Ranjan Varma's Blog

2012 and New Years

Ranjan — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:50:29 +0000

The thing with a New Year is that it happens all the year round. Just two months back, in November, we had a New Year after Deewali. Another fortnight and we have Makar Sankranti. And then we have Basant Panchmi and then something! All harbingers of new things and starting things afresh.

But 2012 brings special emotions, right! We all look forward to the “predicted” end of an era. It also means that we might witness a dawn of a new era.

But as you note, that new things happen all the time. Here’s an interesting story about the continuous change that we need to be aware of!

A man was taking a dip in the Ganga river. He took 3 dips.

On returning back to his hometown, he was describing his 3 dips in the river when he was confronted by a local fakeer. The fakeer said, “How can you say you took 3 dips in the same river? When you first took the dip, the river flowed away and the second dip you took was in another stream of that river!”

In fact, if you observe carefully, the 3 dips happened in three different streams of the same river.

And if you go deeper, and believe that millions of your body cells die and regenerate every second, you would realize that the same man did not take the 3 dips.

But 3 different men (in terms of cells dying and regenerating) took the 3 dips in 3 different Ganga river!!

Change is the only constant.

Good wishes for a Happy You. Make any moment your new year. (I need this specially because when 2011 turned into 2012, I was sleeping)

And for those who ask, I am focusing on my website which crossed 1 million hits recently. I am also working on RupeeManager and will announce more details about it shortly.

Meanwhile, you can check out my 12 checklist (The RupeeManager Checklist).

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Spending Money

Ranjan — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 16:38:01 +0000

Here’s a lovely and powerful quote on money that resonates with me. What about you?

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Irrational Buying and Smart Selling

Ranjan — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 13:51:33 +0000

Personal Finance is combination of maths and psychology. Just 1-10 % maths, 90-99% psychology, to my mind.

Economist has an insightful article on how irrational buying offers an opportunity for smart selling and advertising by brands/ companies.

Excerpts:

“You would be amazed to find how often we mislead ourselves, regardless of how smart we think we are, when we attempt to explain why we are behaving the way we do,” Dichter observed in 1960, in his book “The Strategy of Desire”.
He held that marketplace decisions are driven by emotions and subconscious whims and fears, and often have little to do with the product itself.
Trained as a psychoanalyst, Dichter saw human motivation as an “iceberg”, with two-thirds hidden from view, even to the decision-maker. “What people actually spend their money on in most instances are psychological differences, illusory brand images,” he explained.
Sigmund Freud argued that people are governed by irrational, unconscious urges over a century ago.

You may also read my Iceberg theory of money management.

What do you think? Are you aware of your own financial behavior?

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Daily tasks tracking through the Internet

Ranjan — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 14:07:56 +0000

Let me introduce a new guest writer. Anastasia Chumakova will tell us today about efficient time and task management.

What is the way you organize your day? I usually write all I have in my mind on a paper in a form of a list or a mind map. Then I decide what I will do today and what will be left aside due to lack of necessary resources. It’s easy when I do this work deciding what I will do. And what if I have others at work who need to know what I’m doing now and when I will finish the part of the work they are interested in? Let’s make this task more difficult and ask this: how will they track my activity and plan theirs if we’re not in the same office?

Mission is not impossible, or else I wouldn’t be writing this article, as you have already guessed. Indeed who needs a text like an old rock song ‘What can I do?’. Today the problem of cooperation between co-workers is solved efficiently, as most communicative problems, through the Internet and with the help of cloud solutions. You don’t know what cloud is? Better study this modern name. Professionals will call me simplistic, but you have used cloud for ages: any Internet service that keeps your information saved is almost cloud. I say almost because they actually keep in on a server: if the server drops, your info goes to ancestors with it. Of course, this is unacceptable for business information. Thus, a system of servers was created: your info is stored on multiple of them and if one drops, another one will keep on working. Your data is saved and your work is not disturbed.

Most of modern daily task tracking systems are based on cloud solutions because they are, first of all, made for business and business needs secure and reliable tools. You can sign in into the solution the way you do it on facebook, youtube, email, Google+ and any other of your accounts. You get instant access to your data. Means you’re free to be in any part of the world, yet you will open your browser window and you will see your to-do list.

I bet you are not that amazed at it. You can be in any part of the world and keep your to-do list on a paper: and you will still know what to do. Yes, you will. Others won’t. A to-do list on a daily task tracking system enables you to set status to each task: done, in progress, delayed, dismissed and so on. Same thing with the task-lists of your working colleagues. You can stay on top of your project by simply taking a look into the system.

