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10 Daily Steps to Higher Personal Effectiveness

July 8th, 2009

This isn’t directly related to personal finance, but I liked this list of things to add to your daily routine to make your life less cluttered that was posted at Unclutterer. A lot of the list, however, deals more with just getting things done rather than managing stuff. Here’s a quick run down, and for more detail check out their site.

  1. If you have pets, make your bed. Doesn’t really apply to us, but I can see where pet hair and the like would be unwelcome bedmates. 
  2. Know where you’re going. This includes nothing your route and the traffic conditions that might warrant a detour. While traffic is a fact of life, a lot of traffic jams and wandering around looking for something because you’re lost can be avoided, saving time and money.
  3. Plan your perfect day. I’m an accountant, so there are no perfect days. However, I do find making a list of what I need to do the next day helps to focus my energy when I get into the office in the morning.
  4. Clean out your desk’s inbox. Some sorting and weeding of easy items is good, but it seems like trying at absolutely clean out the inbox is a recipe for either getting stuck at work late or leaving a bunch of stuff unorganized and unfinished for your arrival the next day.
  5. Set your desk for tomorrow. This should include cleaning up your desktop. I’m not the best at doing it, but I like to at minimum sort through the papers that accumulate on my desk during the day (in my job I do a lot of analysis, so I can end up with multiple schedules scattered on my desk by the end of the day). This goes well with #3 and #4 above.
  6. Sort, open, and act on your mail. I’m trying to get better at this as well. We moved my office downstairs in our house, so the shredder is now easily accessible as I sort the mail. The credit card offers and such go directly into the shredder and the other junk mail goes into the trash. Bills go into my work bag to pay while I’m taking my lunch at work the next day. The weak link for me is statements and such which end up in a pile on my desk until I get tired of looking at them and bring them to work to scan. I just need to bring them with me to work with the bills and scan as I receive them.
  7. Load (and, if necessary, run) the dishwasher or hand-wash the dishes. We’re pretty OCD about this. We never leave dirty dishes out overnight. Larger stuff gets hand-washed and everything else goes in the dishwasher. The only disagreement between me and the wife is she insists on running it nightly, even if it isn’t full.
  8. Get ready for bed an hour before you plan to go to sleep. I don’t use a full hour, but I’ve gotten into the habit of making sure my clothes are laid out and my lunch is packed before I go to bed. It is a waste of time and money for me to go out to lunch just because I was too lazy to pack the lunch the night before and I was too rushed to do it that morning. I also make sure that those bills and anything else that needs to come with me to work is packed up and ready to go.

Here are a couple of bonus tips of my own for you:

  1. Use your lunch break to take care of personal business. One of the luxuries of bringing your lunch to work and eating at your desk is that you normally won’t need the whole hour. Keep a list of personal items you need to work on (bills to pay, rebates to submit, etc.) and use those to fill the remainder of your lunch break. It helps allow you to relax once you get home from work and avoid booting up the computer to clear your personal tasks list. Haven’t you already spent enough time in front of the computer by the time you get home?
  2. Keep a to-do list with you at all times. We’ve all done this: think about something that you need to do and then completely forget about it. A lot of times these types of things will come back to bite us in the butt (i.e., when you forget to send in the credit card payment), other times it will just mean wasted time and effort (i.e., when you go to the store and remember something you were supposed to get after you’re already home). A great way around this is to keep a “to-do” list with you so you can jot things like this down and review it regularly. A pad and pen will work, although I find using the Fliq Tasks app on my iPhone to work really well. It helps keep me on track when I ask myself the question “what was it I needed to do.”

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Dealing with a layoff BEFORE it happens: Part 4 – Preparing for the steps ahead

February 23rd, 2009

I posted three installments discussing steps to take before you get laid off (saving vital information, limiting expenses, and retirement and savings account considerations), and here is the final installment on preparing for the next steps ahead.

If you do get laid off, you’re primary objective is to find new employment for the purpose of replacing the income you lost in the layoff. This list of items are aimed at keeping you qualified, searching out new employment, and collecting unemployment benefits until that new job comes along.

