One of my friends bought a 2008 Cadillac CTS about a month ago. In order to pay for the $32,000 in debt he incurred, he needed to take out a sizable loan.

The credit union he worked with gave him several options – a 36 month loan at 6.75%, a 48 month loan at 6.875%, a 60 month loan at 7%, and a 72 month loan at 7.125%.

He took the 72 month loan.

Afterwards, he bragged to me about his deal. “I’m only paying $549 a month for that ride,” he told me, believing that I’d be impressed at how cheap he got a very nice brand new Cadillac.

I went home later, though, and ran the numbers. If he had taken that three year loan, he would have paid $988.11 a month. Ouch.

But here’s the kicker. Here’s what he would have paid total on each of those loans.

The 36 month loan would have cost him a total of $35,568.
The 48 month loan would have cost him a total of $36,833.
The 60 month loan would have cost him a total of $38,160.
The 72 month loan, the one he took, will cost him a total of $39,562.

His “sweet deal” is going to cost him an extra $4,004.

Ouch.

Here’s the problem. He led with the wrong question. He focused heavily on the monthly payments without even considering the bigger picture, and for that focus, he’s being rewarded with an extra $4,000 in payments.

Here’s a better plan.

First, don’t buy something that you can only afford with a suboptimal payment plan. Because my friend wanted more car than his wallet should be able to really handle, he’s paying a $4,000 surcharge for the option. If he had waited and saved up a bigger down payment or simply settled for a bit less of a car than a Cadillac CTS, he wouldn’t be watching $4,000 walk directly out of his pocket for nothing in return.

Second, always calculate the total cost of your purchase. That’s the number you should be working with, not the monthly payment. The lowest total cost is the deal that will keep the most money in your pocket.

Third, if you can’t get what you want for that lowest total price, keep shopping. You don’t have to buy today. If you need wheels for the short term, buy a low-end used car that can just serve to get you from point A to point B and wait on the long-term purchase until you have an appropriate down payment so that you can swing the best total payment plan.

Or, best of all, save, save, save and buy with cash. With the 36 month loan, his payments would have been $988. But if he started saving $850 a month right now (yes, $138 less than his payment) and saved that each month for 36 months in a 3% savings account, he’d have enough to pay cash for the car he wanted. That plan would cost him only $30,600 – a savings of $4,968 over even the best payment plan.

What’s the take home message? Looking at just the monthly payment when you go to take out a car loan – or any kind of installment loan, including mortgages – will almost always hurt you in the end. Instead, look at how much you’ll pay in total – that’s the number you want to be low. If you can’t afford those monthly payments, then you’re buying something more expensive than you can really afford, anyway.

Almost a year ago, in an article entitled Building a Foundation: Ten Things To Do First If You’re Looking At Starting Your Own Business, I described the value of finding a business mentor and offered a few minor tips for finding one.

The truth, though, is that a mentor is incredibly valuable no matter what you’re doing.

What Is A Mentor?
So, what exactly is a mentor? It’s a term often bandied around in business books, but it’s often not looked at outside of this context.

A mentor is any person who can help guide you to the goals you desire through example and discussion. You can have a parenting mentor just as easily as you can have a business mentor. You can have a blogging mentor, a golfing mentor, or a chess mentor. Whatever it is you want to succeed at, you can likely find a mentor who will help you get there.

What can a mentor provide? The key thing that a mentor provides is advice. They’re a person that can provide suggestions, based on their own experience, that will point you towards the success that you want. They can also provide help through example – you can learn from them how to act, what to know, and so on.

7 Tactics for Finding a Mentor

Meet people in your workplace. If you’re seeking a mentor within the organization you work with, your best bet is to simply build as many relationships within your organization as you can. Not only will you have a better chance of discovering good potential mentors, you’ll also build up valuable relationships for your own ends. Plus, you’re much more likely to have a person or two in common with the person you want to be your mentor.

Meet people in your community. Similarly, if you’re looking for mentors in non-professional areas, look around your community. Get involved in interest groups related to what you’re engaged in and volunteer within those organizations. Go to general community meetings. Meet your neighbors. Keep your ears open for the type of people you’re looking for. Another tactic is to simply find people who write for niche publications in your area of interest, as well as people who blog on that topic – you can at least be sure of their passion in the area.

Meet people in your industry. If you’re simply looking to excel within a particular industry, attend conferences. There are few better places to meet people within your industry than a trade conference. You should also make an effort to follow trade publications within your field and contact interesting authors.

Identify the people who have achieved what you want to achieve. As you meet more and more people and get more involved, you’ll probably start to realize what levels of success you want to achieve, particularly in the shorter term. Look for the people who have already achieved that level for potential mentors.

Don’t go over your head. If you’re a newly minted MBA, don’t go try to swing Jack Welch as your mentor – you’re wasting your time. Instead, look for people who are a few levels up the chain. If/when you reach that level and you decide you want further success, you can always seek a new mentor – or you may find that your previous mentor is still climbing the ladder. Don’t burn your time trying to get a mentor too far up the chain – work your way up there.

Watch potential mentors, and listen to what they have to say in public (and in private). Once you’ve identified some people who might serve as a good mentor for you, watch them. Listen to what they have to say. Read the things they write. Get a good feel for how they think and operate from the outside.

Don’t choose a mentor who makes statements or decisions you find ethically questionable. If someone is doing something you find ethically wrong, move on. Don’t get drawn into a person who is using questionable methods to find success, because people who do that usually get swatted down at some point. The tactics you should seek to learn are the ones that bring success with ethical standards.

8 Tactics for Utilizing a Mentor

Do something generous to get their attention. Step up to the plate in a way that positively affects the person you want to be your mentor. Be patient and wait for the right opportunity. It may come in the form of assistance with a project, a key presentation, sharing of important information, or just a well-capitalized chance meeting. Be polished and be generous with what you can share.

