PDF Summary:Someday Is Today, by Matthew Dicks

Everyone dreams of achieving extraordinary things. However, Matthew Dicks argues that most of us end up being mediocre because we see our goals as abstract and distant—things we might be able to achieve at some point, but not right now. This mindset makes us delay taking action toward our goals, and consequently, we never reach them. In Someday Is Today, Dicks argues that achieving your dreams and overcoming mediocrity is possible, but only if you start acting now.

This guide will explore Dicks’s tips for accomplishing extraordinary things. We’ll discuss how to maximize your time, efficiency, productivity, and creative potential so you can make the most of your life and become as successful as possible, as soon as possible. In our commentary, we’ll supplement Dicks’s recommendations with input from other productivity and creativity experts like Brené Brown (Daring Greatly) and Tiago Forte (Building a Second Brain).

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Tip #2: Take Precautions to Get Good Sleep

Second, Dicks recommends engaging in behaviors that promote good sleep—exercise during the day to release energy, create a wind-down routine before bed to prepare your body for rest, sleep with white noise, and make sure the room’s a comfortable temperature at 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Your body and mind will be ready to fall asleep as soon as you get into bed, so you won’t waste any time.

Building on Dicks’s Sleep Strategies

Many of Dicks’s recommendations for how to get good sleep are shared by sleep experts, who provide additional details to ensure you get the best sleep possible.

First, some sleep scientists argue that certain exercises are more effective at promoting sleep than others. Cardio, resistance exercises (like weightlifting), and yoga may be most effective for improving sleep quality. Cardio and resistance exercises also improve blood pressure and reduce stress and anxiety, while yoga reduces pain in the neck and back.

Second, some experts specify that your wind-down routine should start one to two hours before your bedtime for maximum effect.

Finally, some sleep scientists note that while 65 degrees Fahrenheit is generally a good temperature for sleep, the “ideal” temperature may vary from person to person. Ultimately, keeping the thermostat set between 60 and 67 degrees should be fine.

Note that some experts don’t agree that white noise increases sleep quality. Instead, it may disrupt sleep quality by preventing the brain from fully switching off.

Tip #3: Sleep Less

Dicks contends that many people think they need more sleep than they actually do. After following the aforementioned suggestions to ensure your sleep is productive, he suggests reducing the time you spend sleeping to see if you wake up well-rested. For example, cut your sleep time by 30 minutes one week, then an hour the next—you might even be able to sleep as little as five and a half hours per night, as Dicks does.

(Shortform note: Dicks recommends sleeping less, but he doesn’t specify what your ultimate sleep time goal should be. Experts elaborate that the amount of sleep you require mostly depends on your age—teenagers (14 to 17 years) need eight to 10 hours per night, adults (18 to 64 years) need seven to nine hours per night, and older adults (65 years and over) need seven to eight hours per night. Further, they explain that getting six hours of sleep or less per night (as Dicks does) can be detrimental, causing a poor mood, lower quality of life, impaired physical performance, and health problems like obesity and heart issues.)

Principle #5: Stop Spending Time on Negative People

Finally, minimize the time you spend engaging with and thinking about negative people, Dicks recommends. When you do spend time with them, you waste time thinking about things that don’t matter, like what caused their harmful behavior or whether you deserved it. Further, their negative behavior can rub off on you and cause you to be more negative—more self-doubting, more unmotivated, and so on—which sabotages your productivity.

(Shortform note: In Be Your Future Self Now, Benjamin Hardy agrees that the people you spend time with impact your ability to succeed. However, rather than focusing on managing the negative people in your life, Hardy emphasizes building new connections with people who are better than you or embody your ideal self. When you spend time with these people, their positive behaviors will rub off on you, and you’ll learn how to become successful from watching their strategies.)

Dicks presents three main tips for managing negative people so you don't waste time thinking about them.

Tip #1: Try To Understand Them

Dicks explains that understanding why someone acted negatively will make it easier for you to forgive them and stop thinking about the situation. Further, even if you can’t forgive them, understanding them will put the issue to rest in your mind. This technique is most helpful when the offender is someone you have to remain in contact with.

