Dont be a dreamer, be a planner

Dont be a dreamer, be a planner Let go of your dreams. They are stupid. Im going to show you why. But first, let me say that Im a big fan of deciding what you want for your life. Its just that Im a practical person. If you say you want stuff you cant have [insert here, for example, a list of 20 things you have to have in a new job] youll never get it. So the first step to getting what you want is dumping all your dreams. Heres why: 1. Dreams are distractions from what you are good at.   I have dreams. Thats why I know they are stupid. I have the dream that I look like a model with perfectly pulled together outfits and three-inch heels to match. But I keep shopping at sneaker stores. So my dream just distracts from my efforts at being my best self. Another dream is that I can write like Stephen Rodrick in his piece titled, Here is What Happens When You Cast Lindsay Lohan in Your Movie. Oh my gosh, its so fun to read and he has so much insight about Hollywood. But heres the truth: I could never write like this. He had to hang out with Hollywood types for a long time to have this insight, and then he wrote a piece that is like, ten times longer than my longest blog post. So it would be impossible for me to write like this. I can like it without dreaming that I can do it. 2. Dream are not goals. They are information about where you can grow.   Another thing I do is see a good video and think: I need to do one like this. And I start dreaming about how I could do it. Heres the best travel video Ive ever seen.  Its great  because I hate travel, but also because its so simple. I am scared to be simple. I am scared I wont keep you interested. So what I want is this guys bravery to trust in himself that its worth doing something simple. 3. Dreams are things that nag you. Thats why I hate them.   If you want to be a good blogger, you have to read Barstool Sports. I love it so much. Its a good bet that every day on this site is  NSFW, but I love the site for how smart it is. Its the new millennium version of reading Playboy for the articles.  Heres a post from yesterday  (that is, actually, safe to read at your office) and its such a good post that I had to pause and take a breath after it. I had to think a lot about why its good and how I can use it to make myself better at writing posts. Sometimes my dream is to write like the guys at Barstool Sports. But I remind myself that I take life too seriously to write like them. Id feel stupid after a while. So I like reading the site but I wouldnt like being more like the site. When I acknowledge that about myself, I feel better reading the post. 4. Goals are dreams that have a plan. Goals get done. Dreams dont get done.   My son is obsessed with the apocalypse. Im not really even sure what the apocalypse is. I thought it was peak oil, but increasingly I think that its zombies. At any rate, he has joined the ranks of those making extensive preparations. At first I ignored his rants about off-the-grid heating and stockpiling food. But then I thought: learning moment. And I showed him how to use Microsoft Project to turn his dream of survival into a plan. Now each family member has assignments, and, surprisingly enough, we are doing them. The Farmer just bought a generator, I found  Enerhealths bucket of food for forty days of survival  (its organic!),  and my son is investigating  Radiant Heating  for our floors. 5. Most people who talk about living their dreams are delusional.   If you are doing what you love to do you are living your plan, not your dream. So, okay, Im a lucky duck that I get to write about whatever I want and get paid for it. But do you know what I did to get here? Write every single day of my life since I was pre-literate. I didnt spend every day saying my dream is to write I spent every day writing. And this is true of people who are living their dreams. But the world doesnt like hearing about hard workthe world likes hearing you can do anything (which is stupid because of course you cannot do anything.) Live your dreams lives in the same realm as the BS of you can do anything. 6. Kill your dreams with productivity tools. Really.   Do you know how I get the life I want? By being a total nut about getting things done. First, I spent years learning how to create a to do list that will get me where I want to be in life. Now, when I find myself ignoring my to do list on a regular basis I tell myself I have to find different tools for managing my plans. Because I dont have dreams, I have plans. I love the pitch I read from Easilydo: The average person makes 35,000 decisions a day and the difficulty of juggling multiple productivity apps makes that harder. This pitch reminds me of the studies about decision fatigue  that we get from making decisions all day. So I am trying Easilydo to decrease my decision fatigue, which will help me focus on plans. (You can try it out if you want:  download Easilydo here.) When you think about your dreams, think instead about productivity tools. I know its not nearly as romantic, but if you want to be excited about your life, its going to be the plans you make an actually implement, not the dreams you spew to your friends.