The world of “grown ups” is littered with responsibilities. One of them, the one that constantly rears its ugly head over and over again is that of bills and finance. It seems like everyone wants a piece of us, that we are working just to pay the next bill. Every service provider you have – electricity, insurance, mortgage, phone etc – issues a bill to you at different times. This makes it seems as though there is always some bill that needs to be paid, and this sits in the back of your mind, eating away at you until the dreaded due date arrives. Then you might realise that it hasn’t been paid yet and scramble to make a payment before you receive another lovely letter in the mail letting you know that you now owe more money as a “administrative fee” to handle the late payment (it baffles me how some companies can justify such exorbitant late fees… for what?). And what if your simply unable to make a payment?

So how should you handle this never ending torrent of recurring bills and invoices? All at once!

Preparation

Almost every company or service provider that you have an ongoing relationship with is going to send you a bill on some regular interval. Your car registration and insurance is probably due once a year, while your internet access will likely be due every month. It’s rare to receive a recurring bill more frequently than monthly, but anything is possible.

Generally the bill or invoice you receive from each service provider is for about the same amount each time. There may be some variance, for example phone or electricity usage, but for the most part these variances can be easily accommodated.

Think of every one of these regular bills as a monthly expense. For example, let’s say you’re currently on a $59/month plan for your mobile/cell phone. That’s an easy one – you need to set aside $59 for next month for this (if you often exceed this amount you’ll need to take that into consideration and perhaps allocate more than the $59). Now look at your car insurance. Let’s assume the insurance is $1200. Break that down into monthly chunks of $100 and squirrel that away for next month. Repeat this for everything and you’ll end up with a number that you need to set aside every month so that when a bill arrives there are no surprises.

YNAB (You Need A Budget) is incredibly simple budgeting software that makes this process really easy to manage and to visualise. For example, breaking the $1200 insurance bill into monthly allotments of $100 can make it difficult to keep track of that $100. With YNAB a category can be setup for “Car Insurance” and every month that you allocate $100 you can see the accumulated total continue to climb.

Early Big Ones

In starting out this process it’s highly likely that some of the big bills coming your way are not 12 months away. For example, your car insurance is likely due in less than 12 months from today. That being the case, let’s assume the insurance is due in 7 months time. Instead of dividing the $1200 into 12 monthly allotments, break it into 7 monthly allotments of $172 until it is paid. As soon as it’s paid readjust to allocate the $100 instead, since it won’t be due again for another 12 months.

Again, tracking this allocation of money is much easier done with a trusted personal finance system such as YNAB.

Acknowledgement

With the preparation done it’s time to wait… To wait until those bills arrive. When they do it’s time to make any adjustments to the money allocated for the month the bill is due to cover any variances. The phone use for example, perhaps the bill arrives and is for $72 instead of the planned $59. Adjust this amount wherever you track the monthly allocation of money.

For items like this a good trick is to overestimate the monthly amount. Instead of allocating just $59 and then dealing with anything extra as it arrives and trying to scramble together that extra money, set aside $70. Then, those months where the bill is for just the $59 will leave a positive balance in that “bucket” and perhaps the next month you wont need to set aside another $70 – as long as the regular balance of that bucket stays at the $70 mark.

With any adjustments made store the bill itself in a trusted system so you can refer to it later when payment is made. I recommend using Evernote for this. You can find a full guide on tracking bills and receipts with Evernote in my upcoming book, Evernote Every Day.

Execution – Your Next Actions

It’s time to get moving on this! Here’s how to get started.

