Make A Houseplant Wicking System: {DIY}
Today’s feature is from Craftzine with this tutorial How-To Create a Simple Houseplant Wicking System: My friend Goli recently went on a solo backpacking trip. When she returned she discovered that an unexpected heat wave had taken a toll on some of her plants. I volunteered to show her two very simple ways to keep [...]
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- Houseplant Care & Growing Tips
- Christmas Cactus: Houseplant Notes
- How To Multiply & Extend Your Poinsettia
Continue reading Make A Houseplant Wicking System: {DIY} …
From TipNut.com.
The Family That Saves Together
My four year old son thinks that the way you get a new video game is by trading for it at the used video game store.
At dinner time, they both eat exactly what their parents eat – and that’s considered normal, as opposed to making them a special kid-friendly meal that racks up the extra food dollars.
My two year old daughter thinks that the best way to get a new book to read is to go to the kids room at the library.
They both think that a spectacularly fun evening involves going to the local park and eating a picnic.
The only time they’re spoiled on the things they want is their birthday, Christmas, or when Grandma comes to town. After all, that’s why they have an allowance.
My four year old is saving for charity and has already made a contribution to his college fund.
What do these things have in common?
Obviously, all of these are choices that save money, at least, compared to the “typical” way of acquiring things. We usually make a point of these things that we do that save money. For example, when we take a bunch of canvas bags into the grocery store, we tell them that we save $0.05 for each canvas bag we use in the store, which helps shave a bit off of our grocery bill. We compare the park down the block to other kid-friendly places we might go and talk about how the park is free.
I already see these types of ideas showing up in my son’s thinking. One of the first things he asks when he’s considering an item is how much it costs, and he’s begun to understand that some things are bargains, some things are not bargains, and if you’re patient, sometimes you can find big bargains on the things that you want.
More importantly, these are all choices that set up a standard of financial responsibility. Our children see frugality as normal. We make dinners at home – dinners at home are normal and eating out is a very special treat. Making your own meals at home is normal – it’s normal to see a parent in the kitchen preparing some dish or another. It’s normal to spend a couple hours in an afternoon at the library. It’s normal to spend an evening at the park (and, frankly, it’s really weird that we’ll go to a park and our children will be the only ones using the play equipment on a beautiful evening).
They see such choices as the norm. They do not see rampant overspending as the norm. When we do make a major purchase, our children are probably getting sick of the dinner table conversation about which particular one to choose (our discussion about replacing our television is entering year three or so). A big part of that talk? The best bang for the buck.
In the future, the key part will be why we’re doing this. When I was growing up, we practiced a lot of frugality, but the “why” of practicing that frugality was often simply that we didn’t have enough money to go around. Gardening and reusing things and the other tactics we used weren’t part of a big overall goal – they were just methods we used to make ends meet.
For us, frugality enables us to spend far less than what we earn without giving up things that are really important to us. We don’t have to do it – we choose to do it because of the life it’s creating for us. That difference will change the rules of the game as we grow older, enabling us to retire earlier and do incredibly powerful things with our time. Our choices now are opening up giant windows of opportunity down the road, just in time for our children to see the real benefits of a frugal life.
The family that saves together dreams together.
Continue reading The Family That Saves Together …
From The Simple Dollar.
Christmas Meal Plan – Do You Have One Yet?
We have just a few more short weeks until Christmas. I don’t know about you, but I much rather spend the majority of my time during the holidays with my family than slaving over a hot stove in the kitchen. I recently interviewed my good friend Christine – aka “The Menu Mom” about family meal [...]
Continue reading Christmas Meal Plan – Do You Have One Yet? …
From Moms In A Blog » Frugal Living.
The Simple Dollar Time Machine: July 3, 2010
Many newer readers of The Simple Dollar haven’t been exposed to the hundreds of great articles in the archives of the site, so this is a weekly series that highlights the five best posts from one year ago this week, two years ago this week, and three years ago this week. I call it … the Time Machine.
One Year Ago (June 27 – July 3, 2009)
Personal Finance 101: Why Do I Need Credit At All? Credit isn’t itself a bad thing – in fact, it has benefits besides getting yourself into debt. Mishandling of credit, though, can be a very, very bad thing.