Don’t expect the person to become your mentor. Many people get their hopes centered around a person becoming their mentor, then find that it didn’t work out for whatever reason. Don’t let that get you down. People who make good mentors often have a lot on their plate and are unable to devote time to helping you. Also, personality conflicts can create a situation that just doesn’t work through no fault of either one of you.

Schedule a meeting. If you’ve got their attention, try to schedule a meeting. A lunch is a good way to do this, but even a short office meeting will work. Strike while the iron is hot and you’re on their mind in a positive sense and you’re likely to get that meeting. Do it out of the blue with no pretense and you’ll probably find a fat rejection.

Be prepared, but not from notes. Know not only the things they’re interested in at the moment, but also know what you want. Read up on their current interests and be familiar with them, plus make a list of the questions you’d like to ask that person. Also, when you meet, be straightforward – tell the person that you’d like for them to mentor you a bit.

Ask every question you can, but don’t forget the most important one! Don’t be afraid to ask away when the opportunity comes, but there’s one question you should always ask, no matter what the situation: what would you do if you were in my shoes and had it to do all over again? That advice is always useful – a person who found success probably tried several things before hitting upon success.

Follow up. A relationship between your mentor and you should be a conversation, and that means following up. Don’t be afraid to use email or phone calls to touch base somewhat regularly (but don’t be a nuisance, either). Ask more questions as they come up and follow up by letting your mentor know how things are going for you. Your mentor will probably toss some things your way – do them well.

Make the relationship go both ways. Your mentor will be giving you valuable time, valuable advice, and probably valuable opportunities. Take advantage of these, but if there’s anything you can do to help out your mentor, do it. Talk positively of your mentor to others and give your mentor key information when you can.

When you make it, don’t forget who helped you. If you work hard and are diligent, you may achieve the success that you want. When you get there, you may have the opportunity to lend your mentor a real helping hand. Always do it. Your mentor will help you in so many ways as you begin to rise to the level of success that you want, and helping out your mentor will help them do quiet things that you never even notice. Reciprocate that help.

It wasn’t all that long ago that I simply didn’t care about my money. It wasn’t something to think about or plan with – it was simply grease for the skids, enabling me to live out a lot of whims. Other than that, it was something largely to avoid – I would just pay the bills and try hard to forget about it.

I hear the same thing over and over again from others. There are a lot of people that I talk to on a regular basis that, when I mention I write a blog that focuses mostly on money issues, their eyes immediately glaze over. Could there possibly be anything less interesting?

And I agree, to a certain extent. For many people, personal finance is just a bunch of boring writing about creating budgets, living cheap, minutiae of investing, and so on. And by themselves, this stuff is boring.

If you find yourself in this group that finds money issues to be extremely boring, I invite you to spend a bit of time thinking about these two things.

Where Do You Want To Be?
Where exactly do you want to be in five years? Just stop for a second and think about where you want to be in five years. What would you like for your life to be like?

As you think about this, be realistic, but don’t worry about whether you can afford the stuff, either. Don’t envision yachts, but don’t sweat whether you can afford the details.

Here are a few things to think about.

Will you be married?
Will you have children? How many? How old?
Will you own a house?
What will your job be like? Or will you own a small business?
Where will you live?
How will you transport yourself around?
What’s the best-case scenario you can imagine about your debt? Your savings?

You can add in as many details to this as you like – actually, the more details you add, the better.

Here, I’ll do the same thing.

In five years, I’ll be married. I’ll have four children – a seven year old, a six year old, a three year old, and a one year old. We’ll still be living in our current home. I will still be a writer, but my wife will have switched to a more local job, enabling us to become a one-car household. This auto, however, will have seating capacity for all six of us – not either of the two cars we currently own. We’ll only owe money on our mortgage and we’ll be heavily into saving for our next home.

Obviously, some of what you envision won’t actually happen. You can’t foresee the unforeseen. However, that’s how I’d predict my own life to be five years from now.

Taste Freedom
The next time you pay your monthly bills, just add up how much you’re paying in debt. What’s the sum total of all of your credit card bills, your mortgage payment, your car payment(s), personal loans, and so on – everything that is a debt to another entity.

How would your life change if you didn’t have to pay that debt? In our case, we pay about $1,500 a month in debt payments – our home mortgage plus my remaining student loan. That’s $18,000 a year.

An extra $18,000 a year would be transformative in our life. It’d only take a decade or so for us to be able to build the house we’ve dreamed about. Or we could do the traveling we’ve always talked about, taking our children on long trips to rural areas of other countries. We could even make some risky career choices to leave us more fulfilled.

What’s the Connection?
The mechanics of personal finance – the budgeting and such – can be quite boring to many, but it’s vital to remember that they’re merely tools to help you live out those dreams.

You don’t do a budget because a budget is fun – you do a budget so you can get rid of that debt that’s keeping you from doing the things you want.

You don’t choose the cheap route because it’s the most enjoyable route (though, surprisingly, it often is) – you choose the cheap because the money you save builds up to the big things you dream about.

Let me put it another way: you probably know a person or two who chooses not to spend much money on any sort of regular basis. You might see them as boring, or you might regularly encourage them to live a little. You probably also wonder why they would choose to live that way when they could live “better.”

The truth is that those people often are looking ahead to a few years down the road. They’d rather forego going out with the boys every weekend to not have any debt in a year or two. They’ll skip the big screen television paid for on the credit card in exchange for a down payment for an amazing house.

Right now, you’ll find them boring. In five years, though, they’ll be the ones living their dreams while you’re still battling debt and wondering how to get ahead.

The day I realized that idea, that my day-to-day extravagances were fun but they were keeping me from the bigger things I wanted out of life, I realized I needed to get down to work and fix the problem. And to fix that problem, I had to pull out the toolbox – things like budgets and frugality and so on. The tools themselves might seem boring, but as I work on fixing the problem, I have a bounce in my step because I know that when I’m done, I’ll have the big things in life I dream of – and I’ll have left those naysayers who say “you only live once” in the dust.