1. On a piece of paper, or in Evernote, list all of your recurring bills. Think of everything. Smaller more frequent bills, right through to larger less frequent ones. Leave no stone unturned. Here are some ideas to get you started:
   • Fixed line phone
   • Mobile/cell phone(s)
   • Internet access
   • Water
   • Electricity
   • Gas
   • Car insurance
   • Car repayments
   • Car registration
   • Mortgage payments or rent
2. Next to each one note down the expected amount of the next bill along with the month it will need to be paid. For those bills where the due date is a few months away, take the total amount and divide it by the number of months until the month before the month the bill is due (this will allow you to pay all your bills at the start of the month, instead of trying to find those last few dollars on the actual due date. It may help to look through the last few bills if you still have them to work out an average amount due or any recurring amounts that catch you by surprise. You now have the amount you need to put aside every month to insure you never miss a due date again.
3. Budget for these expenses first. The items you’ve now listed are your primary expenses. They are fixed expenses that will cause a lot of pain if they’re missed.
4. Use YNAB to track each expense category (bucket) and watch the size of the bucket grow each month up to the due date.
5. When you receive your bills in the mail, if they are due in the same month, pay them right away (there will be enough money side aside in the bucket to take care of them). If they are due the following month track them in a trusted system and on the first of the next month (or as soon as practical) get all those bills together and pay each one. Track the receipt of payment against th bill for your records, either stapling them together and writing (in a nice big happy marker) “PAID” and the date you made payment, or store both documents together in a system such as Evernote, or doo. You can find a complete guide on tracking bills and receipts in my upcoming book, Evernote Every Day (subscribe to Cloud Productivity for early access).
6. Finally go and enjoy a stress-free month, knowing that all your dues are paid.

If you found this article helpful, please share and comment below.

Expense Forecasting – Living Today. Planning for Tomorrow. is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!

There has been plenty of discussion about Inbox Zero since Merlin Mann first presented the concept and yet it’s still relatively unknown as to what it actually is and how to achieve it. Merlin has blogged that Inbox Zero is not about emptying your inbox. That it is not about waiting for email to arrive so that you can do something about. He writes that it is a state of mind. A sense of freedom. That you are not your inbox.

And yet how does one free themselves from the daily flood of emails to be able to focus on what is real work? By abandoning what’s happening in the Inbox the dam will eventually burst and drown you in information. Here follows one approach to control the flood, to filter it off into a number of smaller, manageable channels.

Email is a tool, not your brain

For this to work it’s incredibly important to constantly remind yourself that email, and your inbox, are tools, they are not another part of your brain. Email should not dominate your attention. Why? Think about the majority of the emails you receive and ask yourself:

• Has this message changed the way I think?
• Have I learnt something valuable from this email?
• Would I be or do anything different if I didn’t receive this email?

Chances are that for the most part you have acknowledged that email doesn’t change how you think, what you learn, or how to act. So why then are we so hopelessly devoted to it?

A time and a place for email

In the hyper-connected world we now live in and with mobile devices always at hand that instantly alert us to new email it can be difficult to create the distinction between doing something of value and checking email messages. Some people are of the mindset that checking email is doing “work”. Wrong. Previously I’ve discussed how to get out of the inbox trap and some ways to spend less time filtering through your email, but there is more to using email properly and deciding what to do with each email in your inbox.

Firstly, it’s important to understand that email is not an “always on” channel. Don’t check your email as the first thing you do in the morning. Each afternoon setup a list of things you need to accomplish the following day. The next day attack the first item on that list, not your email. Email is a black hole for your time.

As you go through each item on the list, disable your email client – go “offline”. This works well for most desktop email applications such as Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail and Mozilla Thunderbird. Switching your email application to “offline” mode means that you can still search and use your emails for referencing things, but no new mail will arrive to tempt your time and focus away. If using Gmail or another web-based email application, simply close it down. If email is not accessible to you it can’t distract you. If you find yourself still thinking about what emails might be in your inbox, set a timer for 30 minutes and only after you’ve been working on your current task for 30 minutes should you let yourself check your email.

Process and Sort

When you do come around to checking your email, be ruthless. Do not spend hours and hours reading every single email that comes your way. Setup filters that categorise or label the email depending if your email address appears in the TO or CC field. If your email address doesn’t appear at all (either it’s part of a distribution list or was in the BCC field) these emails take a lower priority.

Make sure your email application is setup so that the reading pane is hidden - you should only be looking at a list of emails, not the emails themselves. This helps you to maintain focus on deciding what to do with each message rather than spending time reading and re-reading each email as you select it.