  1. Update your resume now! If you are going to need to find a new job, you will need an updated resume. If you’ve been in your current job for a while, it could have been years since the last update. Spend some quality time on the update, capturing relevant skills and experiences gained since your last job search and researching your line of work to identify hot trends and ways your experience aligns with those trends. After you’ve updated the resume, have a trusted friend or colleague (one you are sure won’t disclose that you have updated your resume to others) review it. 
  2. Begin reviewing job listings and making contacts with recruiters. Ironically it is a lot easier to find a new job if you already have a job, so now is the best time to start looking and making contacts. With some exceptions, companies looking to fill vacancies now have an absolute need to fill the position (they are as aware of the current economic environment as the rest of us), so it is unlikely you would be jumping from one vulnerable position to another.
  3. Get trained up. Do you have a professional certification that required continuing professional education (CPE)? Get as much as you can on your employer’s dime before they kick you to the curb. Many companies have web-based training courses you can access through your company intranet without any upfront cost or supervisor approval required. Take the courses now so you don’t have to pay for the credits yourself to renew your certification.
  4. Accelerate any reimbursable expenses. Have memberships to professional organizations coming up for renewal? What about professional licenses that are soon to come due? Go ahead and renew those while you know your employer will pay for it. Keeping your certifications and licenses current will be essential in qualifying for a new job, and access to professional organizations will provide good networking opportunities to find available positions.
  5. Research the process for applying for unemployment benefits. If you are a typical middle class American, this will probably be the only good thing your government will ever do for you (and even then it is really paid for by employers), so make sure you know how to take advantage of it if you qualify. Unemployment benefits are administered through state labor departments (just do a search for your state with the terms “department of labor” or “workforce commission”), and application procedures and rules differ by state. It won’t be a huge windfall (when I was on Texas unemployment I got the state maximum of a whopping $378 a week), but every little bit helps.

This wasn’t meant to be an all-inclusive list, but these are the things I think are important based on my own experience. A job loss is a major disruption in your life, and while you can’t completely eliminate the effects of the job loss you can prepare to minimize its impact.

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Dealing with a layoff BEFORE it happens: Part 3 – Retirement and investment account considerations

February 17th, 2009

I posted previously about some things to consider before a layoff hits. The first of four installments discussed saving vital information and the second installment discussed work-related expenses. This third installment discusses items to consider as it relates to your retirement and savings accounts. Decisions you make in your final few months of employment could make a difference of thousands of dollars.  

  1. Pay back any loans taken on your 401(k). In almost all cases any loans taken from your 401(k) are immediately due when you leave your employer. If you can’t pay it back, you will owe income taxes and penalties on the unpaid amount.
  2. Consider accelerating your 401(k) contributions. If you otherwise have a sufficient emergency fund to cover your expenses for an extended period, consider accelerating your 401(k) contributions ahead of your layoff. You have to be actively employed to contribute to your current employer’s plan, and you may be delayed in your ability to contribute to a new employer’s plan, even if you find a new job relatively quickly.
  3. Consider accelerating contributions to your Employee Stock Purchase Plan. This will depend on the terms of your plan, but if you participate in an ESPP and leave your employer during the year, you may still be eligible to purchase discounted shares with whatever money you have deposited in the plan up to the date of your termination. I did this several years ago when leaving the big evil oil company I worked for. I knew I was leaving (voluntarily in this instance), so I accelerated by ESPP contributions to the highest percentage possible so I would be maxed out when I left the company. Then at the beginning of the next year I got to purchase shares at a hefty discount with the money I had contributed.

Part 4 about preparations for the next step comes tomorrow…

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Dealing with a layoff BEFORE it happens: Part 2 – Limiting expenses

February 16th, 2009

I posted previously about some things to consider before a layoff hits, and this is the second installment of that list. This section discusses work-related expenses. We all expend some money because of our employment, some of it reimbursable by our employer and some of it not. Regardless, here are a few things to make sure that the money going out of your pockets permanently is as little as possible. If you lose your job, you’ll need all the cash you can get.

  1. Cut your work-related expenses now. For those of us working for the Man, there are certain expenses that are nearly unavoidable, such as lunches, laundry, and commuting expenses, that aren’t reimbursable by your employer. However, in many cases there are ways to minimize these expenses. Bringing a lunch from home is a great way to reduce expenses, as is packing your own snacks and sodas. Consider forgoing the daily stop at Starbucks. Find a cheaper dry cleaner to reduce laundry expenses. Consider taking public transit or carpooling to reduce commuting expenses. These are things to consider at any point, but especially when your income may be severely reduced in the very near future.
  2. Get current on your expenses. Especially if you travel for your job, you probably have quite a few business receipts that you need to submit for reimbursement, but you just haven’t had the time. Make the time! Once you are let go, your ability to submit expenses for reimbursement will be severely limited (if not eliminated), and even if you are allowed to submit expenses they will probably be subjected to a much higher level of scrutiny.
  3. Don’t forget about any unused airline tickets and other credits. Did you have to cancel a trip at the last minute for a more pressing client need and were told to just expense the ticket on your next business trip? Well, if you don’t have immediate plans to use that credit, request reimbursement for it now. If asked, just say that money is tight and you can’t afford to front that expense any longer.