Tip #2: Avoid Them

If you can’t understand the other person, Dicks recommends avoiding them. Do this by either removing them from your life or creating boundaries to minimize your exposure to them. For example, if your parents frequently invite themselves over for dinner just to criticize your home and your cooking, create a boundary where they can’t come over any more—you’ll go to them. This will prevent further criticisms that will plague your thoughts.

(Shortform note: Some experts reiterate Dicks’s recommendations here. However, they argue that before blaming negativity on others and taking action against them, it’s important to understand yourself and your emotions: Consider whether you might be the underlying problem. For example, you might label tardy people as “negative” and forgive or avoid them to protect your peace. However, their tardiness isn’t the real issue—everyone is tardy sometimes, and you can’t realistically remove every tardy person from your life. Instead, the underlying issue is your negative response—you don’t need to get angry whenever someone’s late. A more sustainable solution in this case is to address your negative reaction.)

Tip #3: Add Them to an Adversaries List

If someone did something so horrible to you that you can’t understand them and avoiding them doesn’t prevent you from thinking about them, Dicks recommends adding them to a list of adversaries. This will help you put your thoughts about them aside for now. In the future, you can try again to understand them, or you can plan your revenge.

(Shortform note: Some experts agree that setting an issue aside for a while is a good idea because it helps you develop new perspectives on the situation, which can foster mutual understanding. However, saving an issue for later with the intention of getting revenge isn’t recommended. While revenge can provide catharsis in the moment, it doesn’t rid you of negative feelings. Instead, it starts an endless cycle of retribution, causing you to waste more time on negative feelings.)

Part 2: Maximize Your Productivity and Reach Your Full Potential

Now that you’ve eliminated time-wasters and increased your efficiency on necessary tasks, Dicks argues you must learn how to maximize your productivity and reach your full potential so you can become as successful as possible, as soon as possible. In the following sections, we’ll discuss Dicks’s top six principles for doing so.

Principle #1: Use Every Spare Moment to Do Something Productive

First, Dicks suggests using every spare moment to make progress toward your goals. He explains that most people struggle to make progress because they feel like they don’t have time to be productive, or they’re waiting for the right conditions—for example, a quiet space, an hour’s time block, the “right” hour of the day, and so on. However, these are just excuses to delay taking action. You don’t need perfect conditions to get started: All you need is a few minutes of free time.

For example, if you’re waiting for your professor to start her lesson, pull out your notebook and start brainstorming your next creative project—even if you only have a few minutes, you’ll be a few minutes closer to reaching your goal.

(Shortform note: Using every spare moment to do something productive might be counterproductive because it leaves no time for breaks. In Hyperfocus, Chris Bailey explains that rest—not just sleep, but restful breaks throughout the day—is essential to productivity because it increases your working memory capacity and your ability to focus on and perform tasks effectively. Consequently, Bailey recommends taking a 15-minute break every 90 minutes or so. During this time, don’t perform any tasks (even menial ones like scrolling on social media)—just let your brain wander.)

Principle #2: Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

Second, avoid putting all your eggs in one basket, Dicks suggests. He explains that people who dedicate themselves solely to one goal, discipline, or area of interest won’t reach their full potential and achieve extraordinary things. They’re blind to additional areas in which they might thrive because they’ve never considered pursuing them.

To overcome this self-limiting behavior, Dicks offers two tips.

Tip #1: Take Every Opportunity

Dicks argues that you should take every opportunity you’re presented with, even if it doesn’t necessarily contribute to your current goal. Saying yes is always better than saying no because the benefits outweigh the costs. If you say yes, you might discover a new passion or avenue for success that you were blind to before. However, if you say no, you might miss out, and you’ll likely never receive the same opportunity again. If you decide an opportunity isn’t for you after trying it, just say no next time—it’s OK to change your mind.

(Shortform note: While Dicks promotes taking every opportunity and exploring different paths, Robert Greene disagrees. In The 48 Laws of Power, Greene’s 23rd Law is to concentrate your energy and resources (like time and effort) on the areas where you’ll gain the most. Not only will you make faster progress, but you’ll also build connections with powerful people in your areas of interest who can help you progress faster. On the other hand, accepting every opportunity and exploring different paths disperses your energy in too many directions, meaning you’ll progress slowly in all areas.)