Setup three folders in your email application:

• Doing
• Later
• Archive

For each email in your inbox decide if any action is required from you. If you need to do work then move the email to the “Doing” folder and add a task to your task list. If action is required, but it’s not urgent, still create a new task in your task list, but move the email to the Later folder. If the email has no value to you delete it. Yep, delete it. For anything else, move it to the Archive folder. Some emails contain information of high value. For these I recommend forwarding them to Evernote.

Repeat this for every email in your inbox until it’s empty. If you attempt to do this with an overloaded inbox consider moving everything into the Archive folder to give you a clean slate.

When you’re inbox is cleared your mind will be able to focus on the real work – the tasks you’ve created. Move your attention to those tasks in combination with the emails in the Doing folder. As you’ve completed actions required for each of these emails move them into the Archive folder. When the Doing folder is empty, move on to the Later folder.

Freedom

I’ve been using this approach to my email inbox for some time now and I feel great about it. It’s comforting to know that every email that has come my way has been sorted and processed. It’s one less thing I need to use brain-power on, which means I can focus completely on the real work at hand and get more done.

Still, one system doesn’t suit everybody. Give this approach a try and tweak it to suit the way you work.

How to Process Your Email Inbox is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!

Most sources agree that keeping a journal is great way to express yourself. It gives you the freedom to express yourself in any way that you like, in any way that resonates with you. A journal is a very personal object. While some people may choose to keep a journal for posterity, others will take their writing to the grave with them. So why then would I even consider writing about things that you should avoid when keeping your journal? Let me explain…

Don’t Write in Code

Never write in a coded system. If you are concerned about prying eyes, go digital and secure your memories with a password of some kind. The problem with codes is that they need deciphering, and unless you can easily decrypt it to read it (which means the code is useless anyway), you’re going to spend a lot of time decrypting and rewriting your journal entries. Why do I mention this? As a teenager I kept a journal, but it was difficult to keep anything private. If someone had got possession of my journal then I’d be “doomed” (as much as a high school kid could be). Because of this, and because amazing online tools such as Evernote didn’t exist yet, I decided to encrypt my entries. At first I started by creating glyphs or characters that replaced each letter of the alphabet, but this simple substitution cipher wasn’t enough. I eventually started to create new words to substitute English words. Now if someone managed to get my journal all they would see was a well written jumble of gibberish. To create and use this level of encryption I had to create a dictionary, a way that would allow me to write additional entires using the same encryption and also to decrypt my entries later. Now I had two objects I had to keep safe – the journal and the dictionary.

When I filled up that journal I stored it somewhere, and the dictionary somewhere else. No, over a decade later I find myself wanting to review this old journal, to try to remember what I was like back then. I have the dictionary, but alas, I cannot find the journal itself! Lets assume I do find it, it’s going to take me weeks to decipher everything I had written in that journal. Dumb.

Don’t write your journal in code, you’ll regret it in the future. If security is a big concern, using an app and secure it with a password.

Don’t Lose Your Journal

Following on from the fact that writing a journal in code is a very bad idea, it’s also a bad idea not to keep your journals safe. Over the last 10 years or so I have moved around a lot. Every time I’m careful that I know where these historical personal items are, especially my old journals. But, as time goes on and things get moved from box to box, house to house, I’ve lost track of where my journals are.

Always, always know where your current and past journals are, every single one of them.

If I had the opportunity to keep track of these journals again, I would take a photo of it with the box/cupboard/bookshelf/whatever that it belongs in and I’d store that photo in Evernote, along with its location on the map (Evernote does this for you automagically).

Bottom line – keep all your journals safe. Treat like a part of you. Always know where they are. Always.

Don’t use a Journal that doesn’t work for you

I attempted to get back into keeping a journal again after my son was born. I found a very nice italian leather bound journal with nice thick unlined pages.

Colossal disaster.

My writing tended to be quite big in this book, but worse than that, it was impossible to write in it when I started to get to the bottom. There was simply nothing to rest my hand on since there was about a 1 inch drop from the edge of the page to the table. This made my writing get even worse towards the bottom of every page.

I then headed out and found a nice big journal, with lined pages and only about 1/4 thick. This was another failure. It wasn’t very portable. I could just through the journal into my bag and leave it there. And it certainly wasn’t very discreet to write it. Sure, if had a nice big oak library in my house where I could leave the journal and a nice big desk to use, it would have been ok. Sadly, I don’t have an oak library in my house… yet.