If you search for a really good daily tasks tracking system, it may have a built-in tracker. Trackers make it possible to automate your tasks. We are often to do the same activities every day, repeatedly, and we cannot leave them aside. But keeping them all in mind or planning every day would be a waste of time. Automate this activity through a tracker and get email notifications about what you need to do. Also, if others depend on this activity, you may include them into tracker so that they will not only get a notification when you’re done, but also will automatically get next tasks.

One more significant advantage of daily tasks tracking systems is that you can make a report on what you have been up to in one click because the system was watching and guiding you all the time. Different dashboards reveal how you’ve spent your time and if it was successful.

Daily tasks tracking systems are numerous, you can choose one that best suits your budget and your needs. Log in along with your co-workers and make things more transparent. Most of such systems come with collaborative tools that help you to communicate upon tasks.

Author’s bio:

Anastasia Chumakova works in online workflow automation and project management and she got so passionate about the online collaboration systems that she started to write about it. First, she wanted to get rid of her friends, who couldn’t understand what her company was doing. Then, she started to write for blogs about new applications for entrepreneurs and companies.

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One Million Content Hits, Thank You

Ranjan — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:27:07 +0000

Just noticed that my website crossed 1000000 content view hits. Thanks for reading. The site has content on 347 topics and growing.

1 Million!

The statistics are on the right sidebar, near the bottom of the website, if you are interested.

More importantly, thanks for your emails and calls that encourage me to share more and more information.

Thanks.

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LinkFest for the Week

Ranjan — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 05:31:59 +0000

Here are some links on money management that you may find useful:

Timeless Investment Principles for Smart Investors (Part 3): For smart and intelligent investors and by Benjamin Graham
How to get your Banking Problems Solved by Ombudsman: There’s a solution to every problem. A primer for your banking problems
HDFC Bank Charges You Rs 500 for Closing Accounts: Shocker or a non issue?
Report on Equity Investment Strategies in Emerging Markets like India: Mckinsey’s report
How to calculate Bond Yields and the Formula: Simplified bond formula. Really?
Basic Maths Tools to Understand Personal Finance: Check it out for yourself.
Comparison between ULIPs and Mutual Funds: Investment v/s Insurance: Share your views.
Why People Avoid Financial Literacy?: Please share your views too.

Thanks.

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If Sachin is God, Sehwag is Rajnikanth

Ranjan — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 06:24:52 +0000

Sehwag’s 219 in 149 balls has once again compelled comparisons with the incomparable Sachin. I don’t believe in making comparisons as apples and oranges can’t be compared. This post is about the difference (or lack of difference!) between having technical competence and the lack of it.

Sehwag has been accused of having little technical competence and relies on his eye hand coordination. And how damn effective he is!!

This also blurs the lines between having great technical competence and not having one. If lack of tecnique/knowledge is filled up with common sense and a keen interest in hitting the ball, there’s hardly any difference.

Lack of knowledge of financial jargons will have no impact on your financial management if you have a keen eye on handling your finances on your own.

And the eye hand coordination is to be managed by your mind. The power of mind is all you need!

You decide. You want to be Sachin or Sehwag

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Free or Fee Financial Advice: Wikipaisa wants your Opinion

Ranjan — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 05:06:56 +0000

Wikipaisa is an initiative that aims at spreading awareness about the importance of differentiating between a financial advisor and a financial product salesman/distributor. Here’s a video where Deven explores the question, Free or Fee!

Free or Fee, a WikiPaisa conversation from WikiPaisa on Vimeo.

Do share your thoughts at Wikipaisa

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Saving Tips or Garbage?

Ranjan — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 14:29:55 +0000

Here’s an interesting image that I got from Ramit’s tweets.

Saving Tips That'll make you mad

Does it make you mad? Or confused? Or whatever?

Save yourself from tips, please.

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Death From Opinions

Ranjan — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 05:10:28 +0000

Sharing this image that I downloaded on the internet (sometimes ago and don’t remember where, please help me pointing to the right link)

Looks like learning the basics, using common sense, brushing up on the basics again and going on a vacation is the only wise thing to do! Agree?

Paralysis by Analysis

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Ranjan Varma's Blog

2012 and New Years

Most Commented Posts

Spending Money

Most Commented Posts

Irrational Buying and Smart Selling

Most Commented Posts

Daily tasks tracking through the Internet

Most Commented Posts

One Million Content Hits, Thank You

Most Commented Posts

LinkFest for the Week

Most Commented Posts

If Sachin is God, Sehwag is Rajnikanth

Most Commented Posts

Free or Fee Financial Advice: Wikipaisa wants your Opinion

Most Commented Posts

Saving Tips or Garbage?

Most Commented Posts

Death From Opinions

Most Commented Posts