Working on the right dream

There is a good comment on the previous post, so I wanted to take a minute to address it. It's all too possible to have great plans with good solid goals and be working on the wrong dream. Or worse yet, you could be working on an old dream when you really should be moving on.

When we decided that we had to make a change to our current life, I started looking for solutions in the past. It looked like a good solution. We'd buy an Airstream, travel for a bit, and find a new place to live. I like to travel, we'd lived in an Airstream before, and it seemed like a good five year plan. There were a couple of problems with it, even though it motivated me for most of this year. The first problem was that it wasn't a shared dream. Jeffrey was okay with it, except that it morphed into buying a place to live in the Airstream, without the travel. There was a problem in that it was too far away. The job situation is deteriorating and both of us want out of our jobs as soon as possible. The last problem is that it ignored a lot of current desires. We want to try our hand at growing more of our own food and starting our own businesses. It's tough to grow more of your own food when you travel.

The best thing about that dream and those goals is that they got us started. Once you get started, things start to happen. I had a chance at a flyfishing lesson, something I'd wanted to do for many years. That lead to me travelling to our friend's place with Jeffrey on his weekly trip. We've got a lot of history in that area. We worked at the old tree nursery for 7 years. And it's a small community, so we have friends in the area. All that lead Jeffrey to ask our friend if he'd sell us the place he had on the market. He agreed, so we used the money we'd saved for the Airstream as a down payment. It's a good fit. We'll have the space to try some of our ideas and we'll have a lot of good things to write about. We're moving back as the county is taking over and developing the old tree nursery, so there may even be more work than we're finding here in town. The goals I am writing now seem to be coming together quickly.

It may be that all those carefully made goals are working towards the wrong dream. And it's so easy to get pig-headedly fixed on a particular outcome that you miss something that could be a better fit. That someday/maybe list can be a good roadmap to pointing you in the right direction.

Someday/maybe lists

I rediscovered a book last night, one that I'd read during the time I was laid off. I'd been so impressed by it that I'd bought a copy. The title is "The Practical Dreamer's Handbook" by Paul and Sarah Edwards. It's a book about how to turn your dreams into reality. Their big dream is to move to Pine Mountain. (One of the folks on David Allen's team, maybe Jason Womack, also lives in that area.)

At any rate, this made me think that just maybe most of who we really are winds up on the someday/maybe list. That's really the life we'd like to lead. The stuff on our daily list is the stuff we do to fund our current lives. Maybe, we should be spending a bit more time in that someday/maybe list, turning those items into our daily list and getting rid of many of the things that seem to be so important today.

GTD Meltdown

I haven't done a full review in awhile and my system is starting to break down. There's a lot of stuff floating around in my head that really needs to be on paper. I'm going to have to find the time to catch up a bit and get back in the groove. It happens to everyone at some point.

I read the book and I'm still drowning....

Saw one of those posts on the 43 Folders group from a guy who basically said "I've read the book and I'm still drowning under all this paper." And folks tried to explain to him that really, he hadn't done a full review yet and that he had too many items on his todo list. The thing is, people always think there is a perfect system out there that will fix all the problems with their lives and organize it for them. GTD really is not about systems. It's about habits. If you do the things in the book long enough, it becomes a habit. And that is what helps you get organized, not the system you put things into.

I don't know how well GTD will work when I move out of the work environment into farming. There are still going to be things that need to be done and still a use for that calendar. GTD really is slanted towards corporate management types. It can be used by other corporate drones with some tweaking. I've heard from folks trying to use it on the floor at a manufacturing company with mixed success. When I sit down and do the reviews, it's helpful to me. When I don't do it, my pretty system doesn't seem to make me any more organized.