I’ve added more $25 bonus codes for new ING Direct customers last night. If you have at least $250 to deposit into a high-yield savings account, use one of these codes to receive a small boost.
You’d Better Watch Out: Gift Cards Can Be Lumps of Coal. If you are considering getting someone a gift card this year, opt for cash instead. Businesses that declare bankruptcy — and there may be more to come — will probably not honor the cards. If you receive a gift card, use it as soon as possibe. Not only will that help the economy, but you may lose it if you wait too long. Many gift cards lose value over time now, even if the issuing company stays in business.
Seized Tanker Anchors Off Somalia. Somalian pirates siezed an oil tanker from Saudi Arabia, one of the largest man-made objects in the world. The tanker carries one quarter of Saudi Arabia’s daily oil output, two million barrels, and is thought to be headed towards the United States. The hijackers will most likely be asking for the highest ransom ever paid to free the oil and the crew. The biggest concern is obviously the lives of the hostages, but will this have an effect on the price of a gallon of gas here?
Things it’s Cheaper to Do Yourself. Hiring out certain tasks has an appeal because it frees your time (in exchange for money) so you can spend that time on more more important, and possibly income-generating, tasks. But there are some fairly simple activities that would save you enough money if you do them yourself.
No Debt Plan. This is a series, currently on Part Nine, that helps you set up a budget, get out of debt, and build wealth.
Best Year-End Move for Salaried Taxpayers. Maximize contribution to tax-deferred retirement plans. Last month, I increased my 401(k) contribution to 50% of my salary, split evenly between a before-tax contribution (matched up to 4%) and an after-tax Roth 401(k) contribution. Even doing so, I will not hit the $15,500 ceiling because I started the year too low.
Tip’d is a social media website that lets you share and comment on finance-related current events, and today is its official launch date. I mentioned Tip’d last month when it was first announced to early adopters. At the end of every article on Consumerism Commentary, I have included a link labeled “Add to Tip’d.” With this, you can share stories from Consumerism Commentary with another audience. Connect with me on Tip’d.
For the “News and Blogs” features, which I plan to run almost daily as long as I have additional articles to share, I select some of the most interesting posts from my RSS reader and from pfblogs.org. If you don’t believe you blog is included on my RSS reader, please let me know to so I can add it. Thanks!
Anyone who knows me, or anyone who feels they know me after following Consumerism Commentary since 2003 or my personal blog since some time in the previous century, will know that I always turn a critical eye towards the so-called benefits of the “productivity” movement.
Techniques like those popularized by Getting Things Done and thousands of other programs on which corporations spend millions of training dollars are good for the corporation, not for the individual. I agree that there is some benefit to a strong level of organization, but most people I know who follow these tenets take the concepts too seriously.
Super-efficient task-crunching among employees is a way for large companies to fulfill their real goal of super-efficient payroll spending.
The typical working American spends more waking time at the office than with family and friends. Leisure activity — that is, what people actually enjoy — takes a backseat to work in this country’s culture. I am confounded by the idea that one’s working environment should be completely free of distractions to allow intense, uninterrupted concentration on the computer monitor.
It’s bad enough that most people find themselves working at a job they don’t particularly enjoy just so they can pay the bills. Productivity gurus want to take those endless, tedious hours and turn them into a much less human experience. The truth is that the beneficiaries of the productivity movement are the employers. Why else would corporations spend so much money on training sessions? It’s not to make workers better people, it’s to make people better workers.
This post on Zen Habits offering 5 steps to a distraction free workspace is exactly why there needs to be a revolution in workplace philosophy. Skellie, the author of the post on Zen Habits and a blogger at Skelliewag, offers these suggestions for a productive and focused workspace:
* Keep the light, lose the view. Create natural light but nothing to look at.
* Move books into another room. There should be no superfluous reading material.
* Keep your desk focused. Remove family photographs and toys.
* Minimize digital distractions. Disable the internet and games while working. (People don’t really play games at work, do they?)
* Simplify decorations. The author is really suggesting the removal of decorations; blank walls force you to look at more interesting things like your monitor.
These are all great tips for increasing a certain type of productivity that involves freedom from some distractions. If you work in an office, you don’t have much control over the real distractions, like inconsiderate coworkers. Following Skelliewag’s tips would help you become the worker bee you’ve always envisioned, but devoid of personality.
While more people are “hoteling” and not the sole occupant of a workspace, the majority of us spend so much time in the same exact place at the office. If I were to make my particular space as uninteresting as possible, I simply wouldn’t enjoy my time there as much as I do now (which isn’t much). If I were to remove my personal items leaving more of the grey desktop visible and become more productive because of the adjustment, I wouldn’t suddenly get to spend more time away from the office with my family or working on my own more enjoyable projects. I’d simply have more work to do in the same amount of time.
Your desk and workspace is your reflection and a canvas for emphasizing anything that makes you unique. Surrounding yourself with objects that make you feel like you far outweighs your ability to stare at your computer monitor and type at your keyboard all day. If you are happy, as you might have a higher chance of being in a comfortable environment, you will be productive. You don’t need to live most of your waking life trapped in a desolate 200 cu. ft. space. What kind of life is that? Make it interesting, make it you.
You are giving the bulk of your time to a company and in return they send you to seminars to teach you how to spend that valuable time like a robot. Don’t allow yourself to be enslaved or brainwashed by your corporation and its owners into a way of working — of living since so much of our time living is working — that strips out everything that makes you who you are.
That is an unfulfilled life.
Those who study music have known this for years. The discipline and dexterity required to learn a music instrument to intermediate to advanced ability affects the brain such that the performer builds skills useful in areas other than music performance. Fortune Magazine says there’s more evidence that cross-training makes you better at everything you do, while focusing on one basic skill set does not expand your brain.
It’s odd to find an article about cognitive neuroscience in a financial magazine, but the theories of cross-training are applicable to entrepreneurs or anyone who wants to build personal excellence. The Fortune article contains a few examples to illustrate the benefits of satisfying interests in seemingly unrelated activities.
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