Tip #2: Branch Out

Second, pursue multiple goals, disciplines, or areas of interest at the same time, Dicks notes. This is important for two main reasons:

1. You’ll solve problems and remain productive in the meantime. If you get stuck on one project, you can continue being productive by working on something else rather than sitting idly until a solution comes to you. When you think of a solution, you can return to the original project having made progress toward another goal in the meantime.

(Shortform note: While Dicks recommends switching to another project to remain productive while brainstorming solutions, Barbara Oakley suggests that giving yourself a break instead might be more effective. This is because your brain will naturally switch between two modes of thinking—from focused mode (high concentration) to diffuse mode (letting your brain wander). When you encounter a problem, switching to diffuse mode helps you take a broader view of the issue and come up with creative solutions you might not have thought of while in focused mode. If you neglect to give your brain the diffuse time it needs, you may become too hyper-focused to see solutions that might otherwise become obvious.)

2. You’ll increase your creativity. Dicks explains that gaining experience in different areas will help you expand your knowledge and draw connections between seemingly different ideas or disciplines. This improves your ability to come up with unique insights.

(Shortform note: Some education experts agree that engaging in numerous disciplines or areas of interest increases creativity. This concept has led to the rise of “interdisciplinary study” at universities: Students choose numerous disciplines to focus on, and they apply knowledge learned in one discipline to others to deepen their learning. In addition to boosting creativity (unique ideas and connections), interdisciplinary study also increases motivation, depth of learning, critical thinking skills, and the desire for life-long learning.)

Principle #3: Fail Often

Next, Dicks recommends pushing yourself and failing often. He argues that to progress, you must fail first—the more you fail, the closer you’ll get to success. Failing makes you realize what you’re doing wrong, and every attempt from that point on will be better as you correct your mistakes.

Analyze Your Failures Using the ‘Five Whys’ Technique

Some experts agree that pushing yourself and learning from your failures is crucial to reaching your goals. They add to Dicks’s argument by specifying how exactly you can use your failures to your advantage: Objectively analyze your failures to determine what went wrong. You could use the ‘Five Whys’ technique: First, ask yourself why things didn't go as planned at the most surface level. Then, ask yourself why your answer was the case. Finally, repeat the process three more times until you’ve asked “why” a total of five times. You’ll uncover the fundamental reason for your failure so you can learn from and avoid it in the future.

For example, imagine you failed to get a graphic design job you applied for. Your five whys would be (1) Why did I fail to get the job? Because my style didn’t match the company’s needs. (2) Why didn’t my style match? Likely because my designs are fairly simple compared to the intricate designs featured on their website. (3) Why are my designs too simple? Probably because I’m used to designing for local businesses rather than big corporations. (4) Why do I always design for local companies? Because I tend to apply for smaller jobs that I feel confident I’ll receive. (5) Why do I only apply for these types of jobs? Because I fear rejection.

Ultimately, your fear of rejection led to your failure in this situation because it prevented you from pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and adapting your graphic design style.

Principle #4: Motivate and Inspire Yourself

Dicks also advocates learning how to motivate and inspire yourself. He believes this is crucial to implementing his previous recommendation to fail often—you’ll only be resilient and persistent enough to learn from your disappointing failures and keep pursuing success if you can motivate yourself. Further, aside from failure, you’ll encounter many obstacles on the path to success that require motivation to overcome—disrupted plans, rejections, and more.

(Shortform note: In Grit, Angela Duckworth reiterates Dicks’s point that the ability to motivate yourself and persevere through adversity (what she calls having “grit”) is crucial to achieving success. Duckworth elaborates that this ability develops through three main stages: First, you develop interest in your goal—a desire to learn more about your goal and explore it playfully. Second, you practice—transition from playfully exploring your goal into intentionally improving your skills. Third, you develop a purpose—a deeper meaning for reaching your goal, such as helping others. Finally, Duckworth notes that for each of these stages to result in grit, they must be accompanied by hope that you’ll succeed or improve.)