My Journal Solution

I’ve now found the perfect journal solution, and it’s so simple. It’s a Moleskine. It’s a little shorter than an iPad (when stood up) and only as thicker as a finger. I can quickly and easily fill its pages and it feels great to be making progress. I can throw it into my bag and keep it there so that its always with me and I’m writing in plain old English.

Have you had any disasters with keeping a journal? What would you recommend to others?

3 Things to Avoid when Keeping a Journal is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!

Sanebox has published an amazing list of 100 tips, tricks and hacks to help you get back in control of your email inbox and even get to inbox zero.

It is 100% free and I highly encourage you to check it out. Personally, I have it stored in Evernote, so I can refer to it as and when needed.

100 Email Tips to Save Your Inbox is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!

As with starting any new habit, the journal writing challenge is not without its own… challenges. One of the challenges I’ve found with journal writing by hand in my Evernote Moleskine notebook is that it doesn’t really let you add things like photos or clippings. For example, the other day I was at the park with my daughter and we were having a blast. At that moment I wanted to snap a photo and include it in my journal entry for the day, but then I realised that it couldn’t be done. Sure I could have printed the photo and then stuck it in, but then in a few months or years the photo would stick to the opposite page and rip. Not cool.

This problem has really called me to question whether using a physical journal is going to be better than a virtual journal such as Evernote, or Day One. If I was using Evernote, for example, then as soon as the time was right I could have snapped a photo of my daughter playing, added it into a new note and made a few quick observations that I could expand on later.

Can you see the problem with this?

While I’m taking the photo and making a few comments, I’m not being with my daughter, not being present, and so am missing out on much more than the opportunity to make a few observations. I’d rather be present than be stuck in my phone when I’m spending time with my family.

I have encountered another problem with putting pen to paper, and that is time. It takes more time for me to write out my thoughts than it does to type them out. My days are pretty hectic – it’s go go go. As soon as the kids wake up in the morning, I’m off to work, I commit my day there, then it’s back home, dinner with the family, bath the kids (they’re still little so that’s ok) and put them to bed – I try to give my wife this time to get some head space – anyone with young kids knows what I’m talking about here, they don’t give you much time to yourself. After they’re in bed, it’s time to clean up and I still need to actually spend some time with my wife. By this time it’s pushing 9pm and I’m exhausted. I’m sure that you can understand the time pressures we all feel today. So where then do we find time to sit quietly and scribble down some thoughts? By late evening my mind is so fried all I can think of is getting to sleep.

There are many evangelists that will say you should get up earlier and use the quiet of the morning for solitude and reflection. Hell no! I need my sleep!

I’ve found that I can get some writing done, at least for this blog, on the train to and from work. But of course, trying to use pen and paper on a moving locomotive doesn’t work out to well.

What I’ve done to make sure I get something written is allocate just 15 minutes each night between cleaning up and crashing on the couch. This 15 minutes is my launch pad. If I write for that amount of time then that’s good enough, but if I get into a groove, I can write for an hour or more pretty easily. But, and there’s always a but, if I spend an evening writing, or working on some other projects, I need to make sure I make up that time with my wife. And so some days I just leave the notebook in my bag and just spend time with her.

All Most things come in threes and journal writing challenges are no exceptions. I am struggling to make my writing seem worth it to me. What ends up on the page is often a recount of my day, not a mirror of my soul as I had hoped. I’m hoping that the more I write, the better I can become at getting in touch with my soul again, to better understand myself. The motivation I have are the pages being filled. The more I write, the more I want to write, but also the more I want it to be the right words.

What challenges are you facing?

Modern Journal Writing Challenges is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!

Have you ever been faced with a scenario that has really made you stop and think about who you are and the way you live? We go about our everyday lives as though nothing will ever change; as though what is now has always been and will always be.

The pace of daily life is incredibly fast. Often we do whatever we can to keep up, to get by, to be able to pay the bills, life can very quick pass us by. In fact, this has never been more true! With technology in our pockets wherever we go we often have our heads buried in a mobile phone and don’t even look up. There is a whole world flying by that we’re missing out on.