Parts 3 and 4 to come…

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Dealing with a layoff BEFORE it happens: Part 1 – Saving essential information

February 12th, 2009

I have seen quite a few lists and articles out there about how to survive a layoff, but I’m not sure I’ve seen any with real practical tips on how to prepare for one. Once you’ve lost your job is not the time to figure out what you should have done before it happened and what the next steps are.

 

As much time as many of us spend at the office, it is very easy for us to allow much of our lives to become intertwined with our jobs. We make our workspaces our home away from home. But if you were to be laid off, would you have the opportunity to leave with everything you need? There’s a good chance you would not, as the day you are told will likely be your last day there. It is not uncommon to be escorted to your desk and given five minutes to pack personal belongings and then escorted to the door.

 

So based on my own experience, here are some things to think about and to take care of if you think a layoff is imminent. I have divided these items into four parts: saving essential information, employment expense issues, retirement and investing account considerations, and preparations for the next steps. This post will include the first of these sections: saving essential information.

 

As an employee, you have access to a great deal of information in the course of your work. Likewise, you leave quite a bit of your own personal information with your employer, especially on your work-issued computer. Here are a few items to make sure you take what you need and don’t leave behind anything you shouldn’t.

 

  1. Backup your contacts list from your work computer. If you are like I was, you track most of your professional contacts and even many of your personal ones in Outlook on your work computer. This is even more so if you have a BlackBerry or Treo issued by your employer connected to your work email. These contacts will be invaluable to you as you begin the search for your next position, so make sure you print a report of the contacts on your work computer periodically and bring it home. It is also a good idea to export the data to a backup file if you use a compatible email program on your home computer. Also consider bringing home any company/office directory in case you need to contact someone on the inside after you are dismissed. Former coworkers, clients, and other professional contacts are your first step at networking to find a new position, so don’t leave their information behind!
  2. Backup any personal files on your work computer. In addition to the numerous spreadsheets and TPS reports that likely clutter your work computer, there are probably many personal files on your computer as well. Make sure to copy these to a USB drive or other removable media and bring them home. Also be sure to copy any personal email you want to hang onto.
  3. Delete personal files/emails/bookmarks. After you have copied all of the personal files you wanted and successfully transferred them to your home computer, go back and delete all of those files to keep them from prying eyes later. Also remember that your computer will likely be reused, so save both you and the recipient of your computer some embarrassment and delete your bookmarks. At one of my old clients where I was issued a computer for their office, the bookmarks still included various links discussing the treatment of genital herpes. Talk about awkward!
  4. Download copies of your online payroll records. Many companies now only distribute pay statements electronically, so you may want to go and download them before being laid off. These will be important if you need to prove your prior employment or the amount of your pay.
  5. Download copies of any relevant human resources policies. Does your company have published policies regarding layoffs and severance packages? It may be a good idea to review and print those policies while you are still an active employee. Armed with this information you can know what you are supposed to get in terms of severance and can challenge your employer if you are offered less.

Parts 2-4 coming in the next few days…

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10 Reasons NOT to accept a counteroffer

January 7th, 2009

This was forwarded to me by a friend, and although I’m unsure of the original source it is some great guidance on why accepting a counteroffer is usually not a good idea.

Studies show that most employees choose to leave a company because of a big problem rather than a little nuisance.  Because there is never a good time for a company to replace an employee, many companies use counter offers as a “quick fix” in order to convince employees to stay.  While it is human nature to resist change, and it may seem like a good opportunity at the time, accepting a counter offer is almost never beneficial for an employee in the long run.  The situation remains that accepting a counter offer will rarely solve the issue that prompted you to seek other employment.  In fact, according to national surveys of employees who accept counter offers, 50 to 80 percent leave within 6 months.  Keep in mind that emotions run high when a resignation is received, and employers may tend to make promises that ultimately prove to be unrealistic.