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags.

As usual, we’ll start things off with a few links to older articles that directly answer questions I’ve heard recently.
A great discussion about whether you should report sexual harassment
How I manage my ideas
Should you help people who won’t help themselves?
And now for some great reader questions!

I recently changed jobs and will become elgible for the 401(k) plan soon. While I have invested heavily in the 401(k) plan at my prior company I wondering if it would be a smarter idea to take the money I would be investing to continue paying off my debt over the next 6 months, after which I will have eliminated my credit card debt and half of my student loan debt just leaving the morgtage on my primary home, rental propery, and a car note.
- Marc

Ignore the tax implications and penalties of cashing in your 401(k) early for a moment and ask yourself this simple question. If you cash in that 401(k), are you still on a reasonable pace to save up for retirement? For example, if you’re 30 years old, you should have roughly 1.2 times your annual salary in a retirement vehicle. If you’re significantly below that – or would be below that if you cashed it in – then don’t.

However, if you’re in a position where you saved really hard for retirement and cashing in that 401(k) would still leave you in a healthy retirement position, and you know that getting rid of those debts now would put you in a good place in your current life, then cash it in. Just make sure you’re committed to not racking up more debt once this batch of debt is gone, or else you’re just running in circles.

The real key is making sure you have enough for retirement. Don’t even consider cashing in a 401(k) if it’s going to jeopardize that.

You talk about how you keep a list of ideas for potential writing ideas. Do you somehow organize these, or just keep them in a jumble? I tend to be a collector of ideas as well (my dream house, hairstyles I might want to try, recipes for someday), but it’s hard to figure out a system to make things “findable” again. Any suggestions?
- Mary

I basically just keep them in a jumble. I usually devote a page in my pocket notebook or an individual text file to each significant idea or project that I have, but I don’t organize them much at all.

Instead, I just make an effort to go through each of them on a regular basis and see if there’s anything I can do to move that idea forward. Maybe I can jot down a few more ideas for a great future post. Or maybe I might be able to take a baby step forward on this idea by calling up a friend.

It’s really two pieces: one is writing down my ideas as they come to me and not forgetting them, the other is following up on those ideas and making sure the good ones actually happen. Remembering your good ideas and making sure they don’t die on the vine is the key to creative success.

I just turned twenty and am hoping to open a Roth IRA, or at least a retirement savings account soon.

The dilemma is, I don’t know if I should take time to research where to put my IRA, or start investing now to start earning interest. Should i wait and figure out a good place to start investing, or don’t waste a second and stuff my funds in a place where it can earn interest until i retire?
- Mischa

You’re better off saving now rather than later, even if the savings isn’t optimal. My suggestion is to open up an account with an investment house that you’re sure is good and picking some very broad index funds for investment – in other words, invest in everything. Then, when you feel more confident, you can make changes later on.

More specifically, if I were you, I’d open a Roth IRA at Vanguard and put half my money into their Total Stock Market Index and half into their Total International Index. In other words, your money would be invested in basically every stock in the world – as broadly based as you can be. You rise with the tide of the market.

Then, later on, if you get into investing, you can change things around to whatever you like. The key is to start saving now so that compound interest is on your side.

Trent, what is “personally challenging reading”?
- James

Personally challenging reading is any reading that forces you to think and forces you to re-examine your core beliefs and ideas. I believe that personally challenging reading is truly key for any person who wants to be successful in life. Here are some examples.

An atheist might find personally challenging reading in Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis or The Reason for God by Timothy Keller.

A Christian might find personally challenging reading in The End of Faith by Sam Harris or Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell.

Incidentally, I’ve read all four.

Challenging beliefs just scratches the surface, though. Personally challenging reading also includes digging deeper into topics that you know little about. Don’t know much about art? Philosophy? Computer science? Find a key text on that topic and dig in.

The key to personally challenging reading is to stretch what you know and believe – in other words, to exercise your mind. It’s good for everyone to do.

I recently started a new job. The lower level employees have a “sunshine club” where five dollars is collected from everyone monthly. These funds are used (to my knowledge) to purchase beravement gifts or other similar items. I was wondering what your thoughts on this are.
- Jolie

On the surface, it’s just an office cultural norm. It basically prorates the cost for everyone of giving flowers and such to those who are bereaved.

However, in doing this and taking it to that level of formality, the actual true sentiment and meaning of the expression of care is lost. It’s just another bunch of flowers paid for out of the fund, not a symbol of individual caring.

If I worked there, I’d just contribute to the fund, but I’d also send my own note or flowers to people I really cared about.

What were the last ten albums you listened to in iTunes?
- Phil

To make this list more interesting, I eliminated artist duplicates – if I didn’t do that, the three artists at the top of the list would have had all ten of my most recently listened albums.

Migrations by The Duhks (Americana)
New Magnetic Wonder by Apples in Stereo (really upbeat pop)
You Are Free by Cat Power (folk)
Four Thieves Gone by The Avett Brothers (Americana/alt-country)
Not the Tremblin’ Kind by Laura Cantrell (Americana)
Extraordinary Machine by Fiona Apple (pop?)
One Cell in the Sea by A Fine Frenzy (pop?)
How We Operate by Gomez (pop/rock)
Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by Neko Case (Americana?)
Gimme Fiction by Spoon (rock)

Really random mix, and not what I would have actually guessed. Interesting. I actually like it when bloggers I like post such lists, as it often leads me to discover interesting new music. Also, eight of these ten albums are available on emusic for pretty cheap (all but A Fine Frenzy and Fiona Apple).

I heard something the other day that said most lottery winners lose their moeny within the first 18 months of winning a state lottery. I am just curious, what would you do with the lottery if you played and won the jackpot?
- Bobbi

I’d go somewhere where it would be difficult to find me, and possibly change my name. A “rube” who just won $100 million is a target for almost every scamster out there, and they’ll come looking. If I could, I would keep my identity secret, or perhaps go along with having a “false face” put out there so that I wouldn’t be known.

