The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Long Road Trip Edition
Over the last eleven days, my wife and three kids and I have been on one long road trip, hitting multiple graduations on different weekends and visiting grandparents and siblings and various other people along the way. I am bone dead tired at this point. Tip: an eleven day road trip with a four year old and a two year old and an infant is not fun. A five day vacation? Sure. Eleven days with more than a thousand miles of driving in there? No. Just. No.
Motivation Tips for Slackers With the multitasking bit, I’m fine with multitasking when it comes to tasks that require very little mental focus (as described there). Where multitasking fails is when you’re doing a task that requires even a little bit of focus, as multitasking and interruptions can disrupt your train of thought and seriously (negatively) impact your results. (@ unclutterer)
Should We Discourage Some Students From Attending College? I don’t think college is the answer for everyone – and sending some people to college isn’t necessarily a net gain for their life. I think a well-rounded education and the college experience can be really valuable, but there are an awful lot of people simply not ready for it when they graduate high school. I watched several of my friends during my freshman year flunk out – even though they were quite intelligent – simply because they weren’t ready for college in terms of maturity. (@ consumerism commentary)
Five Steps to Six Figures in Seven Years The key to career success is intensity, I think. A degree mostly just serves to get your foot in the door. (@ free money finance)
Think About Your Routines — Daily, Weekly, Yearly. Comfortable routines – particularly those that don’t actively improve us – lead to complacency and lead away from personal growth. I’m constantly looking at my own routines, seeking ways to improve them. (@ happiness project)
Efficient Market Hypothesis: So Are Markets Efficient? They’re somewhat efficient, but not perfectly efficient. Perfect efficiency can only come if the motivations of every participant in the market is known by every other participant in the market. (@ the digerati life)
How Stay-At-Home Moms Can Help Save for Retirement A close friend of ours is concerned about this very issue, so I was happy to see this article pop up in my feed reader. (@ money saving mom)
Continue reading The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Long Road Trip Edition …
From The Simple Dollar.
Enjoy Free Time Faster With A Spit-Spot Cleaning List – Tidy Tuesday
You know what it’s like when the weather starts to get nice. You just want to play outside!
It’s hard to keep up with housework, laundry, cooking, and all those little interruptions when the sun is shining and the birds are chirping.
One of the most successful tactics I’ve used for getting and keeping the house clean during the warm weather days is to do a little bit every day. Yes, keeping up with the cleaning DOES make everything go faster. It’s something we all know, but sometimes resist.
You will still need to take a day or two to cover the heavy cleaning, but just a quick scrub or polish each day can help get you outside faster all week long.
My challenge for you today is to design a little “tidy up” schedule for everyone in the family. This is something that can be done very simply and tacked to the refrigerator door or a bulletin board in the kitchen or utility room. Here’s a simple example of daily chores:
Monday
- put away games, videos, movies, etc.
- sweep and damp mop kitchen floor
- spray and wipe down bathroom counters and sinks
Tuesday
- restock bathroom paper supplies
- clean toilets
- take dirty clothes to laundry area
Wednesday
- vacuum living area
- dust living area
- wash mirrors in bathroom
Thursday
- pick up clutter in living area
- sweep and damp mop entry way
- dust and polish dining room table
Friday
- take dirty clothes to laundry area
- wipe up bathroom floor
- take dirty bath towels to laundry
Saturday
- throw towels in washer/dryer
- strip beds and take sheets to laundry
- wipe up kitchen floors
Sunday
- put laundry away
- pick up clutter in entry way
- vacuum living area
Every household has different chores, but this is just a simple example of how you could divide little chores up all week long. Of course, you will want to divide these chores up amongst your family members, delegating perhaps one chore for each person (depending on their age.)
So, if you happen to have three members in your family who can do chores, for my example, you could get your housework done “spit-spot” and be free to go play!
The birds were chirping outside my window this morning and I was looking at the carpet that hasn’t been vacuumed in way too long. I know it’s time to create a “spit-spot” cleaning list for my own family today before the weather gets too much nicer! Won’t you join me in this tidy challenge?
p.s. When it’s time to plan for a full-out house cleaning, be sure to check out all the Spring Cleaning Tips for Mom by clicking on the link. This guide is packed with helpful information for getting your house sparkling clean with less effort and less time!
Continue reading Enjoy Free Time Faster With A Spit-Spot Cleaning List – Tidy Tuesday …
From Hillbilly Housewife Blog.
Organizing Your Time~Week 2
Taming Technology
Do you have a love/hate relationship with technology? I know I do! What did we ever do before Internet? I use it for just about everything–from staying in touch with friends to paying bills to checking the weather. In some ways it saves huge amounts of time and effort. The downside is that I can also squander HOURS online if I’m not careful. Maybe it’s the same for you.
