Energy Drains

Productivity Tuesday- every Tuesday I'll present a tip I've enjoyed from Talene Miedaner's Coach Yourself to Success.

Personal Productivity Tip #2- Eliminate activities and foods that drain your energy. Miedaner identifies a list of addictions that drain your energy and make you more sedentary: alcohol, needy relationships, sugar, caffeine, tv, tabloids, shopping, computer games, chocolate, etc.

You’re probably thinking this is a no brainer and you’re right we’ve heard this all before. But have you done anything about it?

This week I challenge you to identify your energy drains and work on one of them for the next month.

In addition to my Target Challenge, my biggest vice to tackle this month will be sugar. I’m constantly using sugar or chocolate to “get through” a project or make it more bearable. Along with my daily sugar crashes, I’m probably well on my way to a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Eliminating some unnecessary sugar will improve my daily overall energy, my health, and hopefully remove an inch from my waist.

To help overcome my addictive energy drain, Miedaner suggests changing the rituals around the habit. Instead of walking over to the candy jar before tackling a daunting task, I’m going take a brisk walk around the office to get my blood flowing. And I’m going to stop wasting money on junk food- if it’s not around I can’t be tempted!

What are you going to do?

Target Challenge

I'm looking for ways to trim down the spending budget so I can put aside some money for Christmas (I've only got 3 months!). To kick off my budget cutting, I'm challenging myself to 30 days without a single Target purchase. Since I often use Target as my excuse to get out of the office, this is going to be a tough one. On average DH and I spend $200 a month at Target (slight skewed because of the Wii purchase but still accurate) and that's a good chunk of money to set aside for the family.

Wish me luck and lots of will power!

Money Makeover - Chapter 1

Ramsey says winning at money is 80% behavior and 20% head knowledge.

So true!

I know what I need to do it's getting myself to do it that is the problem. Ramsey compares it to going on a diet; the concept is pretty simple, it's the execution people stumble on.

Shocking Stat for the Week- 90% of people in our culture buy things they can't afford.

DH and I have definitely fallen victim to keeping up with the Joneses. In fact I would say that everyone of our major purchases (house, cars, electronics, etc) was motivated by the need to keep up with the Joneses. I think this will be one of our biggest financial challenges.

What's your biggest challenge?

Tolerate List

The concept of my life coach book (Coach Yourself to Success by Talane Miedaner) is that there are 2 ways to get what you want. 1) Set goals and go after them and 2) Attract your goal to you. In order to be truely sucessful you need to do both. The book focuses mostly on how to attract your goals and success through 101 tips.

Her first tip was extremely powerful for me. She suggests that there are many things in life that you tolerate. For example, a missing button on a shirt, an unpaid tax bill, an overflowing in-box. All those things you think, I’ve got to do that some day. Tolerating these little and sometimes big things is a drain on your energy and wears you down. It prevents you from attracting success.

Creating a tolerate list is the first step to attracting success. It usually consists of 60-100 items. I spent a week with my notebook and every time I saw something that I “tolerated” I wrote it down. Unraveled hem in pants, dirty window sills, dirty baseboards, the mail strewn all over the entry way bench, dog bones all over the floor, ugly looking kitchen cabinets, unfinished fence around the yard, the soft spot on the bathroom floor, etc. Every time I caught something that bugged me I wrote it down.

The next step is to organize the list- what things can be done in a day, a weekend, what things will take longer. Plan a weekend to take care of all the little stuff that can be done in a few hours or the course of a day; I did this over Labor Day weekend. I took 4 days to do all the household cleaning items around that were wearing me down. I was surprised at how energized a clean house felt even after 4 days of hard labor!

Some things will take longer than a weekend to accomplish. Identify items with a longer timeframe and set goals to get rid of them. For me the fence project required saving enough money to buy the wood, which DH and I were able to do last week and are shooting to have the fence finished by the end of October (DH has a busy schedule working nights so daylight hours our an obstacle for this project). We hope within the next year and half to save enough money to do a bathroom remodel without financing.

The tolerate list seems like a simple task and it really is. There is a lot of power in the act of writing down things that drain your energy. Most are simple little things that you don’t think you have time for. Once you realize that a simple half hour project is draining energy from your day every day, you get the motivation to take care of it. And boy does it feel good!