Don’t get me wrong, I love having technology so available to me. In fact I’m writing this on an iPad while sitting on a train, but it needs to have its place in our lives. Everything needs to have its place. How often do you pull out your phone and check your emails, or Facebook, or twitter while you’re having dinner with your partner or family? How often do you stop someone talking to you so you can send a tweet?

We are “doers”. We always need to be doing something and with the rise smartphones and tablets this “doing” has never needed more “doing”!

Did we actually get less done when we didn’t have our email in our pockets? Did we not have “friends” before Facebook?

I want to you to stop all this doing, and start being.

When you sit down to dinner with your family, leave your phone in another room. When you’re spending time with the people you care about, actually spend time with them. BE with them and give them your complete attention.

Tip: when you get home from work, put your phone in a different room, or in your sock drawer, and leave it there… for the whole night.

When you go for a walk or run, leave your phone/iPod at home and as you walk really take notice of the air rushing over your skin; of the changing and mixed smells of trees and anything you walk past; of the ground under your feet, feel its contour; of the sounds of the world happening all around you – birds in trees, different people you pass having conversations you never thought possible. Take it all in. Eduard Exeanu writes a very powerful tip to help you get to this state of being, and that is to stop focusing on the internal you and focus 100% on the external you. What does this mean? Leave your worries behind, just for a little while, and enjoy being exactly where you are.

One thing that I love to do is stand in the rain. It sounds depressing, but when I walk around in the rain it takes away any control and reminds me that I am only a very small part of a much bigger world. I look up, close my eyes and feel the rain hit my face and soak into me. My worries and the things I need to “do” fade into insignificance. It gives me the opportunity to reconnect with that which is all around us – the world – and that which really matters.

Stop Doing. Start Being. is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!

We’re all short on time and always looking for that next hack to make our tasks that much faster to process and complete. If you use Evernote then you’re already on your way to improving your productivity, but you still wanting more, aren’t you?

Here are 10 of my most used keyboard shortcuts for Evernote for Mac and why I use them, plus a couple of bonus ones at the end.

1. New Note: CTRL+CMD+N

This is a life saver. As soon as a thought or idea strikes, this shortcut will let you get your thoughts down super quickly! As long as the Evernote icon is in your menu bar or system tray this shortcut will work. Version 5.0.6 of Evernote for Mac changes the screen that appears when this shortcut is used to a sleek no-nonsense text area. You can use this to type in text, drop in files and images, record audio or even take screenshots. No need to worry about putting it in the right notebook or attaching the right tags. This tool is perfect for capturing what’s running through your head before it runs away.

2. Toggle Bullets: SHIFT+CMD+U

I love lists so finding this amazing shortcut has really sped up my workflow. No you can quickly switch between lists and text without using the mouse or trackpad to actually click on the bullets button. I’m sure that when you give this shortcut a try you too will feel amazing.

3. Toggle Numbered Lists: SHIFT+CMD+O

If you prefer to number your lists then this shortcut is for you. It’s the same principle as the bullets shortcut. Jump in and out of numbered lists faster than ever!

4. Edit Tags: CMD+’

I use tags fairly heavily, but I don’t want my thoughts impeded when I’m getting things into Evernote. After I’ve capture my thoughts using this shortcut makes it super fast to attach tags to the note. This shortcut will move the cursor into the tags section so that you can just start typing the first few letters of your tag. When the tag you want is at the top of the list, or it’s by itself, the comma key will lock it in and let you enter more tags.

5. Edit Title: CMD+L

After tagging a note I update the title or subject. I almost always edit the title after I’ve captured the note body so that when I’m entering the title it will have a lot mor meaning and context. This shortcut will move the cursor into the title section and highlight whatever is already there so that you can just start typing in your new title.

6. Change Notebook: CMD+M

I love this shortcut! When you create a new note it will normally be automatically captured into your default notebook, on Inbox. When you’re done creating your note, and you’ve added any tags and updated the title, use this shortcut to display the list of notebooks you can move th current note into. Then type th first few letters from the name of the notebook and you’ll see that notebook rise to the top of the list. Once it’s highlighted just hit Enter. That’s it, the note has now been moved to that notebook.