Phones, too. My cell phone and home phone are tools I just can’t imagine living without–yet sometimes I allow myself to be interrupted by a phone call, and end up feeling frustrated and resentful. Enter caller id. For a long time I resisted having it, even though it was free through my phone provider. I do use it now as well as my answering machine. I really started using these tools shortly after we began homeschooling. It was unfair to my kids for me to answer the phone and get caught up in a conversation when we were in the middle of a math lesson, for instance. So it’s not about showing disrespect to those people who are calling . . . it’s about managing my time so that I talk to them when I am best able to listen and give them my full attention.
Telemarketers are people too . . . and they are just trying to make a living. Please don’t be rude to them. Just don’t allow them to persist to the point where you’re irritated. Just a simple “Thank you, but I am not interested. Please remove me from you list.” CLICK. Don’t wait for an answer.
Keep a phone log for a few weeks. Include the name of the caller, the time they called, and the length of the conversation. Analyze that to see what changes can be minimize interruptions and time wasters.
Here’s another log to keep–though it might be painful. Just a sheet of paper is all you need, but I challenge you to keep track of all the time spent on the Internet for a week. Ouch. Prepare to be surprised!
If you have favorite blogs, try subscribing to them so they’re delived to your email inbox, or following them in a list. Set a timer before getting online–predetermine how much time per day you want to allow for Internet. When the timer goes off–you’re done!
Email is a problem for many of us. Here are a few tips for managing email.
Set a schedule–determine that you are only going to check email, say, twice a day, or whatever works best for your situation. Stick to it! Take a few minutes to reply to emails if necessary, then shut down.
Sort email into folders. I subscribe to several online newsletters and blogs. I have folders set up in my inbox to sort newsletters until I can block some time to read them. It helps keep my inbox somewhat clearer.
Use email subject lines for easy identification, and change the subject line if the subject of the email thread changes.
Keep emails clear and concise and to the point.
Please be selective about forwards. Not everyone enjoys receiving them. It’s polite to ASK before forwarding power point slide shows, political jokes, or the “forward du jour” to everyone on your list.
How about you? How do you use the phone and internet to save time? And how do you avoid wasting time on them? I think this is an area in which many of us continue to struggle. I’d love to read your feedback and suggestions.
Continue reading Organizing Your Time~Week 2 …
From Econobusters.
The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Freebies Edition
There is no such thing as a free lunch. From my experience, that’s completely true. Yet, I constantly advocate using free services all the time – the library, the parks, and so on.
Lately, a few readers have called me on this seeming contradiction, pointing out that, indeed, these things have costs. We pay those costs when we pay our taxes. And some people with a certain political perspective think it’s wholly unfair that we should pay for libraries and parks and the like.
Here’s the thing, though. It’s a sunk cost. We’ve already paid our taxes – and those taxes paid for those libraries. The money is already paid – so why not enjoy the fruits of those dollars? If you politically disagree with such services, act in a political fashion against them – but don’t eschew services. You’ve already paid for them. Use them.
Tyler Durden’s Guide To Personal Finance This is a humorous reworking of “Fight Club,” translating the themes of the movie into pretty sensible personal finance advice. I enjoyed reading it. (@ man vs. debt)
Thomas Carlyle’s Advice to Young Men This is brilliant advice for everyone today. Don’t follow advice to the letter – instead, explore and learn what works for you. A truly worthwhile person is able to find their own path and utilizes advice only in terms of trying to see things through another’s eyes. (@ art of manliness)
In Defense of Solitude (Part Two) I spend multiple workdays in solitude. For me, being alone is essential – a key part of being able to bear down and focus on tasks at hand. I find that interruptions make it much more challenging for me to complete anything well, so solitude is a key tool for my work. (@ soul shelter)
Banishing the No Momentum Monster Without some sort of crutch, I find it’s really hard to maintain the momentum of continuous work, like writing or exercising every day. For me, the “chain method” works well – I have a printed calendar on the wall in my office and each day I accomplish my specific goal, I put a big colored X on that date on the calendar. When I get a string of them going, I *really* don’t like breaking that chain, so it gives me motivation to do it. (@ unclutterer)
Off My Giving List I do the same thing – if a telemarketer from a charity interrupts me, I cease giving to them. I am a charitable person, but I value my family time and I don’t want it intruded on by some ham-fisted telemarketer. (@ free money finance)
Are Online Savings Accounts Worth It? We use an online savings account (ING) for most of our banking, but we also have a local bank for some specific teller services (cashing checks, mostly). We have the two accounts linked and everything just works like a charm. (@ bargaineering)
20 Cheap and Fun Date Ideas Most of these sound like a whole lot of fun to me! My wife and I already do several of these things, sometimes even with the kids in tow. (@ christian pf)
How to Destroy Your Investment Portfolio You can solve all five of these problems by simply buying a broadly based index fund and just sitting on it. Sure, you won’t hit a home run, but you will have consistently strong investment results over the long haul. (@ frugal dad)
Continue reading The Simple Dollar Weekly Roundup: Freebies Edition …
From The Simple Dollar.