Step by Step Finance » Productivity

How to succeed – often

1step — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:49:12 +0000

I’ve always been a fan of the ready, fire, aim approach. This gets me out of the planning stage and into the actual implementation of what I want to do. Often times it turns out that what I had originally thought about the situation was not the case and I had to change my tactic. For example, instead of sitting around and thinking of what to write about – day dreaming – i often just start writing. The words flow, and they might not be the best written words, but who cares, it’s just a draft. The aim portion is where all the refining can take place.
I’m not saying that planning does not have its place, in fact, I think that planning is part of the fire step. Just don’t plan too in-depth or you might be turned off and not even complete the task at hand. This brings to mind an article I’ve read in The Economist called “Fail often, fail well”; very interesting to see some of the top firms out there like Bain & Company using the same approach to advise clients.
Learning from one’s mistakes is key, afraid of investing in stocks – why not buy just a few and give it a shot? If you fail, the downside is limited. By putting less at risk in the action portion, you can actually improve your situation the next time around. The big black box high frequency trading machines that many Wall Street firms use just the same sort of approach, at least the way I would do it, is to use a continuous algorithm that buys small share blocks, to figure out the direction of the stock and then buy/sell stock accordingly to where the algorithm is telling it to go; learning along the way.
I sometimes use this technique when playing poker (good thing this is an anonymous blog ; in order find out the strengths of my competition, I will play small amounts just to see how they play hands and to see how they disguise their bluffs. It’s much cheaper to learn in that manner, and win big when it really counts with all my chips in the pot.
So my advice is this, go for it - not all the chips in – but just enough to move forward in your approach, you can adjust along the way.

Automating Your Habits

1step — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 16:06:45 +0000

Building a new habit has always been hard for me. I always start off with great enthusiasm, followed by forgetting one day, then the next, and soon enough I’m back to square one.

I think I’ve found my solution. Google Calendar. Yep, I am going to automate my goals and habits in a clear way on the one device that I always look at, my phone. So far, it’s helped me recite my affirmations in the morning for the past two weeks (testing this affirmation thing out and I’ve been able to regularly take my vitamins in the afternoon (which I always forget to do).

I’ve even put in the regular updating of my Networth, so fingers crossed, I will provide regular updates from now on

Anyway, here’s to automating your habits.

Setting Goals up in Google Calendar

Cutting Out Time Wasters

1step — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 05:30:58 +0000

We all find ourselves at some point in time stressed for time. Often that is due to overloading your schedule, having too many priorities, or as is often the case.. wasting time on things that are not that important.

One of the things that I waste much of my time on is TV and Hulu. Even though I only have basic cable, Hulu more than makes up for all the shows I missed. I’m addicted to TV you might say. I just love the feeling of sitting on my couch, dinner in hand, and watching a show. That being said, I often go beyond what one would consider normal. I watch TV and watch TV and watch some more.. In the end I neglect the important priorities in my life such as sleep, school, exercise, and friendships, just by watching TV. It is a huge waste of time, and starting today, I’ve decided to remove TV and Hulu from my life for a month. It’s already hard and it hasn’t been a day. However, I believe I can do this, and I’m putting it out there to keep myself in check.

I hope to see more time to actually do things that have priority and a significant improvement in my exercise plan. I’ll keep updating on the status of this new adventure.

Checking the Email Habit

1step — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 00:42:05 +0000

I admit it, I used to check my email constantly throughout the day. The little email notification would pop up at work or at home I would hit refresh on Gmail whenever I was on the computer. This all changed recently when I started getting inundated with email for a class where I was a teaching assistant. It got to the point where I was anxious anytime I saw email in the inbox. This was not healthy and I decided to make a change. Instead of checking email everytime I am on the computer, I now check it at specific intervals. So in the morning and afternoon I check my email when I get in at 9 AM, 11 AM, 1 PM, 3 PM, and 4:30 PM before I leave. In the evening I check my email at 9 PM and that’s it! It gets harder with a BlackBerry around, but I try to stay committed and I don’t get down on myself if I slip up sometimes.
It is amazing how much this change has reduced the stress in my life. Much like automating my savings goals, it has reduced my anxiety and made me more efficient in the process.