Dicks offers three tips for building internal motivation and inspiration.

Tip #1: Find Your Why

Remembering the underlying reasons why you’re pursuing your goals will inspire and motivate you to continue. To identify these reasons, reflect on your life experiences and determine what influenced your choice of goals. Dicks explains that the more reasons you have for pursuing your goals, and the deeper these reasons are, the more motivated you’ll be to persist.

For example, you might think you want to be an actress because you love entertaining people. However, when you dig deep, you realize that this passion stems from a desire to empathize with and understand other people—becoming different characters allows you to accomplish this.

(Shortform note: Dicks’s recommendation to motivate yourself by identifying the underlying reasons why you’re pursuing your goals is commonly referred to as finding intrinsic motivation—a drive that originates inside you. Alongside considering your purpose, other ways to develop intrinsic motivation include retaining full control over your actions; deepening your bonds with people who share your goal (for instance, your colleagues); and ensuring you have the skills needed to fulfill your goal.)

Tip #2: Reflect On Your Struggles and Successes

Dicks notes that it’s easy to get worn down and feel like giving up when you face barriers or fail to see results from your work. To persist through these challenges, remind yourself of all the hardships you’ve faced in the past and how you overcame them—you’ll develop the pride and motivation needed to continue. If you struggled and persisted once, you can do it again.

(Shortform note: While Dicks recommends reflecting on both your struggles and successes, it can be particularly difficult to recall your accomplishments and positive experiences due to the “negativity bias”—the human tendency to focus more on negative situations than positive ones. To challenge this bias and better equip yourself to follow Dicks’s recommendation, start keeping a tally of all the positive things you’ve accomplished%20Challenge%20the%20Negativity%20Bias). For example, each night before bed, record three positive things that happened during your day.)

Tip #3: Celebrate Your Achievements

Celebrate your achievements, big and small, as you progress toward your goals, Dicks suggests. You’ll remember that you’re making progress and feel inspired to keep going. Don’t wait until you’ve reached some lofty level of success—celebrate every small achievement along the way. For example, don’t wait until you’ve won an Emmy Award to celebrate your success as an actress—celebrate when you get an agent, complete your first audition, get your first role, and so on.

Celebration Motivates You by Altering Your Brain Networks

In Tiny Habits, BJ Fogg explains that celebrating small successes helps you progress toward your goals not only by inspiring you but also by altering your brain networks—the connectors in your brain that link experiences with thoughts and emotions. If you do something challenging, your brain might link that experience with negative thoughts and emotions due to your struggle to complete the task, discouraging you from repeating the experience. However, if you celebrate after this hard work, you’ll feel good, and your brain will reinforce the behavioral patterns that led to your celebration. This encourages you to repeat the behavior.

For example, imagine you’re auditioning for 20 different acting roles. Celebrating each time you complete an audition by treating yourself to your favorite bagel for lunch will encourage you to keep auditioning even if you don’t succeed because your brain will know that this behavior results in good feelings (celebrating and eating a great bagel). If you don’t celebrate, you might just associate the hard work of auditioning with struggle and exhaustion (negative thoughts and feelings).

Principle #5: Maximize Your Creative Potential

Dicks also recommends boosting your creativity by implementing the following tips:

Tip #1: Consume Varied Content

First, consume a wide variety of content as often as you can, Dicks suggests. You’ll expand your knowledge in new directions and come up with new, unique ideas. For example, if you’re a painter, listen to a podcast about music theory during dinner. This might help you draw connections between painting and music that will inspire your next piece. Or, you might come up with a ground-breaking idea for an improv show where you and a musician perform (paint and play live) simultaneously, being influenced by each other's art.

(Shortform note: In Building a Second Brain, Tiago Forte agrees on the importance of engaging with a variety of content to boost creativity. He explains that this practice is one of the best ways to maximize creativity because at its core, creativity is about drawing connections between ideas, especially ideas that don’t seem to be connected at first glance. Further, research suggests that people who excel at recognizing relationships and drawing new connections between concepts are the most creative.)