Reasons companies typically extend a counter offer:

  • Department morale often suffers when employees leave.
  • Employee resignations do not look good on a manager’s record.
  • It is cheaper to give you a raise than it would be to recruit a new employee.
  • Projects you were working on will suffer delays because of your departure.
  • Companies want to have a low turnover rate.
  • Companies do not want sensitive or confidential information going to a competitor.
  • Companies do not want skilled professionals going to competitors.

Despite how flattering it might be, as a general rule it is not a good idea to accept a counter offer once you have made it known that you want to resign.  Be advised that your current employer might make you an offer as a temporary solution until they are able to find a more dedicated or cheaper replacement.  Therefore, in most cases accepting a counter offer is simply a way to postpone the inevitable rather than solve the underlying issues.

10 Reasons NOT to Accept a Counter Offer:

1. A good employer should pay you what you are really worth in the first place.
2. If you must threaten to quit in order to get what you want, the company is probably not worth working for anyway.
3. A small salary increase is an insult considering how much it would cost the company to replace you.
4. Well-managed companies do not make counter offers because their policies are fair, equitable, and based on market conditions.
5. Once you have expressed your disloyalty to the company by threatening to resign, your status as a team player will be questioned, and you will always be considered a flight risk.
6. A counter offer is nothing more than a stall tactic to give the company time to find your replacement.
7. The money for a counter offer usually comes out of your next raise or promotion.
8. The reasons that make you want to leave will not go away.
9. After hearing of your unhappiness, your manager will feel threatened.  This could make for a very uncomfortable work environment in the future.
10. Accepting a counter offer may cause friction between you and your co-workers and could threaten the morale within your work environment.




			


			

        

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I found a job!!!

			October 10th, 2008 

			

				
Well, there is some good economic news in my house, even with the huge losses in my 401k. I received a great job offer which I have accepted! I start my new job a week from Monday. As much as it sucked to get laid off, I will be making considerably more money that I did in my old job, plus the benefits are much better.


Oddly enough I ended up with two offers to choose from after four months of looking, but one offered an equity component while the other didn’t, making the decision easy.


I am also happy to report my mother who was laid off about a month after I was also accepted a job this week.


Especially considering the economic crisis we seem to find ourselves in, I am quite thankful to have a good job now before things get worse. Thanks to everyone who has been supportive and left me encouraging comments!


			


			

        

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Tired of working for the Man? Is a franchise for you?

			August 8th, 2008 

			

				
All of us working stiffs have had times when we wonder why we are slaving away for the Man and have thought about the idea of going into business for ourselves. Yes, in many ways it is the American dream to be your own boss, but how exactly do you do it? It isn’t as easy as you might think, which is evidenced by the fact that most studies show about half of new businesses fail.


If you are serious about opening your own business, it is extremely important to have a solid business plan. Except for folks who got an MBA from some fancy business school, that can be extremely hard to do, and even some of the MBA folks suck at it. This is one of the great appeals of opening a franchise: you are buying into a business plan that has already been made and tested by someone else. Of course there are other advantages to franchising such as name recognition and marketing support, but in my opinion the business plan is the biggest advantage.


So if you wanted to open a franchise, where could you get started? Thankfully for would-be entrepreneurs, there is a ton of information available online at sites such as MyFranchisePath.com. At this site you can request for a consultant to contact you to help match you with the franchise that meets your needs, or you can browse franchise opportunities by industry type or investment level. For instance, if you wanted to open a car repair franchiseyou could select that category on the site and see a list of franchise opportunities in that industry. You could do the same for a potential window covering franchise.


Owning your own business isn’t for everyone, but if you did decide it was something you wanted to do a franchise is a great option to consider.




			


			

        

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The joys of unemployment benefits: Can I just get a check?

			July 21st, 2008 

			

				
I mentioned previously that I was laid off from my job several weeks ago, and last week I finally saw the first of my unemployment benefits from the State of Texas. Considering the purpose of the benefits is to help cover basic living expenses such as mortgage payments and the like during periods of joblessness, I was shocked to find out that you could only receive benefits on a Visa debit card issued by Chase. Yes, the braintrust in Austin decided it was a good idea to distribute benefits in such a way that you have to jump through hoops to pay most regular expenses like a mortgage or a car payment, but you can easily go and buy more useless crap at your local Best Buy. Friggin’ brilliant! I wonder how much in political contributions it cost Chase to get that sweetheart deal.