The Best Money Advice, in Ten Words or Less I asked my 5,000 (at the time) Twitter followers to give me their best advice in ten words or less. This was the cream of the crop.
The Cheap Garbage Bag Dilemma I don’t buy cheap garbage bags. Garbage bags are something that I just don’t skimp on. Here’s why.
Blending Work and Family: How We Do It Given that I work from home and Sarah’s been off of work quite often with maternity leave and summer breaks, the lines between personal and professional are really blurred in our lives. Here’s how we deal with that blurring.
Ten Great Ways to Make Powerful Visual Reminders of Your Personal Finance (and Other) Goals Many of our most challenging goals (like changing our spending or eating habits) require constant, powerful reminders to succeed. Here’s how to make those reminders so that you don’t fall off of the wagon over and over again.
Two Years Ago (June 27 – July 3, 2008)
No Time for Frugality: Cutting Financial Corners with No Time Investment There are many frugal tactics you can execute without investing even a bit of time. Here are a handful of them.
A Clever Trick for Automatically Finding Deals You Want at Amazon I use this trick for Christmas shopping and also for keeping my eye out for very specific items that I’d be willing to pick up at a very low price.
The Minimalist Kitchen: What You Need (and Don’t Need) to Set Up Your First Workable Home Kitchen You really don’t need thousands of dollars worth of stuff to have a killer kitchen. You don’t need much at all, in fact.
Is Time the Difference Between Big Spenders, Frugal Folks, and Cheapskates? I think it’s at least part of the difference. I think how people use their time is also really important.
The Net Worth Mentality: The Road Less Traveled If you want a powerful way to track your personal finance progress, net worth is probably the single best number you can use. I use net worth myself, but I don’t use non-liquid assets in counting that number (no cars, no home).
Three Years Ago (June 27 – July 3, 2007)
SmartMoney Magazine’s “7 Money Mistakes” – And The Simple Dollar’s “7 More Money Mistakes” Trust me, there are way more than fourteen money mistakes out there.
Guilty Money: How Much Do You Have To Spend Frivolously Before You Feel Guilty About It? I really don’t have to spend much at all. I don’t like to spend money frivolously. If I know I’m going to go someplace to spend money freely, I put $X in cash in my pocket and keep my spending in that range. For most purchases, I study them to death before making a move (in contrast to how I used to spend freely).
Musings On Spending $3 On A Candy Bar It’s amazing how something so small can really connect with something so big.
How I Made Brown Bag Lunches Work For Me Now that I work from home, I eat leftovers for most of my lunches. When I don’t eat leftovers, I usually make a sandwich out of whatever’s on hand.
Overspending on Children and How to Fight It My biggest weakness – and my son is learning how to exploit it – is when my children behave really well and do everything I ask, then calmly and quietly ask for a toy or something at the store. Even more painful, if I say “no,” they’re starting to learn to just go “okay” and continue being good and mild-mannered.
If you’d like to browse through more of the archives, visit the chronology, where all posts are listed in chronological order.
Ten Ways to Get More out of The Simple DollarUpdated!
This is kind of a FAQ for new readers and is posted each week along with the Time Machine. Here are ten great ways for new readers to dig deeper into The Simple Dollar.
1. Subscribe by email or RSS. Visiting The Simple Dollar’s website is great, but for many people, it’s more convenient to receive the articles in another form. It’s easy to join 60,000 other subscribers and get The Simple Dollar’s content by email or in your RSS feeder (if you’re unfamiliar with RSS, check out Google Reader.
2. Comment. Each article on The Simple Dollar has lively discussion. Just click on the green square in the upper right of each article on the website and join in!
3. Become a fan of The Simple Dollar on Facebook. I put up questions and other materials about once every week or two on Facebook (so you won’t be flooded with Simple Dollar updates). Join in the conversation with other Simple Dollar fans and occasionally get some interesting freebies, too.
4. Follow me on Twitter. I post interesting articles, quotes, follow-up material, commentary, and other material on Twitter. Follow me! If you’re unfamiliar with Twitter, it’s essentially an open discussion forum for people to share ideas and thoughts with other like-minded folks – you just choose the people you want to listen to and their ideas and thoughts are all delivered to you on a single page.
5. Read my story of financial meltdown and recovery. The Simple Dollar isn’t based on what I’ve read in books or learned in school. I’ve made a lifetime of financial mistakes – The Simple Dollar is a record of what works for me during the process of getting my life on a better track.