Given that, I’d buy a patch of land in the country, build the house I’ve always dreamed of having, keep enough for myself so that I never had to worry about anything, then dole the rest out to charity. I don’t really want to have more money than I know what to do with, especially when there are people out there who could use the money.

I’d be perfectly happy administering scholarships and charities for the rest of my years, to tell the truth.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?
- Pauline

I see myself writing, though whether it’s about personal finance, I don’t know. I see myself also heavily involved in local politics.

I will likely still be living in Iowa. I will also likely still be living in the house I currently live in, though I think I’ll have it paid off by then.

I predict I will have four children.

Other than that, I don’t know what to predict. If I had predicted where I would be at now ten years ago, I would have had a few things right but most things terribly wrong.

I am legally eligible for a scholarship because of my ancestry. I meet the minimum requirements for it, even though I know nothing at all of that portion of my ancestry. Is it ethical to apply for that scholarship? Last year, there were more scholarships than applicants, so it’s a virtual lock that I’ll receive one of the scholarships.
- Alex

If you’re eligible for the scholarship, apply for it. When a scholarship is offered, usually much thought has gone into who can qualify for that scholarship, so this ethical decision is actually already out of your hands. I’d say apply away.

I didn’t always feel that way. When I was in high school, I was in almost the exact same situation as Alex. I am 1/8 Cherokee, and that enabled me to apply for some scholarships because of that heritage. However, I have almost no connection at all to my tribe of heritage – no cultural or personal connections that I can think of other than some old family heirlooms. Because of that, I chose not to apply.

Later on, I realized I was silly for not applying for it. I met the qualifications they stated and it would be up to the scholarship board to determine if I would get that scholarship or not.

Alex, apply away. It’s not your ethical decision here.

If you were offered the chance to host a show like Suze Orman’s, would you do it? I’d love to watch it!
- Jenny B.

I actually would be willing to host a personal finance-themed show on television if the opportunity came along, though I think the format of Suze’s show would not be right for me. The type of show I think I’d thrive with would be something more like A&E’s Big Spender, where I actually interact with people out in society instead of behind a desk.

Got any questions? Ask them in the comments and I’ll use them in future mailbags.

Every other Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a book on personal productivity, personal development, or entrepreneurship – books not directly related to personal finance, but deeply relevant to personal success.

I’ve long been a fan of time management books. My philosophy is that if you can get just one really useful nugget out of a time management book and apply it in your life, you’ll eventually save enough time to make up for the time spent reading the book and more, making you more efficient in the long term. The only problem is that once you’ve read a few time management books, you tend to find more of the same – record your thoughts, make a to-do list, prioritize it, and so on.

I stumbled upon this book a while back and, based on the title, expected it to be more of the same. I read a few quick Amazon reviews of it, but it was a brief excerpt from the start of the fourth chapter that really stood out to me:

The two things I want to examine are the concept of prioritising by importance and the frequently used tool of making a to-do list. Both of these tend to be the sacred cows of time management, and I believe both of them are fundamentally wrong. The reason is the same in both cases: they tend to make us do more of what gave us the problem in the first place.

Interesting perspective, really – tossing two of the “sacred cows” of time management out on their ear immediately. My favorite book on time management – Getting Things Done by David Allen – did much the same, eschewing to-do lists in favor of just jotting down your ideas and going through them later. Needless to say, I was intrigued.

But did Do It Tomorrow (by Mark Forster) live up to the promise? Let’s find out.

1 – What This Book Is About
Forster opens the book with the argument that most of the challenges people have with time management are a result of conflict between our rational nature and our reactive nature. For example, when I’m sitting here focused on writing an article, I’m using my rational nature. However, if a phone call interrupts that message, I switch into my reactive nature. Since that switch isn’t immediate, we end up losing time in the transition between the two states. This makes a lot of sense – I can get into two different kinds of “flow” based on which state I’m in. I can sometimes get in the zone when writing a long, focused article (my rational nature) or when I’m handling little tasks and dealing with a sequence of small interruptions (my reactive nature).

2 – The Principles
But how is knowing that distinction useful? Forster identifies eight key principles for maximizing the benefits of our two natures and suggests an exercise or two for each one. The one that really clicked with me was focusing on one thing at a time, and it provided a very good exercise that contrasted well with other time management guides. Forster suggests making a list of all of the things you’d like to get done sometime, both personally and professionally. Then, take one item from that list and focus on it – and completely ignore the rest. Don’t take any action on the others until that one you’ve chosen is done. In other words, instead of moving reactively from project to project, focus on just one and get it done. Then, move on to the next one. I tend to get bogged down on doing too many things at once – and when I do that, I usually don’t get anything done and feel rather frustrated. The solution? Just do one of them and finish it.

3 – Creative, Ordered and Effective
Forster makes the point that creativity is stifled by a lack of organization, and organization is useless with a lack of creativity. For example, if you have a disorganized office, you’re in the middle of a creative task and are focused, and you can’t find a particular resource you need, you are forced to break that focus. You have to shift from your rational mind (doing the task) to your reactive mind (looking for the missing resource). Since you’re most productive when you have long swaths where you do one or the other, you’re better off devoting some time each day or each week to keeping your office organized. This is the big reason why organized people often seem more productive – with organization, they can remain focused on their tasks and don’t lose valuable time to the switch between being reactive and being rational.

4 – The Problem with Time Management
According to Do It Tomorrow, there are really only three problems that cause people to feel pinched for time (and thus feel the need for time management): we are working inefficiently, we have too much to do, and we have too little time to do it in. Forster argues that a to-do list and prioritizing don’t actually solve any of these problems, they merely postpone them or make the symptoms a little less painful. For example, take your current to-do list and ask yourself how long each item has been on that list, and also ask how long that item would take if you did nothing but work on it. If it’s longer than a day and you have stuff on there you haven’t addressed for a week or more, you’re jamming too much onto that list and it’s not a functional tool.