Thankfully the card does allow for a single free cash withdrawal for each period in which benefits are paid, so I drove down to the bank and had them withdraw the cash from the card and deposit it in my checking account so I could do something with it. Thankfully we don’t live paycheck to paycheck so the extra time it takes to get down to the bank and transfer the funds is nothing more than an aggravation, but I feel bad for the person who needs money in their checking account to pay the mortgage and then gets a stupid card they have to go convert to cash and then deposit in their account. Why can’t we have direct deposit like nearly every employer in America and even Social Security recipients? Of course don’t get me started on the actual amount of the benefit, which is less than a quarter of what my last salary was.


Anyway, sorry for the lack of updates last week. We traveled back to Louisiana for my brother-in-law’s wedding the previous weekend and got back home mid-week. Of course there is always a bunch of stuff to catch up on after being out. The job search is still chugging along as I have arranged three interviews for this week and one for next week. Unfortunately no offers yet, although I did hear from a company I previously interviewed with that they may want to bring me on in a different capacity than what I interviewed for. It will probably be a few weeks before anything happens there, and once something does happen it is questionable whether the position will be at an appropriate level.


Also on the subject of jobs we got word late last week that my mother got laid off from her job, although it was not completely unexpected. She worked for a mortgage servicing company that specialized in delinquent loans, and their business was very dependent on being able to finance the purchases of loans with credit. Since the credit markets completely seized up, they have essentially been in wind-down mode for about the last year and many of my mother’s coworkers had already been shown the door. Her search will be a bit trickier since she didn’t complete her college degree and she was compensated extremely well in her last position, plus the market isn’t that hot where she is looking.


			


			

        

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Happy 4th of July, Job Search Update, and an Anti-Government Rant

			July 4th, 2008 

			

				
I just wanted to take a few moments to wish everyone a happy 4th of July and share an update and some random thoughts. Sorry for the lack of updates this week, as it has been very busy with the job hunt and such. I’m also finding it more difficult to find the time to write now that I only have my desktop in my home office to work from instead of my work laptop where I could write while watching the kids or enjoying an episode of Deadliest Catch.


Today we celebrate our nation’s independence and everything that makes this country great, however it does seem like the celebration is rather subdued this year. The economy it hitting almost everyone hard with more and more people recognizing that although we may have won our independence from the British more than two centuries ago, we are losing a lot of that independence due to our dependence on foreign oil and debt. I do really worry about where this country is headed with the stupid tree-huggers preferring to have our country at the mercy of foreign nations rather than drilling for the oil we have right here in this country and our politicians continuing to spend like drunken sailors. The debt our government has racked up is absolutely astounding, and sadly the Republican Party that many thought would be the ones to bring fiscal responsibility back to government has shown in the last ten years they are little better than the Socialists Democrats. Our choices in the presidential election this year show there will be no change coming soon, as both of the major party candidates are criss-crossing our nation and showing that neither of them are fit for the job, as well as that they are both depriving some village of their idiot. It will be a house of pain whenever the foreigners that hold the vast amounts of debt this country has issued refuse to take any more and want us to actually make good on what we owe.


Anyway, so much for the anti-government rant. To update everyone, the job search is still going. Unfortunately I got word that I could scratch quite a few of the opportunities I have applied and interviewed for off of my list. One didn’t give a reason, but at least finally confirmed my status five weeks after my second interview. Another had me interview and even had me go complete a drug test only to come back and say they wanted someone with more experience, as if they couldn’t have figured out how much experience I had from my resume. Yet another said they liked me and my credentials, but thought I wouldn’t like the job because of the size of the company.


Thankfully I do still have several active opportunities here in Houston, and I also now have two active opportunities back home in Louisiana. One of the Louisiana opportunities I interviewed for yesterday and was told that they would like to schedule time with me next week for me to meet their executives at the main office in Louisiana. The other they are working to schedule a phone interview with the hiring manager for sometime this coming week. We have really been praying to get the family back to Louisiana, so our hope is that the lack of offers so far here in Houston is Heavenly Father’s way of making sure I don’t accept something here when a better opportunity awaits us back home.


Anyway, that’s what is going on around here. I will work on being a bit better with the regularity of my postings, as I have received word from my loyal readers (yes, all three of them) that they have been disappointed on a few recent visits to find no updates. If anyone has suggestions for new blog posting topics, feel free to leave a comment and let me know.


			


			

        

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