I have no life plans and I'm proud of it!

Daily target: 324 words. Written: 662. I can't find the author of the photo. 🙁

What plans am I making? What plans are those around me making? My daily routine used to be like this:

1. I wake up;
2. I creep into lectures where I snooze OR I stay at home and snooze here;
3. I spend N minutes on Facebook and online entertainment (because I need a break!);
4. In the evening, when I realise that I have done very little, I gather my strength for the last wave of Kamehameha and rush off to write, to study or to reply to endless letters and requests;
5. At one or two o'clock at night, I fall asleep until the next morning.

And these days, strangely enough, did not go against my plans at all. I had hundreds of plans, and despite the constant juggling of work, I believed in the value of plans.

 * Insert a slow violin melody here, foretelling disaster. *

I had lots of plans.

The only problem is: Half of the plans became useless after a few days, changes and unexpected discoveries meant they had to be replaced by new ones, and the other half didn't go where they wanted to go.

I believed in the plans. I lived by them, I created them, and I changed them as necessary to suit the situation.

...When I think back to those days, I may even have planned more than I worked.

And how much are you planning?

I believe there are several types of planners:

1. Those who plan rigorously and live according to their plans;
2. Those who plan rigorously, but whose plans are constantly changing;
3. Those who plan little and live happily;
4. Those who plan little and do nothing.

We all tend to lean one way or the other. I, for example, used to be the one who planned everything, but had a hard time keeping it (B).

How are you?

Idea: Long-term plans are not as valuable as some authors make them out to be.

You may also have long plans. Very long plans. For a month. For three. A year. Maybe even a list of "ideas of what I'll be like in five years", which is quite a popular exercise in self-development, self-actualisation, self-improvement in circles.

But what is the real value of long-term plans?

Before we try to explore this, let's define what I am talking about. There are three types of plans:

1. Long-term - planned for a year, six months;
2. Short-term - days;
3. Non-existent.

Imagine that you are like me once, you make a plan for your life. 

Or not necessarily life - you create a five-year pattern of what you will look like and where you will be in the future. You know, there are some popular exercises that you might like to try.

Do you have such long-term plans? Predictions about what you will look like after all this time and what you will do then? What will you be and what will you do? Who will you get to know or enjoy? What will you do next summer or on your next holiday? Do you remember them?

So here it is...

...The biggest problem is that we have no idea what the future will look like.

A) We don't know what we will become.

In fact, even if we plan, or our parents plan for us from childhood, we do not know whether it will come true. It is probably better to call it "guessing" than "planning". I found this idea in the bestseller on starting a business, Rework.

Accidents, heart attacks, armed attacks by Buddhist terrorists, despair and suicidal thoughts; changes in the economy, political system or hobbies. All these can happen. Maybe not at the same time (let's face it, it would be an interesting scenario), but any one of these things is enough.

If you still don't believe it - then tell me, are you really pursuing at this moment what you most wanted at seven? Seventeen? Or twenty-one?

B) Most of the time, we don't become those people.

Even though we try hard, stretch ourselves like a rubber band, read self-help books and all kinds of Debesylas, or work 15 hours a day and get more and more tired. ...And still we get nothing. In fact, there is even a belief among some people:

"I work, I work and I earn nothing. ...So I need to work harder!"

- Your thoughts, perhaps?

But why? For what?

Why is it assumed that if you keep doing what you've been doing and what hasn't worked, it will magically start working? After one more day at a job you hate, a few more new acquaintances, or when your savings in the bank cross the five-zero zone?

What are your plans?

For the most part, our life is a guessing game. Just like it was for our parents or grandparents - you can go and ask them (if they are still alive) what they planned when they were younger and what they have actually done up to now.

And that's why I abandoned my plans.

That's why I have projects that I am working on. Training programmes: the Onbo, the Direction; books: the Lazy Man Manifesto and another one in the pipeline; my blog and health. A hobby to learn Russian every day through the Duolingo and Don't-Wink-Don't-Do-One-Day project.

No plans are needed.

Here, plans would only waste time.

Instead of planning, I work.

And I'm proud of that.

Would you join?

Not planning,
Daniel