Tip #2: Reuse Your Old Work

Second, Dicks recommends making the most of the work you've already created by reusing it for future projects. You can do this in three ways:

1. Repurpose a project that didn't work out for a different, future venture. For example, turn a painting that didn’t get accepted for an art show into an NFT that you can sell online.
2. Use components of past projects for future projects. For example, cut the failed art-show painting into pieces and use it to make an abstract collage.
3. Use past projects to inspire your work on future projects. For example, if one of your paintings was successful, use it to inspire a collection of similarly styled paintings.

Store and Manage Past Work With a ‘Second Brain’

In Building a Second Brain, Forte provides an organizational system to streamline the process of storing past work to reuse later—what he calls a ‘Second Brain’. The Second Brain is a digital storage system for saving important information. It has themed folders for categorizing each new piece of information you add—for instance, a folder for information relating to current goals, a folder for information you want to save for the future, and so on.

According to Forte’s system, you’d store past work in the “archive” folder of your Second Brain and reuse it by visiting the folder each time you start a new project—either to get inspiration, repurpose old projects, or reuse pieces of past work.

Principle #6: Create a Support Group

Finally, Dicks recommends finding a group of people to support you. They’ll help you progress toward your goals by holding you accountable and providing encouragement and feedback.

Dicks explains that having a support group is important for a few reasons. First, it’s much easier to give up on your goals when you’re the only one holding yourself accountable. On the other hand, sharing your goals with others makes you more motivated to reach them because you want to meet others' expectations of you and avoid seeming like a failure.

Second, Dicks explains that creative projects are meant to be shared with the world: Therefore, it's important to get feedback from others as soon as possible. However, sharing incomplete versions of projects with just anyone can be difficult because you don’t want the world to judge you based on half-baked iterations. This is why having a support group is important—you can trust them to give you constructive feedback without judging you.

Finally, sharing your work with your support group will help you solve problems faster than you would on your own. Dicks notes that each member of your support group will likely have a unique knowledge base, and they’ll bring perspectives and solutions to the table that you wouldn't have come up with alone.

To create your support group, choose the people who love and support you—avoid people who might envy your success, as they might undermine you. Further, share your work, goals, and deadlines with these people so they can give you constructive feedback and hold you accountable for completing goals.

How to Create Effective Support Groups

In Never Eat Alone, Keith Ferrazzi reiterates the importance of recruiting people to help you succeed. He specifically recommends connecting with four different archetypes of people, each for a specific purpose. Here’s how they compare to Dicks’s recommendations, and how to recruit them:

1) People to help you reach your goals. This archetype’s purpose is to help you identify your goals, create plans to reach them, and hold you accountable for following through. It fulfills Dicks’s first reason for creating a support group: to hold you accountable and give you the motivation that comes from knowing someone’s checking up on you. Recruit people in this archetype by picking two or three people you trust—for example, friends, family, or coworkers.

2) Mentors. These people should have expertise in the discipline you’re pursuing, and their role is to provide professional advice, skill-development techniques, insider information, contacts, emotional support, and inspiration. This archetype fulfills Dicks’s second and third reasons for creating a support group: to provide you with constructive feedback from a safe, trusted person, and to help you overcome problems using their unique knowledge base. Recruit mentors by looking for official mentoring programs, asking friends and family for mentor suggestions, or approaching strangers who you think might be a good match.

3) Super-connectors. These are people who have dozens to hundreds of contacts they can introduce to you to help you progress. Dicks doesn't discuss recruiting people for this purpose, but Ferrazzi argues that having good connections is crucial for achieving success. Recruit people in this archetype by looking for high-profile people like headhunters, politicians, high-class restaurateurs, or journalists who are bound to have numerous connections. Convince them to help you out by offering them something in return, like an introduction to someone else in your network (such as introducing the journalist to the politician) or help toward their cause.

4) Prominent industry leaders. This archetype’s purpose is to help you gain credibility in your discipline or industry. For example, if you want to be a comedian, make friends with a popular comedian and people will flock to your shows assuming you’re just as funny as your counterpart. While Dicks doesn’t mention using your supporters in this way, Ferrazzi asserts that you must boost your credibility to succeed. Meet and recruit these people by engaging with organizations they support, like charities, and hobbies they enjoy, like golf.