7. Return to top of Notes: OPTION+UP

After you’ve done a search in Evernote, and you’re then finished with those search results, you normally clear out the search field. The note you had open before stays open and stays selected in the notes list. Use this shortcut to quickly jump crack to the very top of the list. For this to work you first need to click on a note in the list so that th list item has the focus and not the note editor. All your latest notes are bundled together at the top of the list of notes usually so this shortcut is really handy for getting back to them after a search. This shortcut only works with Snippet and List views, not Card view.

8. Toggle Text Size: CMD++/-

We all know the standard text formatting options such as CMD+B (bold) and CMD+I (italic), but did you know you can also change the size of the text you have selected just as easily? Select some text then use CMD+(PLUS) to increase the size of that text, or CMD+(MINUS) to decrease it. Very handy for quickly making headings in your notes.

9. Add Link to Text: CMD+K

I’m right in to linking my notes together. For projects I tend to have an “index” note that links out to each other note that’s related to the project. You can make any text or image any of your notes a link by first selecting/highlighting it and then using this shortcut. It will popup a box that you can enter the URL or note link you’d like to link the text to.

10. Toggle Checkbox: CMD+SHIFT+T

This little gem always comes in handy, especially when you’re in a meeting and quickly need to capture action items. When you type against a checkbox and hit Enter, a new checkbox is automatically added to the start of the next line. You can remove this with the backspace. You can add a checkbox anywhere inside a note.

Bonus Shortcuts I Love

• CMD+OPTION+F = Global find
• CMD+F = Find in note
• OPTION+Left/Right = Jump to end of next/previous word
• CMD+SHIFT+Left/Right = Highlight from current position to start/end of current line
• OPTION+SHIFT+Left/Right = Highlight from current position to start/end of word
• CMD+Left/Right = Jump to start/end of current line

Leave a comment below to let me and others know which of these shortcuts do you think you’ll love the most, or if you have other shortcuts you’d like to share.

My 16 Most Commonly Used Evernote Shortcuts is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!

When I planned to start journaling with everyone I was immediately drawn to using a physical journal. I love to pick up a journal, thick with time, wisdom and experience, and know that it’s a part of my soul within the pages. But why go paper when everything today is digital?

I have tried to journal with Evernote in the past, I even have an Evernote notebook called Diary. But I used it so infrequently that its meaning was lost. It just didn’t feel like part of me. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Evernote, but it’s a reference tool, not a piece of me. This goes for other digital “logging” or journal apps too. They limit my creativity to basic text. I know that many apps can capture photos, audio and everything else too, Evernote included, but even though I prefer just to write, I need to be able to express myself in more than typed fonts. This expression could be as basic as a change in handwriting style, little pictures drawn into the margin, or even full page pictures that take some time to do.

There’s also the feeling of accomplishment. After writing an entry in your journal you can sit back and just take in the sum of everything you have written down and have it immediately in context of all your prior writing. And when the book is filled and you put it on the shelf it’s a huge feeling to know that part of who you are has been capture and will live on forever.

Focus

With journal apps there’s just way too much opportunity for distractions. I can’t be trying to write a journal entry and then see a Facebook notification, a tweet or an email arrive. These things try to impede your flow. They will try to stop you focusing on finding yourself and tempt you to follow them. The result is that what you write doesn’t really have any meaning because you’re not focusing 100% of who you are on it, or you only write down a couple of words so that you can get back to whatever it is that is distracting you, or, you don’t write down anything at all! Using a physical journal instantly removes all of those distractions – just make sure your phone is silent and no where near you when you sit down to write, and of course that your laptop/computer is shut down and out of site.