5 – Real Work v. Busy Work
Here, Forster distinguishes between busy work and real work. Real work is what advances your business or job – busy work is everything else, often stuff that could be delegated to someone else because it doesn’t require the particular expertise that you have. From my perspective, the real work is my writing and research and the busy work is all of the other peripheral stuff I do, such as approving comments, listening to pitches from people, and so on. Forster recommends that I delegate this in whatever way I can. This is basically the same logic behind much of The 4-Hour Workweek.

6 – Emergency, What Emergency?
Forster’s argument here is that most of the stuff we allow ourselves to be interrupted with – forcing our mind to switch from rational to reactive – is actually not that important and should be put off or ignored until the task at hand is complete. His only exception to this is if you work at a job that focuses on reactiveness – if you’re a cashier, for example, or a waitress. Otherwise, if you’re regularly getting interrupted, you need to cut those interruptions off through delegation and clear limits, because each time you’re interrupted, you lose more time than just the time of interruption – you also lose the time it takes to switch back and forth between a rational and a reactive mindset. Also, you can just simply schedule significant tasks to be done tomorrow when they come up instead of trying to jam them into today.

7 – Closed Lists
The idea of a “closed list” is much like the “rocks and sand” idea proposed by Stephen Covey in his worthwhile First Things First: you should define a short list of things that you can easily get done in a day and focus on actually accomplishing those tasks. Then, if there are interruptions and emergency response tasks, let those fill in the extra gaps in your day. In essence, Forster argues that a shorter to-do list makes you more productive – it shouldn’t ever be longer than what you can easily accomplish in a day, which then gives some time to the small interruptions and other tasks that are a part of most worker’s lives.

8 – The Manana Principle
The two previous chapters point to a workflow. Each day, you get through the small number of doable tasks on your to-do list – which should be only long enough to include stuff you can easily get done today – and between (and after) those tasks, you deal with the reactive stuff: organization, answering messages, dealing with phone calls, etc. These reactive tasks should help you fill in the things that need to be done tomorrow, and so you create that list for tomorrow as you go, adding items (and sometimes removing them). You can also keep a “future” list if you’d like, consisting of larger tasks that need some focus, but don’t need to be done today, but that’s not a real to-do list, just stuff that you hope to delegate to others or will only tackle if you happen to have a day with less on your plate. Doing this guarantees you get tasks done well, keep things organized, and still always have an idea of what to do next.

9 – Task Diary
Forster recommends keeping both the list of things to do tomorrow as well as an ongoing list of the little tasks you need to get done in your gaps today in a task diary, along with lists of other tasks and procedures that you regularly follow (as well as a “future” list, if you need it). I find that this actually works pretty well for me – I have started using TaDaList to handle my “task diary” for me. By default, I have a spot open to add to my “GTD inbox” (meaning any idea that I might have as I’m working on a task), then when the task is complete, I process that GTD inbox, moving things to my to-do list for tomorrow. If anyone’s interested, I’d be glad to write a detailed post on how exactly I manage all of this stuff.

10 – Current Initiative
Here, Forster introduces the idea of the “current initiative,” which basically means it’s the major project you’re wanting to focus on right now. In order to make it happen, he suggests devoting some time to it every day at the start of the day – an hour or two. So, at the end of the day, you might want to have the first thing on your to-do list for tomorrow be another task in moving that project forward, followed by the other work tasks in your day. This way, whatever that current initiative is, you’re always moving forward on it. After reading this chapter, I picked out one of the projects I want to be working on and made it my “current initiative,” slotting an hour and a half at the start of each day for focusing on just that project. It’s moving forward now, full speed ahead, and it feels pretty good.

11 – Will Do v. To Do
One key part to remember is that your list of things to do tomorrow is more like your “will do” list – they’re the things you will do tomorrow – tasks, daily procedures, and so on. Of course, we often have many more tasks on our plate that we’d like to be working on and it’s worthwhile to record those as well – they’re on our “to do” list. Whenever you need more fodder for that “will do” list, you turn to that “to do” list and choose things that fit in there.

12 – Completing the Day’s Work
What do you do, though, if you simply have too much that has to be done as a matter of course? Your list of things that have to be done simply fills up your day beyond capacity, and nothing helps? Forster suggests simply adopting the idea of the “will do” list for a while – and throw all of the other stuff on the “to do” list, drawing from that only when your “will do” list is empty. Then, focus on getting the things on that “will do” list done to completion before even thinking about another task. If this still doesn’t work, you may need to talk to your supervisor about cutting back on commitments, because you may simply be overcommitted.

13 – Keeping Going
Once you get into this routine, how do you keep it going? Forster has a bunch of ideas here, most of which are pretty common fodder for time management. Keep yourself healthy. Take regular breaks. What’s really amazing for me is that when I start feeling behind (like after a long weekend with the family) and I eschew some of these elements in order to “catch up” or “get ahead,” I might get a very short term productivity boost, but it’s not long before I realize I’ve spent a day not being all that productive. I’m better off taking a jog, taking a shower, and taking breaks regularly to read something personally enjoyable.

14 – More on Dealing with Projects
If you have a large task that’s too big to be completed in a single day, try to break it down into smaller tasks that can be swallowed. If that doesn’t work, you should just keep re-entering it on your task list for the next day (your “will do” list) until it gets done – and don’t add any new things from your “to do” list until it’s taken care of.

15 – Sorting Out Systems
For many, setting up an organizational system seems like a waste of good, productive time. Why do it when you could be getting “real” work done? The truth is that all of the time you spend organizing yourself – both your time and your stuff – makes the time you spend on your “real” work much more efficient. You can find stuff, handle regular requests easier, focus on the stuff that needs to be done, and not switch back and forth between reactive and rational thinking as often. While you may have invested significant time up front in getting organized, that time will be earned back and more over the long run because you’ll be more productive with your “real” work. It really is an investment.