6. Download my free 49 page e-book. Everything You Ever Really Needed to Know About Personal Finance On Just One Page is completely free. It summarizes all of the key lessons I’ve learned along the way about personal finance in one tidy package – in fact, all of the main principles can be found right on the cover.
7. Dig through “31 Days to Fix Your Finances.” 31 Days to Fix Your Finances is an article series that outlines how you can get a grip on your finances over the course of a month.
8. Send me your questions and suggestions. Send me an email and let me know what you’re thinking, what you’d like to see, and any questions you might have. I try to respond to as many emails as possible and I read them all. I may even use your question in a future article!
9. Become a “Friend of The Simple Dollar.” If you find the stuff on The Simple Dollar valuable and are willing to spend five minutes or so a month to help me out with small things, please consider signing up to be a “Friend of The Simple Dollar”.
10. Email a great article you find to a friend. Find an article that you think your friend would love? At the bottom of each article, you’ll find a link that says “Email this” – just click on that, type in your friend’s address, and send it right along to them!
Continue reading The Simple Dollar Time Machine: July 3, 2010 …
From The Simple Dollar.
Getting Things Done: Setting Up the Right Buckets
This is the seventh entry in a fourteen part series discussing the time management classic Getting Things Done by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings through July 16.
So far, we’ve talked about two of the five major steps for getting things done: collecting all of the stuff you need to do and processing that stuff down. Today, the focus is on organizing – or where the stuff goes when you’re processing it.
Allen suggests that there are seven specific destinations for stuff when we’re processing it. Although this looks complicated, all you really need for this is a trash can, some folders, and some paper.
Trash
This is pretty straightforward. The stuff you don’t intend to keep goes in the trash can. The notes you’ve written to yourself and then processed go straight in the trash can. Envelopes? Trash can. You’d be surprised how large of a portion of your inbox goes straight into the trash can when you’re processing it.
Maybe/Someday
“Maybe/Someday” refers to a collection of lists. I keep all of these in a single folder on my computer so I can easily find them.
What do I mean by this? I have a list of books I’d like to read someday. I have a list of projects I’d like to take up in the future. I have a list of people I regularly buy Christmas gifts for. I have a list of movies I’d like to view someday.
Each of these lists is just that – a computer document listing all of the items that fall under that specific category. If you prefer, of course, you can use pen and paper and a series of folders.
Whenever I have an item in my inbox that refers to a book to read or a movie to watch or a big project I’m thinking about, I add these to those lists – and I usually date them. Then, during my weekly reviews (I’ll talk about this more in the next entry in this series), I pull out these lists and look them over. I usually study the most recent entries more specifically so I can decide whether I should do something with those items right now, like request them from the library. I sometimes add notes to the items on the list, too.
Reference
Reference materials refers to things that I’m going to want to keep, like tax statements or car titles or other things like that. If I think there’s a solid chance I’m going to want to refer to such an item in the future – or if there’s a slim chance but that slim chance absolutely requires the document, I keep it.
For magazines (which we subscribe to in bulk), I’ll often just tear out the articles I want to keep over the long term and throw away the rest. I have a few file folders jammed with potential articles that I might talk about on The Simple Dollar in the future, for example, and I also have a fat folder full of recipes.
I really don’t worry too much about a filing system. I put things into folders under a name that makes sense to me and organize those folders A-Z and then 0-9. I can always find what I want pretty quickly in that scheme, with only a guess or two needed to find anything at all.
Projects and Project Support Material
Some of the things I work on are ongoing “projects” – meaning big tasks that break down into lots of pieces. For each of these “projects,” I keep a folder in a separate part of my filing cabinet. I actually have a single drawer for “projects,” to tell the truth.
Again, I organize these by A-Z and 0-9 based on the title I decide on. This makes it easy to find them when I need them. I also keep a master “project list” just for my own reference – this makes things much easier when I do my review of projects.
What’s in each folder? Whenever I conceive of a new project, I usually brainstorm big time with a sheet or two of paper in front of me, then I come up with a rough outline of what needs to be done for the project (all of the steps from beginning to end, broken down into the smallest chunks I can), with lots of spaces between the items for additional steps and notes. I usually do the outline on my computer, save it, then print it out. The brainstorming and the outline are saved in the folder.
