On the goal list for this year (2015), two of the goals are about managing my finances better. So, I’ve been actively pursuing blogs, and articles that would help me go about achieving these; in a fashion that would be suitable for my lifestyle.
About three months ago, I landed up on an article about managing finances. The article contains 60 simple, straight forward tips on managing your financial life better. Most of them are great. One of the tips, blew me away, and has stuck with me ever since.
A life tip that really makes a difference, every week.
Review your finances, your career, and your life once a week. - TheSimpleDollar.com 1
Some of you may be doing this already. But for me, this was, and is an eye opener into my own lifestyle choices, and the direction that I want to be walking in. I think from all the 60 tips that the article lists, the one above is the most important one, at the least for someone like me.
Immediately following up on the article, I dedicated a notebook to this activity. And it’s been quite awesome, to be able to slowly rise up, and see where it all leads to, week after week. I generally head out to the local coffee shop, for doing this. With three notebooks, a pen, and some thoughts about how during the course of the last week I’ve progressed.
Every week I’ve answers to how, and where my finances are affecting the change in my lifestyle, and vice-a-versa. Every week I can see how much closer I’ve come to achieving a goal. Every week I find myself smiling, while skimming through the past weeks in the notebook, and landing up on the current week.
I do not know about the other tips in the article, but this one tip works. I’ve been actively noting down, and marking my progress not just in the financial domain, but other areas too. It works for everything that you would want to do with your life. Spending a couple of hours at the cafe, reviewing how much closer you are to achieving your goals, no matter the domain, is time worth spending.
Three pages that I fill in, every week.
I generally dedicate one page to each of the 3 topics, viz., Finances, Career, and Life (Both, short term, and long term goals. Short term goals can have any tenure, from days to months). Then, I read the previous week’s entries, and start running numbers for the week I am about to embark on. The finances done, I move on to the Career page . For the Career page, I Ask myself about my happiness quotient, with my work. Other questions I ask include are, if I can do anything that would help my work become easier, or faster; if some idea would help me create an extra income stream, and so on. The Life page, works the slowest. For e.g. One of the goals this month on the Life page, is to lose 7-8 pounds. I keep track of that, right in there. Along with all the other goals that I may have for the current month. There are some long term goals in there too, and by far they are the have the slowest traction of all.
Read the original article on TheSimpleDollar.com by Trent Hamm
The article is a lengthy one.When reading the article, sit with a cup of coffee, or whatever your favorite beverage is. I am sure you can find something that would relate to you, in there somewhere. The headline of the article may state that the rules apply to your personal finance, but they may work great for other financial, and lifestyle domains too. Askmen.com have published this article on their blog too.
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The Simple Dollar began as a site for people who are fighting debt and bad spending habits, while trying to build a financially secure future and still afford a few luxuries in life. ↩