Some Thoughts on Do It Tomorrow
Here are some things I think I think about Do It Tomorrow.

The concepts in this book complement what I was already doing very well. I was already using a simplified form of the Getting Things Done philosophy to manage my time, but there were several tidbits here I started using, most importantly the idea of the “will do” list and the “current initiative” idea. Any book that has stuff that you can immediately start applying is worthwhile.

The biggest issue I always have with time management schemes is how to deal with jobs where you are constantly interrupted. I have a friend who does a lot of tech support for his company, but also does some programming. He has a very difficult time getting his programming tasks done because of the constant interruptions. I think his best solution is to have him simply talk to his boss and get some uninterrupted time each day to program.

No time management book in the world helps if you don’t use the ideas inside to change your habits. Just like personal finance books, they’re useless unless you actually try the stuff and put some of it into action in your life. If you’re stressed out about your time and are reading a book on the topic, don’t just let it end there – try some stuff.

Is Do It Tomorrow Worth Reading?
Aside from Getting Things Done, Do It Tomorrow is the best time management book I’ve ever read. It is filled with tons of useful actionable stuff, but more importantly than that, it is more than just a recitation of all of the tired old time management materials. The stuff like just making a to-do list and prioritizing it with color coding simply doesn’t work all that well, and Do It Tomorrow knows it and gets it.

As I said in the review, I’ve already folded several of the principles into how I manage my time and tasks each day, and it’s really helped me to get started on at least one major project that I’ve wanted to get started on, but always felt like it was just too big to chew on today. Making it a “current initiative” and giving it some time right off the bat each day has moved things ahead, and I look forward to showing the results to my readers in the future.

Forster’s perspective is very positive and he presents tons of little, simple actionable pieces that almost anyone can adopt that aren’t just tired rehashes of other ideas. While it may not be as powerful (for me) as Getting Things Done, it does include tons and tons of stellar ideas – and that, to me, makes for a book well worth your time to read.

A few days ago, I took my son to get a haircut (mostly because he got a piece of gum in his hair in the park, we had to cut it out, and his hair looked disastrous afterwards, beyond our ability to fix unless we shaved his head). He’s a bright and observant two year old boy (just shy of three), and so he often watches what others are doing to learn more about how people act.

The only other customer in the entire shop was a six or seven year old boy and his mother, who came in shortly after us. My son got up on the chair and sat there quietly as his hair cut began and he mostly just watched what the other boy was doing.

The boy proceeded to throw a temper tantrum as his mother tried to cajole him into getting a haircut. Finally, she promised to get him a new Webkinz if he was “a very good boy” during his haircut. After that, the boy immediately brightened up and sat down for his haircut.

My son watched this and remembered it. After we left the hair cut place, he said that he was a good boy during his hair cut and that he wanted a new car. I told him no, and he started to get really upset and said that the other boy got a toy for getting his hair cut.

I sat him on my lap and we talked through it for a while. I told him that grown ups don’t get toys just because they get their hair cut or they make their bed or any normal thing they might do during the day. These are the things that you do because you’re supposed to do them. I’m not sure how much of this my son understood, but some time sitting on his dad’s lap and some quiet and calm conversation seemed to calm him down and we went on with life.

He didn’t get a car, though.

When I was a child, things were too lean much of the time to get rewards for everyday behavior, and I knew that and largely respected it. The problem came about when my parents would get a windfall of some sort. When that happened, they often wanted to share the windfall with the kids – and that usually meant that I would get some stuff.

When that happened, particularly when I was young (six or seven), I would do exactly what that boy at the barbershop did: I’d throw a fit when my parents made an ordinary request of me, and my parents, knowing they had a windfall to share, would offer to get me something if I behaved.

What did I learn from this? I learned the same thing that the boy at the barbershop learned – a material reward is an appropriate outcome for normal day-to-day behavior. That’s a very dangerous lesson to learn.

This lesson stayed in my mind and traveled with me into adulthood, where I basically just rewarded myself over and over again with stuff. I’d buy things for simply making it through a workweek. I’d buy things just because I finished a project at work. I’d buy things because I “survived” an uncomfortable situation.

Those unnecessary purchases were a big reason I wound up in financial trouble. The rewards were the “norm” in my life – and they were expensive. It wasn’t until I realized that this “norm” was dragging me down – and went through the hard process of breaking that pattern – that things started to turn around for me.

Now I’m a parent, and I have my own children to raise. I understand quite well the temptation to buy those children everything they could want and often it takes personal willpower to resist it.

But then I think about the boy throwing the temper tantrum in the barbershop, and I think back to my own mistakes, and I realize something important: it’s my job as a parent to not have my children associate good but normal behavior with material rewards. Being a good and well-mannered person should be expected and normal – and it should be an example that I set for them.

Associating normal behavior with material gains does nothing more than set my children up for a life of overspending – a life that keeps them from reaching for their real dreams.

I hear from a lot of expectant parents and parents of newborns who ask lots of interesting questions about what we actually do to save money with our infants. Though I’ve written lists before of the things worth doing to trim spending on babies, many of the people who write in are skeptical. Cloth diapers? Do you really do that? Don’t you need things like changing tables? What about clothes and toys and baby food?

In short, yes, we really do this stuff.

Given that, I thought it’d be worthwhile to post a visual guide to some of the ways we saved money with our infants. Currently, we have a boy who’s just shy of three years old and a girl who just passed her first birthday, so some of this stuff is still applicable (diapering) while other elements are starting to slip to the wayside (baby car seats and baby food).

Here are some of the best ways we’ve found to save money on typical baby items and baby care.

Cloth Diapers

Above is a picture of two of the cloth diapers we use – bumGenius one-size-fits-all cloth diapers. As you can somewhat see from the picture above, each one is adjustable with a number of snaps so that they’ll fit any size baby, from newborns to a three year old that only wears them at night. They also come with extra pads (which you can see above the right one) for when they start to produce a greater volume as they get older.