When I do my weekly “review,” I usually update each folder (if I haven’t already during the week) and then add the next step for each project to my “next actions” list (which I’ll talk about in a bit).
“Waiting”
There are obviously some things that require “waiting” for some unspecified time for someone else to come through for you. For example, if I’m working on a collaborative project with another writer and I send her a draft, I don’t know for sure when I’ll get a response from her.
For most of these things, I just wait for the response, but some of these things do require me to hold onto things. I just keep a “waiting” folder in amongst my projects to handle any such things.
Calendar
If something needs to be done on a specific date and/or time, I add it to my calendar. My calendar is the first thing I look at each day – I maintain it with Google Calendar and it is, in fact, my browser home page.
What should go on a calendar? Allen specifies on page 142:
[There] are two basic kinds of actions: those that must be done on a certain day and/or at a particular time, and those that just need to be done as soon as you can get ot them, around your other calendared items. Calendared action items can be either time-specific (e.g., “4:00-5:00 meet with Jim”) or day-specific (”Call Rachel Tuesday to see if she got the proposal.”)
In other words, all time-specific actions should go on your calendar. Allen goes on to discuss some things that shouldn’t be on your calendar, on page 143:
What many people want to do, however, based on old habits of writing daily to-do lists, is put actions on the calendar that they think they’d really like to get done next Monday, say, but that then actually might not, and that might then have to be taken over to following days. Resist this impulse. You need to trust your calendar as sacred territory, reflecting the exact hard edges of your day’s commitments, which should be niticeable at a glance while you’re on the run.
Here’s a great example. I want to practice piano every single day, but there might be days where I’m simply not able to get around to it. Should I write the piano practice on my calendar every day? No. It should be on my “next actions” list for me to prioritize as I wish. The same is true if I want to clean the house on a given day or something like that – if I can miss it without causing devastation, it shouldn’t be on the calendar. Only the things at specific times that I can’t miss should be on the calendar.
“Next Actions”
What’s left after all of that? Surprisingly, all that’s left is the specific stuff you need to do that takes longer than two minutes (remember, you do all of the two-minutes-or-less tasks when processing it all).
For me, the “next actions” takes the form of a long list. Whenever I’m buckling down to get stuff done, whether it’s professional work or otherwise, I look through the list, pick out something, and just do it.
This is the point when the system really shines. All of the stuff above seems like a lot of overhead, but you make up for all of it and much, much more when you’re actually pushing through your pile of “next actions.” Why? Everything you need to do is right there in front of you. The only thing that matters is your next appointment, and you can set an alarm for that. Until then, the only thing on your mind is your current action. You don’t need to remember anything. If something floats into your mind, just jot it down and move on with your task.
This freedom of mind enables you to get into “the zone” (or flow state or whatever you like to call it) very easily. It turns out – and this is the big advantage of GTD – that the biggest thing that keeps people from getting into that flow state is the number of things they’re trying to keep in their head while working. If you can write it all down and have a trusted system in place where you can just toss that idea – whatever it is – and know it’s handled, then you don’t have to waste so many brain cycles keeping track of all of it.
When the system is running well for me, I can get into “the flow” for a long time every day. Without it, I would never be able to create this much material for The Simple Dollar plus all of the responsibilities of having three young children plus ongoing attempts at other endeavors. It just wouldn’t happen.
What about prioritizing? Obviously, some things on the list have a higher priority than others. The way I handle it is pretty simple. I just keep my list in a document on my computer and print it off occasionally. Before I start in with a work session (where I intend to knock several items off the list), I make an effort to roughly prioritize the list. I move the ones that I’d most like to get done up to the top so that they’re found first. That doesn’t mean I won’t change things up as I’m going along, of course; it just gives me some help as I go.
Next time, we’ll go through the fourth piece of the puzzle: a weekly review. I actually find that a weekly review (and patch-up) is perhaps the most essential part of this entire system. Without it, it would eventually fall apart.
Continue reading Getting Things Done: Setting Up the Right Buckets …
From The Simple Dollar.
Getting Things Done: Setting Up the Right Buckets
This is the seventh entry in a fourteen part series discussing the time management classic Getting Things Done by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings through July 16.
