I have picked up a few of the self help manage yourself you rule type of books but they all seem to be written by people who already seemed a bit focused or organised!
I just want to start heading in the right direction and need a plan that an ex dope smoking day dreaming lazy bum, think The Big Lebowski meets Lloyd Christmas) but in an honest kinda way, can get into.
Yeah I gave up the green stuff years ago and don’t like the taste of alcohol and tobacco (blessing or curse you decide).
I don’t need a fancy car but would love to buy and fix up a place sometime again but living in Surrey with massive debt from an accident a few years ago leaves me thinking it’s more and more of a pipe dream.
Add 2 kids to the equation means I don’t want to work 24/7 but spend quality time with my wife and boys but also not have them living in rags, take them on some cool holidays and get to do a couple of enduro races, or cx in winter.
So I’m thinking of putting together a sort of time table, you know like the one we had at school with double science on a Friday so I know exactly when to have certain things done by or if they’re not finished I will get to them tomorrow.
But that’s the hard part, I’m not a great starter but a good procrastinator and suck at finishing things but when I’m in the middle of stuff I seem to hit a nice stride til I get distracted by something or just remembered something else.

So,well done if you have read this far, is there any routine guides you guys follow that will include a bit of training on the bike, running your own business (yes, I’m self employed) and give quality time to your loved ones, while clearing debt and then saving for a house.

I was told by a successful dude a good wheelie is sign if a misspent youth, I’d just like to show him he’s wrong!!!

Put your prices up and quit work at 4pm every day.

If you find an answer let me know

certainly not engineering for a pittance

Get into the bike leasing business, you could retire in about 5 years.

Do you have to live in Surrey? Nothing against the place but from reading on here it does sound an expensive place to live.

There are other places in this country that probably cost a lot less to live in where the lifestyle you describe is possible on a more modest income.

is there much surf in surrey?

I can wheelie for ages. Your mate talks sense.

So,well done if you have read this far, is there any routine guides you guys follow that will include a bit of training on the bike, running your own business (yes, I’m self employed) and give quality time to your loved ones, while clearing debt and then saving for a house

Try the Protestant work ethic (or the Puritan work ethic) which is a concept in theology, sociology, economics and history which emphasizes hard work, frugality and diligence.

You’ve been a slacker, time to stop.

Read crikeys post above as: Hair shirt, flagilation, guilt, fear, self loathing, repression, detachment, reactionary tendencies, hatred of difference and you’ll be fine, it’s character building

Worry about it tomorrow..

is there much surf in surrey?

No hence title..

for what its worth…

i went to a remembrance service a few weeks back on the beach, for a guy i had lost touch with years ago but who in the early/mid 80’s (when we all lived in vans or sheds (i did both), worked the summer trade, drunk/smoked, thought only of surf and then off abroad for the winter) was one of the crew.

the guy was originally from up north. he was a good few years older than the rest of us. and i guess you have to remember that surfing then was very different to the mass marketed socially acceptible thing it is now, and certainly back then, from where he came from, it may well have taken place on jupiter it was so out there.

anyhow, at the service his sister said of him that the family always worried. he was a complete dreamer, he never really held down a job, and he just cruised around cornwall doing enough to get by. they worried what would happen when he got old. but in the end, what happened was that he actually spent his whole life living his dream.

i think thats a beautiful way to be remembered, and if thats what they say about you at the end, its no bad thing.

Nice story Gav.

It is a nice story, but for everyone living the dream, catching that perfect wave, there are another 1,000 people working in the oil industry to provide the fuel for the van, the cheap food to live on, the water industry to take away the sewage, the education industry to teach folk to read, the waste industry to take away the rubbish, the rubber industry to tyre the vehicle, the insurance industry to cover the vehicle, the health industry, the councils, the people who make the society safe enough for people to have the luxury of not doing a great deal apart from following that dream, man.

It’s a nice way to be able to live and I do appreciate the story, but as with the ideal home for STWers, it requires an awful lot of folk not living any kind of dream to work hard to create the opportunity or space to allow it to happen.

Only in the supermarkets.

These snippets of wisdom had guided my own path in life thus far:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/07/24/the-only-thing-you-need-to-remember-about-the-seven-habits-of-highly-effective-people/
Link

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/07/24/the-only-thing-you-need-to-remember-about-the-seven-habits-of-highly-effective-people/

bit of a spurious argument there crikey. A surf bum owes the next man nothing just because the next man milks cows or underwrites shipping insurance. Should everyones life choices be influenced by what other people do in theirs? I think not.

The more logical point of view is that to be a bum is fine, so long as you can do it without abusing the generosity/charity of other people. Society might not need surf bums, but it would be depressing if they didnt exist.

However, if Mr Surf Bum wishes to upgrade his life to one of financial security, comfort, and the nuclear family then yes, it requires a rather committed change in their approach to life. Which I think is what the OP was searching for in his FP.

I’m like you.

If I don’t get anywhere within one year I’m going over to Paris and walking into a Foreign Legion recruitment office (mostly to be different to my mates who joined the Marines/Pongo’s). Otherwise I’m going to wind up a hopeless dreamer. Nothing like being utterly broken down mentally and being built back up to sort that out. I consider this a better option than entering a downward spiral of depression.

Should everyones life choices be influenced by what other people do in theirs? I think not.

Um, I disagree.

The option to be a surf bum is one that only exists because everyone else chooses not to be. Just like the STW dream of living in that little house in the country, it relies on lots of other people working hard to allow it.

I had an experience that hardened my opinion in this regard; I’d worked a 7 night stretch in hospital and on the last morning before I went home I got a lecture from a crusty juggling type who had fallen and broken his leg. He was intent on telling me how I didn’t need to be part of ‘corrupt society, man’ and how he was going to set up a new style of living, man, that would see everyone provided for, man.

The irony of someone pretending to live outside society yet using it whenever he needed to was lost on him.

‘From each according to his ability’ is the important bit…

Frankly I never liked hard work. I like fun work, and fun to me means challenging. Sometimes it means dedicating a bit more time and focus than is comfortable to succeed, and to risk failure.

Hard work is that which makes you miserable, unrewarded and envious.

Bigad40, you’ve had a good run but clearly life is now getting serious, so you have to up the ante and get your act together.

I was a ner’do well who joined the forces which gave me a purpose and direction. I’m sure having kids will help focus your mind. Anyway ( I live in Surrey btw) your path to a reasonable lifestyle is thru sales. You can get a job reasonably easily, but if you don’t get results, you’re out! So you have to focus, stay motivated to just keep your job. Once you start to succeed it will be the fear of failing that will drive you forward.

In a nutshell, there is no easy route to what you are asking for, it takes effort and persistence. You just have to decide to grow up and go out and get it!

Edit: and…. If you do well, you will find that sales offers flexible time and an easy life. People leave you alone if you are doing the job well.

hang on, who said anything about not working and scrounging? bit of stereotyping going on their crikey.

everyone i know, my departed friend included, choose to work for a reason. the reason being the freedom to take off all winter mostly. that does not cost the poor dear 9-5 – 4 weeks holiday a year sheep anything.

Self employment and large amounts of quality time rarely go hand in hand.

that does not cost the poor dear 9-5 – 4 weeks holiday a year sheep anything.

Poor dear sheep?

Clearly living the dream isn’t helping you understand others choices.

Open a bike shop. Call yourself the Bikemonger. Is your name Charlie?