Taking them on and off is easy – they have a velcro strip across the front and the tabs just attach to the velcro, easy as pie. It’s just as easy as putting on and taking off a disposable one.

If you intend to have more than one child, cloth diapers can be a substantial savings. A friend of ours, Carrie, did a great analysis of the cost and figured that you actually begin saving during the second year with a single child and the second one is incredibly cheap. She calculated a savings of $200 in diapers for a single child over two years – for two children over two years each, cloth diapers alone save about $800. That’s quite a chunk of change.

Changing a Diaper

What you see above is our usual “changing table.” Instead of buying an expensive changing table, we just use an old towel and change diapers wherever it’s convenient – in this case, on the floor of the family room. Not buying a changing table can easily save $50-100.

You’ll also notice a piece of cloth laying there – that’s what we use for wipes. Originally, my wife just bought a large piece of flannel – the cheapest soft flannel she could find at the cloth store – and cut it down to wipe-sized pieces, then hemmed them with her sewing machine. If you don’t want to go to all that work, just get a jumbo pack of washcloths.

It’s also useful to have a spritzer bottle with water in it (and sometimes a bit of witch hazel in with the water if you’re noticing diaper rash). This way, you can moisten the child’s behind a bit as you’re cleaning him or her up with the wipe.

After the business is done, we just stick the wipe in with the used cloth diaper and we’re good to go!

Not buying disposable wipes saves us about $100 a year or so per child, according to our thumbnail calculations.

Cleaning Up

The first thing that expectant parents think about when they hear about cloth diapering is cleanup. “You mean I’m going to have to touch a dirty diaper!? Ewww!”

First things first – if you’re a parent of a newborn, you are going to touch soiled diapers. It’s going to happen, and within a week or two of changing several a day, you’re going to become so desensitized to it that you won’t even notice it. It’s simply a fact of life, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re using disposables or cloth diapers – you’re still going to be up close and personal with baby waste.

With the cloth diapers, we just fold them up like this with the wipes inside when we’re done (and any solid waste is dumped in the toilet and rinsed). Our wicker basket is effectively our Diaper Genie (another waste of a purchase you don’t need to make).

When it comes time to wash the diapers, we just spray a bit of deodorizer around the laundry room (mostly for our own benefit), then open them up, tug out the liners, and throw all of the cloth pieces into the washer. We do a load of nothing but wipes and diapers about once every three days or so. Then, when they come out, we stuff them how we like and fold them, usually in the family room in the evenings when we’re watching a movie or something. Easy as pie.

Diaper Bags

Although we do have a “nice” diaper bag (received as a gift in our baby shower days), we often just use a simple canvas bag, especially for short trips.

Just toss a few diapers, a few wipes, a spray bottle, a few toys, a bottle, and maybe a snack and you’re ready to go for almost any day trip. The canvas bag is convenient to carry and – best of all – they’re often extremely cheap (or in the case of the one depicted here, free).

A good-sized canvas bag can take care of your diaper bag needs for just pennies. Don’t waste your money here.

Baby Food

When the baby is young, the best solution of all is breast feeding, if it’s at all possible. The cost of a breast pump is negligible compared to the savings and health benefits one gets from breast milk over formula. Formula is fine if breast milk doesn’t work out, but breast milk saves you hundreds of dollars over formula in that first year, often paying for a nice electric pump in just several months. Then, if you have a second child (as we did), it’s pure gravy.

When the child gets older – especially in the six to twelve month range – they’ll be eating a lot of pureed and mashed-up baby food. While it’s easy to just grab the Gerber, it’s very expensive – $0.50 a pop really adds up if your child knocks back two of those per meal. Why not just give them a bit of your own table food? Just take some of your vegetables, soups, stews, and other things, and just blend them into goop in the blender, then pour them into individual jars (as we did above) or into an ice cube tray and pop them in the freezer. You can save $75 easily this way, plus you’ll have greater control over the freshness and quality of what’s going into your child’s stomach.

Toys, Clothes, and Bibs

Toys, clothes, and bibs are what yard sales are made for. Baby and toddler clothes at yard sales are only lightly used – a child usually only wears an outfit four to six times before they’ve outgrown the clothes at that age, at which point they head for the yard sale tables. Buy them in bulk – make an offer for everything that’s there and you can save $100-200 a year on baby clothes.

For bibs, the story is much the same – get them at yard sales. You can also get tee shirts much larger than your baby – toddler and small children’s shirts. Just put the shirt on over the baby before they eat instead of a bib – the tee shirt becomes the bib and can be pulled right off when done. This is a great (and cheap) tactic to use when they self-feed for the first few (dozen) times, as it can be very messy.

Yard sales are also a place to get toys on the cheap. Just take your kid along and watch what they’re drawn to. The basketball hoop above was a yard sale find – our son fell in love with it around fourteen months and we picked it up for a dime. He still plays with it multiple times a week, almost two years later.

Additionally, just allow your kids to play with items around the house. There’s nothing more exhilarating than entertaining your child with a wooden spoon and several overturned pans in the kitchen. It’s a loud racket to be sure, but it’s great fun and a great learning experience for your kid.

The point is don’t spend a lot of money on new toys, clothes, or bibs. There are plenty of cheaper options that are just as good.

Where We Didn’t Skimp

Although we found lots of places to skimp, there were a few places where we didn’t, and they can be described in one word: safety.

Crib We invested in an extremely sturdy crib for our son when he was first born and it was well worth it. He jumped up and down in it, tossed around at night, and tested the sturdiness of it time and time again (and still does, on occasion) – and it’s never budged an inch. Later, when we found we had a second child coming, we bought him a reasonably priced but very sturdy bed and had his little sister move into the crib. The sturdiness of the crib was well worth the cost – we never worried for an instant about the safety of either child.