Be The Words

Using a journal book and a pen gives me the chance to slow down, way down. I can type pretty fast and even as I type this post out on my iPad (using the Evernote app), I can type faster than I can write, which is great, and let’s me throw down anything that comes into my mind. However, by switching to blank paper I’m forced to take more time to write (so that I’ll actually be able to read it later). This also results in giving me more time to process my thoughts and let them stew in my mind some, to let them morph and evolve and birth new thoughts so that I might also see where they take me. When I type I feel myself wanting to type so fast because my mind is running a million miles an hour and I just…can’t…get…words…onto..the…page…fast enough! Because writing forces me to slow down I can then start to be creative with phrasing, language and vocabulary and really immortalise my thoughts and feelings in a manner that does them justice.

No Edits

A pen does not have a backspace. Any mistake will be captured forever. I believe this is a great thing! Looking back I’ll be able to see the start of different thoughts. This will be a great insight and legacy into who I am and how my mind works. There’s no way to move text on the page, to “cut and paste” it elsewhere (unless you really do break out the scissors and glue). Instead imagine what your journal will be like when you have arrows and sketches annotating thoughts and moving them in place. You’ll be able to see your mind and its inner workings laid out on every page.

Multi-sensory

A physical journal is more than just words on a page. Every word has weight and texture. You can feel the indents the ink has left in the paper. You can smell the creativity and experience in every page and your fingers will grip the cover with authority and ownership. I love opening a book and riffling the pages so that the smell of knowledge pours out. It is a scent like no other.

It’s a Personal Thing

Everything you’ve read here is my personal opinion. You may find that you write better using a digital journal. You may be visually creative and can translate your thoughts using something like Photoshop. The point is that your journal is all about you. Whatever medium you go with, it should say something about who you are. It should become part of you. It will be the musings of your mind immortalised. It’s all about you, for you!

Your Next Actions

I want you to spend the next day or so thinking about the kind of journal you want to use. What will work best for you? Do you like to write by hand and focus on nothing else, or would you rather capture everything digitally? Once you pick a medium you should be committed to it, a journal means nothing if there are pieces scattered in different places. Really ask yourself if you’re likely to be distracted if you use a digital journal. The journal writing challenge is for you.

Why Write When You Can Type? is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!

Do you have a plan for where your going in life? Can you remember the amazing things that have happened to get you where you are today? What about the challenges and what you did to overcome them? As the old saying goes, “you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been” and as Bilbo Baggins said ”It’s a dangerous business, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no telling where you might be swept off to.”

These messages can be interpreted a number of ways, but I believe the most relevant is that of tracking and recording, of capturing stories, dreams and emotions. The best medium I’ve found to do this is pen and paper – the humble journal.

What Journal Writing Is and Isn’t

Writing in a journal has this stigma attached to it of teenage girls using fluffy pink pens to draw love hearts and write about boys in their diaries. I’m sure this does happens, but this is only the more publicised side of it that you see in movies. Journal writing is much more than a diary, it is part of you. Part of who you are and who you want to be. I actually used to use journal in high-school. I used to write of my feelings and dreams. Much of this ended up being poetry. The poetry of an adolescent male, be what it may, is what helped to shape who I am today and instilled a love of the creative word in me that I’m sure will last forever. Anyway, I digress…

I want to start journaling again. In poetry, prose, pictures, whatever. To this end I have just bought my first Evernote Moleskine. I’m going to write something, anything, at least once a day. I want to take a journey deeper into who I am and who I want to be, and ultimately to discover how I’m going to get there. I want you to join me. I want you to embark on this journey into your own soul, into your dreams. I’ll be sharing my challenges with journal writing, my triumphs and maybe some daily hacks discovered during the process. There are many blogs that sing praises to keeping a journal, so there’s no doubt we’re doing the right thing, but often it’s hard to get started. It’s hard to know what to write in those first few days. Let’s figure it out together.

Here’s the Plan

The start date for this is March 1, 2013. This is gives you plenty of time to get the right gear and really all you need is a comfortable pen and a notebook. If you can, get yourself a nice pen and notebook. The better quality they are the more you’ll look after them and cherish using them. If you go into your local supermarket and grab a BIC and a 48 page exercise book you won’t be doing your writing any justice. I’ll be using my Evernote Moleskine. You can find amazing quality journals at Epica and other stationary shops. Moleskines are also a great product and are very widely available. Your pen should be close to you and say something about who you are. You may wish to try a fountain pen for example. I’ll be using a simple stainless steel pen that I carry everywhere with me and use for everything, I am very rarely without it.