The Sale is Announced!

I don't know how I could have forgotten to post this. Last week a buyer for my company was announced! Yippee! The sale won't be official for 60-90 days pending regulatory approval but we are all very excited and it seems that almost all the employees will get to keep their job in one way or another. Insert big sigh of relief here!

We aren't out of the woods yet, there will be some restructuring and I'm determined to be on my most professional behavior for the next few months to make a good impression and hopefully move myself up in position during the shuffle.

Color Test

Here's a fun weekend quiz brought to you by CareerPath- the test presents a series of colors and you pick the one you like the best. At the end of the test, it tells you your primary and secondary occupational categories along with recommended careers for free! I had some serious doubts about the accuracy of a color test, but they got me right on the money.

Try it for yourself!

My results-

BEST OCCUPATIONAL CATEGORY - You're an ORGANIZER

Key Words: Self-Control, Practical, Self-Contained, Orderly, Systematic, Precise, and Accurate

These conservative appearing, plotting-types enjoy organizing, data systems, accounting, detail, and accuracy. They often enjoy mathematics and data management activities such as accounting and investment management. Persistence and patience allows them to do detailed paperwork, operate office machines, write business reports, and make charts and graphs.

ORGANIZER CAREERS
Suggested careers are Administrator, Secretary, Printer, Paralegal, Building Inspector, Bank Cashier, Private Secretary, Statistician, Operations Manager, Financial Analyst, Bookkeeper, Medical Records Technician, Developer of Business or Computer Systems, Clerical Worker, Proofreader, Accountant, Administrative Assistant, Banker, Certified Public Accountant, Credit Manager, Store Salesperson, Actuary, Dental Assistant, Business Education Teacher, Food Service Manager, IRS Agent, Budget Analyst, and Underwriter.

ORGANIZER WORKPLACES
Your very careful, conscientious, conservative nature gives others the confidence to trust you with handling money and material possessions. Structured organizations that have well-ordered chains of command work best for you.

Suggested Organizer workplaces are large corporations, business offices, financial lending institutions, banks, insurance companies, accounting firms, and quality control and inspection departments.

2nd BEST OCCUPATIONAL CATEGORY - You're a PERSUADER

Key Words: Witty, Competitive, Sociable, Talkative, Ambitious, Argumentative, and Aggressive

These enterprising types sell, persuade, and lead others. Positions of leadership, power, and status are usually their ultimate goal. Persuasive people like to take financial and interpersonal risks and to participate in competitive activities. They enjoy working with others inside organizations to accomplish goals and achieve economic success.

Financial Challenge

I just joined a finanical challenge book club- we will be reading Dave Ramsey's The Total Money Makeover.

To balance out my reading and keep me accountable, I plan to post a blog on my personal productivity progress with my life coach book every Tuesday and every Thursday provide an update on my financial book.

This will be a fun adventure!

----------------------------------------------
My first post for the financial challenge is to identify why I'm taking the challenge, what my strengths are, what my weaknesses are, and what I hope to gain from the experince.

1) Why are you taking this challenge?
DH and I spending too much money. We have more loans than I care to admit and we dance on the edge of spending more than we make every month.

A few months ago I realized my company was going through a phase that would likely result in people losing their jobs and reality hit me hard that we needed to get things under control and fast!

2) What do you consider to be your strength with money?
While I'm not one to balance to the penny, I do love playing with numbers. I've started tracking how much money DH and I spend in different categories, looking at correlations where certain areas go up and others go down. I like to compare numbers between months and make goals for the next.

3) What you consider your weakness to be?
Spending money on the little things I don't really need is a huge weakness of mine and I was in denial about it for a long time. A candy bar here, a scented soap there, it may only be a dollar and it adds up! After I started seeing where I was putting my money I got a pretty good wake up call.

As far as the weakness DH and I face together- it's that we have different attitudes and ideas about spending money and when you are married money matters have to be a joint effort.


4) What do you expect or hope to learn from this challenge?
I'm looking for motivation mostly. I have a pretty good idea of what I need to do and I need to suck it up and do it. I'm also interested in learning more about investment options.