A five year plan sounds a bit like the Soviet Union to me, but in general having a vision of what you want from life, and then planning your actions accordingly is a good way to get the results you want.

About your question regarding finishing the thesis, I think you have a valid point: I don’t necessarily need to finish it. I still think I want to finish it at some point so that all these years spent studying won’t go to waste, but at the moment it’s not on the top of my list of priorities.

That’s why I’m still delaying it and concentrating on other things first. :)

Therefore I say that your post sound very good on the part that you have daily plans and goals!! :) But with Jyri’s point in mind I would suggest that you have a 5 YEAR plan, 1 year plan, 90days plan, 30days plan, a week plan and finally a day plan.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. :)

aaand..what you can do today should be done today. If finishing your thesis is something important to you, you should start right away! Today! (lets see what I think about this in couple of months but…)

In another hand (someone is going to kill me for the next idea..) do you REALLY need to finish your thesis? If your dream is to live the “awaraga life” then YES you do. You need it to stay in your job/get a new job. If you want to create a fortune and economical independence then NO, you dont necessarily have to. It sure helps, but you dont HAVE to. (this crazy idea comes from Kiyosaki’s book “bussiness school”)

I haven’t given that much thought on the question of how much time I’ll have when Oiva is 1, or 2, and so on… (although now I realize I should have) .

I think I will get my thesis started this year so that one day I’ll be able to finish it. :) But just to get my stress level lower I think postponing my graduation estimate “a bit” is something I need to do right now.

really nice post :) Just one notice about postponing your thesis (or some other tasks) “bit more”. My experience tells me (I have one daughter 4 years old) that most probably you’ll have much less free time when your son will be 1 year old, and even less free time when he will be 2 years old :)
About reading – actually I read bit more when my daughter was born, because I read when I walked with her. Walking 2-3 hours while she was sleeping was quite boring, so I read during that time. Now she sleeps much less, so I have much less time for reading :)