones (51%) - get married, have a child, reach a wedding anniversary milestone, see their children have kids. Spend quality time with friends and family (16.7%)

Today, the meaning has expanded to encompass goals people want to achieve by certain ages or other milestones. So, whether you're five or 95 years old, sick or healthy, it's never a wrong time to create a bucket list.

A bucket list is a list of tasks or experiences that one would like to have prior to their death. Create your bulleted bucket list of at least 10 items. You may choose to have more items than 10 for this list. You may want to think of the following questions as you create your list: Who do I want to meet?

So if somebody says 'It's on my bucket list', they are talking about a thing they would like try at least once in their lifetime. This thing is something that people don't usually do in their everyday lives, for example, go sky-diving, go to a live-concert, or travel to a far off place.