Startup newb, recovering tech early adopter, former corporate drone. Obsessed with cities, culture, language and space (interior, exterior) and capturing it via photography.
“Let’s make room for the good stuff.” via TED
Articulation of the lifestyle deflation I’ve worked for the past half year.
At the office too early and stuck outside. Startups don’t open until after 10. Doh! (Taken with Instagram at Despark)
Ji Lee. This reminds me of my first typography assignment I had in college except mine wasn’t nearly as clever as this.
Mentor? Frida learned how to channel her suffering into her artwork. I’m going through some trials (this sh*t cray) and wondering if I can do the same.
Recently, I’ve been feeling the Good 30-Day Challenges as:
Their most recent challenge for January is Getting Financially Fit aka “Gotta Get My Money Right” (thank ‘Ye). I’m already trying to get my money with right with Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover so I decided to jump on the GOOD 30D challenge for extra encouragement.
Rather than post every day of the challenge, I decided to post weekly and highlighting the daily tasks from the week. Below, I’ve pulled together my thoughts on the first two weeks covering Days 1 - 14 (I missed the first week).
Task 3: Set Up Online Banking - How did we survive before this? I couldn’t imagine going into the bank or calling a customer service rep every time I wanted to access my acount information.
Task 4: Set Up Automatic Bill Pay. This was an interesting one because a few personal finance “experts” (cough, “bloggers”) debate on how much you should automate. Some say automate as much as you can so you pay your bills before you even touch your money. Others say you shouldn’t stop automating everything so you’re conscious of what you’re spending (you feel the pain every time you fork over $100 to ATT for your precious iPhone).
I’m in the middle. I automate as much as possible so I won’t miss due dates and get hit with fees. I complement that with a regular financial review so I look at how much I’m actually spending each week.
Task 5: Create a Mint Account. Mint is painless to set up. Do it. Now. I’ve been on it since my college days and once again, I don’t know how people survived before this. The words “balancing my checkbook” will never enter my vocabulary.
Task 7: Get Your Paperwork in Order. I use Evernote to manage all of my paperwork. No more loose-paper to keep track over. No clunky fill cabinets. No manilla folders. No más.
Task 9: Calculate the Cost of Your Commute. This would could serve as a full 30D challenge by itself. I recently attempted a ZipCar experiment last fall and had great success with commuting exclusively with public transits and my Chucks with the ocassional use of a ZipCar for errands. Either way, take a look at your commute and see if there are ways you can cut back. Save money, save the planet. End rant.
Task 12: Make a Plan to Pay Off Your Debt. This is another task that could be worth an entire series on. Fortunately, there are many people and bloggers who write extensively on managing debt. Your personal finance fitness theology will dictate how aggressively you manage yours. My new religion is to pay it off ASAP so I’ve set a goal to be debt free by the end of the 2012.
That is all for now. I’ll post again in a few weeks to wrap up the challenge.
(All images are from the GOOD blog. They are dope!)
I just completed the Speed Boost Course on Lumosity. Kind of cheesy but I love training. I start everyday with a brain training course and I can feel the difference. :) Might be placebo effect but I love it still the same.
Now on to the Flexibility Boost Course.
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.
dps weekly challenge - color: yellow. a dunny (Japanese toy) that I use to keep the blinds cord from dragging on the floor. (Taken with instagram)
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Happy New Year! and 2011 in review (part one) at Shanghai Street Stories
Bye, bye Moleskin. Hello, Evernote.
After completing a “no car” experiment last year, I’m starting to enjoy shaking up life a little in an effort to simplify things more. Given my focus in 2012 of “creating more, consuming less,” I thought it’d be appropriate to experiment with simplifying the number tools I use to create.
At the top of this list are the tools I use to jot down my thoughts…moleskines, post-its, Evernote, mind maps, etc. I can jot down notes on anything. Unfortunately, that means my thoughts are everywhere in every format imaginable. The freedom allows me to capture every fleeting thought but the lack of constraints are killing me.
Specifically, it’s killing me because I eventually spend time “digitizing” the notes eventually or I never reference them again which makes me question why I jotted it down in the first place.
So to start the year, I’m going to experiment with going completely digital (or as much as possible), e.g. no more, moleskines, or stickies.
I”ll try this out for the rest of the month and will return to summarize how the results.