So far, we’ve talked about two of the five major steps for getting things done: collecting all of the stuff you need to do and processing that stuff down. Today, the focus is on organizing – or where the stuff goes when you’re processing it.
Allen suggests that there are seven specific destinations for stuff when we’re processing it. Although this looks complicated, all you really need for this is a trash can, some folders, and some paper.
Trash
This is pretty straightforward. The stuff you don’t intend to keep goes in the trash can. The notes you’ve written to yourself and then processed go straight in the trash can. Envelopes? Trash can. You’d be surprised how large of a portion of your inbox goes straight into the trash can when you’re processing it.
Maybe/Someday
“Maybe/Someday” refers to a collection of lists. I keep all of these in a single folder on my computer so I can easily find them.
What do I mean by this? I have a list of books I’d like to read someday. I have a list of projects I’d like to take up in the future. I have a list of people I regularly buy Christmas gifts for. I have a list of movies I’d like to view someday.
Each of these lists is just that – a computer document listing all of the items that fall under that specific category. If you prefer, of course, you can use pen and paper and a series of folders.
Whenever I have an item in my inbox that refers to a book to read or a movie to watch or a big project I’m thinking about, I add these to those lists – and I usually date them. Then, during my weekly reviews (I’ll talk about this more in the next entry in this series), I pull out these lists and look them over. I usually study the most recent entries more specifically so I can decide whether I should do something with those items right now, like request them from the library. I sometimes add notes to the items on the list, too.
Reference
Reference materials refers to things that I’m going to want to keep, like tax statements or car titles or other things like that. If I think there’s a solid chance I’m going to want to refer to such an item in the future – or if there’s a slim chance but that slim chance absolutely requires the document, I keep it.
For magazines (which we subscribe to in bulk), I’ll often just tear out the articles I want to keep over the long term and throw away the rest. I have a few file folders jammed with potential articles that I might talk about on The Simple Dollar in the future, for example, and I also have a fat folder full of recipes.
I really don’t worry too much about a filing system. I put things into folders under a name that makes sense to me and organize those folders A-Z and then 0-9. I can always find what I want pretty quickly in that scheme, with only a guess or two needed to find anything at all.
Projects and Project Support Material
Some of the things I work on are ongoing “projects” – meaning big tasks that break down into lots of pieces. For each of these “projects,” I keep a folder in a separate part of my filing cabinet. I actually have a single drawer for “projects,” to tell the truth.
Again, I organize these by A-Z and 0-9 based on the title I decide on. This makes it easy to find them when I need them. I also keep a master “project list” just for my own reference – this makes things much easier when I do my review of projects.
What’s in each folder? Whenever I conceive of a new project, I usually brainstorm big time with a sheet or two of paper in front of me, then I come up with a rough outline of what needs to be done for the project (all of the steps from beginning to end, broken down into the smallest chunks I can), with lots of spaces between the items for additional steps and notes. I usually do the outline on my computer, save it, then print it out. The brainstorming and the outline are saved in the folder.
When I do my weekly “review,” I usually update each folder (if I haven’t already during the week) and then add the next step for each project to my “next actions” list (which I’ll talk about in a bit).
“Waiting”
There are obviously some things that require “waiting” for some unspecified time for someone else to come through for you. For example, if I’m working on a collaborative project with another writer and I send her a draft, I don’t know for sure when I’ll get a response from her.
For most of these things, I just wait for the response, but some of these things do require me to hold onto things. I just keep a “waiting” folder in amongst my projects to handle any such things.
Calendar
If something needs to be done on a specific date and/or time, I add it to my calendar. My calendar is the first thing I look at each day – I maintain it with Google Calendar and it is, in fact, my browser home page.
What should go on a calendar? Allen specifies on page 142:
[There] are two basic kinds of actions: those that must be done on a certain day and/or at a particular time, and those that just need to be done as soon as you can get ot them, around your other calendared items. Calendared action items can be either time-specific (e.g., “4:00-5:00 meet with Jim”) or day-specific (”Call Rachel Tuesday to see if she got the proposal.”)
In other words, all time-specific actions should go on your calendar. Allen goes on to discuss some things that shouldn’t be on your calendar, on page 143:
What many people want to do, however, based on old habits of writing daily to-do lists, is put actions on the calendar that they think they’d really like to get done next Monday, say, but that then actually might not, and that might then have to be taken over to following days. Resist this impulse. You need to trust your calendar as sacred territory, reflecting the exact hard edges of your day’s commitments, which should be niticeable at a glance while you’re on the run.
