Mint.com – Personal Finance Online Software

By far my biggest find of 2010. Mint brings all your financial accounts together online, automatically categorizes your transactions, lets you set budgets & helps you achieve your savings goals.

It’s that time of year again, where we set goals for the year ahead and one month later these goals are long forgotten.

Some reasons why we don’t achieve many of the goals we set include:

• To many goals. Think quality over quantity.
• The goals are unrealistic considering your current situation or mind-set.
• Goals are set without an action plan or any idea on how to get there.
• And the list goes on.

1 – Define Your Definite Major Purpose and Fulfillment Factors
What moves you in life? How do you see your life? What are your passions, your purpose in life? These are not your goals, they are the “WHY” for your goals.

2 – Review Your Task Chart
Your organizational or task chart is the framework for your business or your life. When working towards your goals there are many tasks that need to be done where you will need to wear many different hats or assign some to someone else in order to maintain the standards needed to move forward.

3 – Set Income & Life Goals
Goals can be based on financial income or can be lifestyle based. Keep in mind that almost all lifestyle goals have an associated cost, thus requiring an associated income goal. Be sure you set goals that are achievable, measurable and that they are aligned with your Definite Major Purpose.

Take some time to look at what you want in life, lifestyle, physical materials or experiences. Take a look at your current income. Set and write down your goals for 2010 and what income level will it take to achieve them.

4 – Backward Plan For Achieving Your Goals (Work Back Plan)
If the goals you set in the previous section is your destination, this is the plan or road map for the journey to your goals. Just like a road trip you need to have a plan on how to get to from point A to point B.

Define what is the step that is required or what need to happen just before achieving your goal. What action is required just before that… And so on…. Do this until you get to your current situation. The last identified step or action will be the first to take in order to move forward.

5 – Evaluate Your Projects
At this point it’s important that you evaluate all the projects in your life, projects such as your job, school, community activities, your businesses… You need to focus on what takes you closer to your goals. We often tend to be proud of our multitasking abilities, but multitasking will only dilute your quality and diminish your focus.

• Measure your passion to what you do
• What kind of emotional response do you have to what you do
• What kind of cashflow does it have

6 – Your Action Plan – The Critical Six
Now that everything is set, it’s time to take action and move forward. Here’s a very effective strategy that I do everyday and that I talked about in the past. It’s called The Critical Six and here’s a recap:

• Each day write down the six most important things you need to do to get closer to your goals. Only six per day, no more.
• Put them in order of importance.
• Start on item number one. Do not skip to item number two until you have fully completed number one.
• If you get to the end of the day and have not completed your full list of six items, roll them over to the next day as the most important.

7 – Do Not Rely On Faith & Destiny
Faith and the belief in your destiny are the greatest cop outs, great excuses to evade the need to think, evaluate evidence and take action.

8 – Just Do It
There are no secrets when it comes to achieving your goals. Get off your ass, stop reading all these “HOW TO” and “Productivity” articles & posts and take action.

Don’t Multitask And Don’t Rely On Faith & Destiny

TAKE ACTION & STAY FOCUSED

Angie decided to put together some last minute harmonies to fit the season. Hope you enjoy!

All the best to you and your family.

Jocelyn

An individual had an idea in 1999. This year millions of people around the world will mark 21 September – Peace Day – in whatever way they can.

www.peaceoneday.org

2. People who are willing to get off their ass to search the entire room for the T.V. remote because they refuse to walk to the T.V. and change the channel manually.

3. When people say ‘Oh you just want to have your cake and eat it too’. Damn right! What good is cake if you can’t eat it?

4. When people say ‘it’s always the last place you look’. Of course it is. Why the hell would you keep looking after you’ve found it?

5. When people say while watching a film ‘did you see that?’. No Loser, I paid $12 to come to the cinema and stare at the damn floor.

6. People who ask ‘Can I ask you a question?’…. Didn’t really give me a choice there?

7. When something is ‘new and improved!’. Which is it? If it’s new, then there has never been anything before it. If it’s an improvement, then there must have been something before it, couldn’t be new.

8. When people say ‘life is short’. What the hell? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!! What can you do that’s longer?

9. When you are waiting for the bus and someone asks ‘Has the bus come yet?’. If the bus came would I be standing here?

Earlier this week, just like the week before and the week before and before…  a paper brochure came in the mail from the Bloc Québecois.  The latest brochure states that the Bloc is here for the protection of our precious environment.

“Here for the environment” and then mails out tens of thousands of PAPER brochure… This smells like hypocrisy to me.

I’ve sent emails to the Bloc, asking to stop this waste and I was very clear to a Bloc representative upon one of their campaign visits at my door, that they will not get my vote…  Nonetheless, the PAPER brochures still keep on coming…

Monsieur Duceppe, if you and your party are going to take on the environment as part of your platform, why not go completely digital, instead of the old fashion non eco-friendly paper mail-outs? Just look how Barack Obama took full advantage of social media networks during the US primaries… The 20 to 50 year old Quebecois demographic, which is your target audience, is all online and a strong digital strategy would far outweigh your current offline strategies.

Web2.0, Crowdsourcing, Social Media, Blogging, Facebook, MySpace, Youtube…

Going digital will still not make me vote for the Bloc Québecois, but it may bring more credibility to you, Monsieur Duceppe, and to your party.

The 3 photos below where taking just outside my apartment, one month apart…

1) March 10, 2008: Winter’s fury with the biggest snow storm of the decade.
2) April 10, 2008: Spring is in the air with flowers and trees blooming.
3) May 10, 2008: Summer has arrived and will hopefully stick around for a while.