Ok, so you now have some time to go and get the right materials for this. If you’ve never kept a journal or diary before please don’t write off this exercise as waste of time. Please give it a try. Remember though, you only get out of it what you put in. The more of your soul that you lay out on the page, the better your experience will be.

Your Next Actions

• Find a journal notebook
• Find a pen that will be part of you
• Join the team on Facebook and declare your commitment
• Be ready to start writing on March 1, 2013!

The Journal Writing Challenge is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!

No two days are the same. So it follows that no two weeks, months, years or even people are the same. Life changes every day and some days it changes a whole lot more than others. When my son was born, for example, oh wow did my life change. And that’s really where this story begins.

A few short years ago my wife and I were both in fairly comfortable jobs. We got by from month to month and were saving for our wedding. Life was pretty comfortable. When we found out we were pregnant we were ecstatic (and surprised). Once the excitement settled down and we started to go to the doctor for checkups and the like it quickly became apparent just how much kids cost and there is no working out how much they need and how quickly they need it. And here’s the kicker, they NEVER STOP NEEDING MONEY!

A few months in and we were weighing up the costs of doctors and hospital visits, all the accessories that such a tiny little person needs such as car seats, cots, diapers, furniture, and clothes… Oh so many clothes. And these were just the immediate needs. Shortly after our brand new son was home with us we were thinking about education. Some cities, such as Sydney, are so crazy that to be able to get a spot in preschool you have to put your child’s name on the list practically as soon as they’re born, even though they won’t be going for a couple of years. Child care, preschool, grade school, college, university… Oh my they’re expensive! Oh yeah, and by this time we’re down to one income of course.

How on earth were we going to be able to afford to send our son to the places we wanted to send him? Not only that, but we also wanted to start a kind of nest-egg for him. We had personally experienced how difficult it is to get ahead in life without some kind of financial backing.

Solution

The solution to this problem, these imminent expenses, was to start a savings system. But, we had to not even know about it. The savings that would start to grow for education and the like needed to grow without any ongoing involvement from my wife and I. Why? If we knew too much about it we might be tempted to be a little less careful with our own money and reach into that savings fund as an easy backup. Or, some months we might just decide not to save for that month, and I’m sure that would have happened a lot.

The solution for us was to set up a high interest savings account and an automatic transfer into that account a few days after the start of the month. My paycheck was due to arrive at the end of each month, so setting up the transfer for the start of the month meant that there was a few days worth of buffer there just in case my pay took a couple of extra days to clear.

Every month a few hundred dollars would automatically find its way to this hidden account and that was that. Because this money was transferred only a few days after being paid, we didn’t miss it. It meant that we dealt with what was left. Try to set up this transfer for half-way through the month, and there will never be enough left to pay the bills. We rarely even bothered looking at the account apart from when we received the occasional quarterly statements. Honestly, when we read these statements we were blown away at just how much the account had grown in such a short amount of time.

A few years later we had a daughter and setup a second savings account for her. We also setup another account to save for a house deposit (those things are expensive). We knew we’d eventually want to by a house, it was a matter of having enough deposit and finding the right place.

Oops

Eventually we decided we’d had enough of renting and it was time to buy a house. Houses, like kids, are expensive, really expensive. In order to have enough money for the deposit we had to raid both of the kids accounts as well as our own savings. Oops. In any case, we made the deposit, and we now own about 6% of our home.. Yay!

But… We still have accounts for each of the kids and our house deposit account is now our holiday/home improvement account, and each month we still automatically transfer a few hundred dollars to each of them. The kids accounts are on the rise again and we’re starting to think about what renovations we want done. Progress

Things to Remember

Automation is good! If you looking for a way to save money, then setup a separate account and setup and automatic transfer to this account straight after you get paid! Because this money is no longer in your “everyday” account you’re not tempted to spend any of it and you and up living a lot less.

Have you got a story about how you saved money or how you dealt with the expenses that come with a baby? Please share below!

The Automoney System: How to Save Money Without Saving is a post from: Cloud Productivity

Oh, one last thing... have an AWESOME day!