Here’s a great example. I want to practice piano every single day, but there might be days where I’m simply not able to get around to it. Should I write the piano practice on my calendar every day? No. It should be on my “next actions” list for me to prioritize as I wish. The same is true if I want to clean the house on a given day or something like that – if I can miss it without causing devastation, it shouldn’t be on the calendar. Only the things at specific times that I can’t miss should be on the calendar.
“Next Actions”
What’s left after all of that? Surprisingly, all that’s left is the specific stuff you need to do that takes longer than two minutes (remember, you do all of the two-minutes-or-less tasks when processing it all).
For me, the “next actions” takes the form of a long list. Whenever I’m buckling down to get stuff done, whether it’s professional work or otherwise, I look through the list, pick out something, and just do it.
This is the point when the system really shines. All of the stuff above seems like a lot of overhead, but you make up for all of it and much, much more when you’re actually pushing through your pile of “next actions.” Why? Everything you need to do is right there in front of you. The only thing that matters is your next appointment, and you can set an alarm for that. Until then, the only thing on your mind is your current action. You don’t need to remember anything. If something floats into your mind, just jot it down and move on with your task.
This freedom of mind enables you to get into “the zone” (or flow state or whatever you like to call it) very easily. It turns out – and this is the big advantage of GTD – that the biggest thing that keeps people from getting into that flow state is the number of things they’re trying to keep in their head while working. If you can write it all down and have a trusted system in place where you can just toss that idea – whatever it is – and know it’s handled, then you don’t have to waste so many brain cycles keeping track of all of it.
When the system is running well for me, I can get into “the flow” for a long time every day. Without it, I would never be able to create this much material for The Simple Dollar plus all of the responsibilities of having three young children plus ongoing attempts at other endeavors. It just wouldn’t happen.
What about prioritizing? Obviously, some things on the list have a higher priority than others. The way I handle it is pretty simple. I just keep my list in a document on my computer and print it off occasionally. Before I start in with a work session (where I intend to knock several items off the list), I make an effort to roughly prioritize the list. I move the ones that I’d most like to get done up to the top so that they’re found first. That doesn’t mean I won’t change things up as I’m going along, of course; it just gives me some help as I go.
Next time, we’ll go through the fourth piece of the puzzle: a weekly review. I actually find that a weekly review (and patch-up) is perhaps the most essential part of this entire system. Without it, it would eventually fall apart.
Continue reading Getting Things Done: Setting Up the Right Buckets …
From The Simple Dollar.
Getting Things Done: Setting Up the Right Buckets
This is the seventh entry in a fourteen part series discussing the time management classic Getting Things Done by David Allen. New entries in this series will appear on Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings through July 16.
So far, we’ve talked about two of the five major steps for getting things done: collecting all of the stuff you need to do and processing that stuff down. Today, the focus is on organizing – or where the stuff goes when you’re processing it.
Allen suggests that there are seven specific destinations for stuff when we’re processing it. Although this looks complicated, all you really need for this is a trash can, some folders, and some paper.
Trash
This is pretty straightforward. The stuff you don’t intend to keep goes in the trash can. The notes you’ve written to yourself and then processed go straight in the trash can. Envelopes? Trash can. You’d be surprised how large of a portion of your inbox goes straight into the trash can when you’re processing it.
Maybe/Someday
“Maybe/Someday” refers to a collection of lists. I keep all of these in a single folder on my computer so I can easily find them.
What do I mean by this? I have a list of books I’d like to read someday. I have a list of projects I’d like to take up in the future. I have a list of people I regularly buy Christmas gifts for. I have a list of movies I’d like to view someday.
Each of these lists is just that – a computer document listing all of the items that fall under that specific category. If you prefer, of course, you can use pen and paper and a series of folders.
Whenever I have an item in my inbox that refers to a book to read or a movie to watch or a big project I’m thinking about, I add these to those lists – and I usually date them. Then, during my weekly reviews (I’ll talk about this more in the next entry in this series), I pull out these lists and look them over. I usually study the most recent entries more specifically so I can decide whether I should do something with those items right now, like request them from the library. I sometimes add notes to the items on the list, too.
Reference
Reference materials refers to things that I’m going to want to keep, like tax statements or car titles or other things like that. If I think there’s a solid chance I’m going to want to refer to such an item in the future – or if there’s a slim chance but that slim chance absolutely requires the document, I keep it.
For magazines (which we subscribe to in bulk), I’ll often just tear out the articles I want to keep over the long term and throw away the rest. I have a few file folders jammed with potential articles that I might talk about on The Simple Dollar in the future, for example, and I also have a fat folder full of recipes.
I really don’t worry too much about a filing system. I put things into folders under a name that makes sense to me and organize those folders A-Z and then 0-9. I can always find what I want pretty quickly in that scheme, with only a guess or two needed to find anything at all.
Projects and Project Support Material
Some of the things I work on are ongoing “projects” – meaning big tasks that break down into lots of pieces. For each of these “projects,” I keep a folder in a separate part of my filing cabinet. I actually have a single drawer for “projects,” to tell the truth.
Again, I organize these by A-Z and 0-9 based on the title I decide on. This makes it easy to find them when I need them. I also keep a master “project list” just for my own reference – this makes things much easier when I do my review of projects.
What’s in each folder? Whenever I conceive of a new project, I usually brainstorm big time with a sheet or two of paper in front of me, then I come up with a rough outline of what needs to be done for the project (all of the steps from beginning to end, broken down into the smallest chunks I can), with lots of spaces between the items for additional steps and notes. I usually do the outline on my computer, save it, then print it out. The brainstorming and the outline are saved in the folder.
When I do my weekly “review,” I usually update each folder (if I haven’t already during the week) and then add the next step for each project to my “next actions” list (which I’ll talk about in a bit).
“Waiting”
There are obviously some things that require “waiting” for some unspecified time for someone else to come through for you. For example, if I’m working on a collaborative project with another writer and I send her a draft, I don’t know for sure when I’ll get a response from her.
For most of these things, I just wait for the response, but some of these things do require me to hold onto things. I just keep a “waiting” folder in amongst my projects to handle any such things.
Calendar
If something needs to be done on a specific date and/or time, I add it to my calendar. My calendar is the first thing I look at each day – I maintain it with Google Calendar and it is, in fact, my browser home page.
What should go on a calendar? Allen specifies on page 142:
[There] are two basic kinds of actions: those that must be done on a certain day and/or at a particular time, and those that just need to be done as soon as you can get ot them, around your other calendared items. Calendared action items can be either time-specific (e.g., “4:00-5:00 meet with Jim”) or day-specific (”Call Rachel Tuesday to see if she got the proposal.”)
In other words, all time-specific actions should go on your calendar. Allen goes on to discuss some things that shouldn’t be on your calendar, on page 143:
What many people want to do, however, based on old habits of writing daily to-do lists, is put actions on the calendar that they think they’d really like to get done next Monday, say, but that then actually might not, and that might then have to be taken over to following days. Resist this impulse. You need to trust your calendar as sacred territory, reflecting the exact hard edges of your day’s commitments, which should be niticeable at a glance while you’re on the run.
Here’s a great example. I want to practice piano every single day, but there might be days where I’m simply not able to get around to it. Should I write the piano practice on my calendar every day? No. It should be on my “next actions” list for me to prioritize as I wish. The same is true if I want to clean the house on a given day or something like that – if I can miss it without causing devastation, it shouldn’t be on the calendar. Only the things at specific times that I can’t miss should be on the calendar.
“Next Actions”
What’s left after all of that? Surprisingly, all that’s left is the specific stuff you need to do that takes longer than two minutes (remember, you do all of the two-minutes-or-less tasks when processing it all).
For me, the “next actions” takes the form of a long list. Whenever I’m buckling down to get stuff done, whether it’s professional work or otherwise, I look through the list, pick out something, and just do it.
This is the point when the system really shines. All of the stuff above seems like a lot of overhead, but you make up for all of it and much, much more when you’re actually pushing through your pile of “next actions.” Why? Everything you need to do is right there in front of you. The only thing that matters is your next appointment, and you can set an alarm for that. Until then, the only thing on your mind is your current action. You don’t need to remember anything. If something floats into your mind, just jot it down and move on with your task.
This freedom of mind enables you to get into “the zone” (or flow state or whatever you like to call it) very easily. It turns out – and this is the big advantage of GTD – that the biggest thing that keeps people from getting into that flow state is the number of things they’re trying to keep in their head while working. If you can write it all down and have a trusted system in place where you can just toss that idea – whatever it is – and know it’s handled, then you don’t have to waste so many brain cycles keeping track of all of it.
When the system is running well for me, I can get into “the flow” for a long time every day. Without it, I would never be able to create this much material for The Simple Dollar plus all of the responsibilities of having three young children plus ongoing attempts at other endeavors. It just wouldn’t happen.
What about prioritizing? Obviously, some things on the list have a higher priority than others. The way I handle it is pretty simple. I just keep my list in a document on my computer and print it off occasionally. Before I start in with a work session (where I intend to knock several items off the list), I make an effort to roughly prioritize the list. I move the ones that I’d most like to get done up to the top so that they’re found first. That doesn’t mean I won’t change things up as I’m going along, of course; it just gives me some help as I go.
Next time, we’ll go through the fourth piece of the puzzle: a weekly review. I actually find that a weekly review (and patch-up) is perhaps the most essential part of this entire system. Without it, it would eventually fall apart.
Continue reading Getting Things Done: Setting Up the Right Buckets …
From The Simple Dollar.
Tenor Saxophone
I know this is a long shot but I always say “at least ask”.
My daughter is dying to have a tenor saxophone so she can play in jazz band next yet. She plays flute but of course that’s not a jazz band instrument.
I’ve looked at pawn shops and e-bay and just can’t find one can afford, under $200.
Would anyone happen to have one in good working order you would want to trade for books? The books make great gifts so you Christmas shopping could be done in one deal! 
If your interested please email me! Click the contact button above. Tawra
Continue reading Tenor Saxophone …
From Living On A Dime Blog » Living On A Dime Blog.
What to do with no-longer loved toys?
One of the biggest clutter problems for families with children is what to do with the no longer loved toys.
I’ve seen recommendations across the web of sending them to a thrift store, the Christmas toy donation drives, or perhaps giving the toys to a day care center. However! Do NOT assume that is a practical [...]
Continue reading What to do with no-longer loved toys? …
From Monroe on a Budget.
What Day Is It?
It would be easy for me to write some nice platitudes today about my wife (the mother of my children) or my own mother. I could go on for a long time about how wonderful these two women are, the most important two women in my life.
But I really don’t need to.
We don’t need a special day to celebrate the genuinely important things in our lives.
If something is truly important in your life, then it deserves value and care and love and attention every day. It should be the centerpiece and the focus of your life.
That focus is represented not in money but in time.
If you find yourself feeling guilty about things left undone and want to use material gifts bought on Mother’s Day or Father’s Day or Christmas, then you have a choice – and it requires some honesty with yourself.
Is this relationship really important to you or do you just feel like it’s supposed to be important to you?
If it’s truly important to you, then every day is Mother’s Day (or Father’s Day or so on). The gift that really matters – the gift of time – is something that you can constantly share throughout the year. Calling your mother on Mother’s Day is great, but if the relationship is really important to you, what about the other 51 Sundays out of the year? And what about the other days, too?
If it’s not truly important to you yet you feel the need to keep up some sort of appearance, then you’ve got a weight on your life, a relationship with uneven obligations and feelings that need to be dealt with so that you can lead a more focused life. Something is missing in that relationship and if it causes guilt, then you need to spend the time and the energy it takes to fix it, for better or for worse. It’s not only hugely beneficial for you, but it’s also good for the other person you care about.
When your life revolves around what’s truly important to you, financial decisions become easier. Time management choices become easier. Emotional decisions become easier. Goal setting becomes easier. Problem resolution becomes easier.
Why? Because it’s very clear to you what actually is important and what’s not.
Remember, the truest way to invest in the things that are really important to you is time, not money. If your mother is genuinely important to you, give her a call today. But give her a call regularly as well. Visit her. Drop by and do an errand for her. If you do that, then finding some “perfect” gift for Mother’s Day becomes a whole lot less important. The same principle is true for anything else that’s truly important to you, from your career to your money and your hobbies.
It’s all about the time and energy, consistently spent.
Continue reading What Day Is It? …
From The Simple Dollar.