Car seat We spent plenty to get the safest, sturdiest car seat we could find. Later, we bought the safest, sturdiest toddler seat we could find. In the event of an accident, we wanted the greatest chance possible of the complete safety of our children. Safety is an area we don’t skimp on.

Bottles For us, this is a safety issue. If we were starting over again, we would likely buy glass baby bottles – if we went plastic, they would absolutely be free of Bisphenol A. My wife majored in chemistry in college and she’s extremely concerned, so I tend to trust her on this one.

Whenever I write about how I organize my life, I usually get several comments and emails from individuals who lament their lack of energy. “I get tired just reading that task list!” is a common thing that I hear.

Here’s the thing: compared to many people I know, I feel like a very low-energy person. As I’ve mentioned before, I have hypothyroidism (since birth) and I take Synthroid each morning as a supplement. One of the side effects of hypothyroidism is a fairly low energy level, and there are times when I really feel the effects. I have to make myself get going – and it takes about everything I have.

Because of that perspective, I’ve noticed many times that the frugal way of doing things is often the way that requires some significant energy output.

I could go out in the yard and play with the kids for free, or we could go watch a documentary and burn some electricity in the process.

I could bust my tail and make a delicious supper, or we could open up the pocketbooks and go out to eat – or have someone bring us food.

I could make up a batch of homemade laundry detergent, or I could just buy one at the store.

I could go ride a bike two miles to the post office to deliver a package, or I could fire up the truck and drive there.

I could stroll to the bandshell park and listen to a community concert, or I could just lounge at home on my couch and play with my Wii.

I could use cloth diapers and save on the huge replacement costs, or I could just buy disposables over and over again.

In each of these cases (and in many more cases), the frugal method often works better and is definitely cheaper than the big spender version, but the frugal way undoubtedly requires more energy output.

Given that, it makes quite a bit of sense that a lower personal energy level would result in more expensive choices. The low energy person would put a higher value on energy conservation than the high energy person and thus would be more prone to choose the more financially expensive route than the high energy person.

In other words, I tend to think that doing things to raise your natural energy level can actually have a financial benefit as well. If you feel more energetic, you feel much more like tackling tasks that can save you a bit of money. Air sealing your home doesn’t seem like an overwhelming task. Cooking a complex meal sounds like fun, not like drudgery. A bicycle ride is a happy experience, not a dreaded one.

Raising Your Energy Level
So how can a lower-energy person overcome that state in a healthy, stable way? As this idea has been percolating in my head for a while, I decided to look into that very issue. What actions can I take to overcome a low energy level without risking my health in other ways? How can I reduce my sense of tiredness and exhaustion in a positive fashion?

I read through several books on the topic, but the one that really clicked for me was Laura Stack’s The Exhaustion Cure. For those who have read The Simple Dollar for a while, Laura Stack might be a familiar name, as I thoroughly enjoyed two of her earlier books, Find More Time (time management in one’s personal life) and Leave the Office Earlier (time management at work).

Here are the twelve most useful tips I was able to find in that read through, most of which I was able to apply directly to my own life pretty efficiently and quickly.

Get adequate sleep. You should be getting seven to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep each day. The best way to do it is to make your sleep very routine – go through the same patterns before sleep each night. Stack also recommends drinking less fluids before bed – try cutting yourself off three hours before bed. This keeps you from waking up at night with a need to go to the bathroom. If you’re having trouble getting to sleep, try a mild natural relaxant – a cup of warm milk or a glass of wine in the evening.

Get tested for sleep disorders or other problems. If you find yourself getting tired easily, especially in the morning, this may be a sign of a larger problem. Go to the doctor and describe the problems. There are lots of easily explained and easily treatable reasons for tiredness.

Eat better. A better diet can make all the difference. That doesn’t mean you have to go on some strict diet of nothing but vegetable greens and beans. It just means that you should strive to make better choices. Reduce your sugar and corn syrup intake. Eat more whole grains. Eat more fruits and vegetables that aren’t prepackaged. Drink lower fat milk.

Start a minimal exercise routine. Do something non-sedentary for thirty minutes a day, even if it’s just a walk around the block a few times. Do enough to get your blood flowing well and raise your metabolism level. You don’t have to go into triathlon training mode – just get things moving at least once a day.

Get up and move around if you start to feel low-energy or tired. If you feel your energy crashing, get up and walk around. Walk around the block, or walk around your office area. Stretch a bit – or even do some very simple yoga.

Directly address the things that are worrying you. Is a relationship stressing you out? Don’t let it fester. Go to the person and talk through the situation. Let that other person rail for a while if it makes them feel better. Resolve the problem. If it’s a personal task that stresses you out, either tackle it directly or spend your time coming up with an actual detailed plan for tackling it.

Keep your environment well-lit. Don’t work or relax in a dim environment. Keep bright lights on as often as is reasonable. This is actually something I implemented recently in my office – I upgraded the brightness in the light bulbs, and it actually lifted my energy level for working.

Scale back a bit on your required duties. If you’re feeling exhausted even thinking about your to-do list, take a serious look at your responsibilities and choose a few to scale back on. Tell your boss that you’re overloaded and you need to step back from a particular project. Don’t sign up again for a volunteer task. Reduce that to-do list to something that doesn’t overwhelm you.

Do work as far in advance of deadlines as you can. Don’t let deadlines crunch you, leaving you worn out and beaten down. Instead, as soon as a project comes up, start working on it and strive to get it done well before the deadline. This keeps you from doing the last minute crunch to get it done and lets you manage your time in a healthier fashion.

Find friends that are active and/or positive in attitude. If your circle of friends prefers to just sit around and be negative towards each other and everything else, they’re likely lowering your energy level. Seek friends who are engaged and want to do things. Also, seek friends who have a positive attitude and talk about you – and other things – in a positive fashion. Negative friends sap your energy.

Get involved with something you truly care about. Having a deep passion is a sure-fire way to get you doing something and raise your energy level throughout your life. If you’re not involved with anything that stokes your fire, spend your spare time trying lots of different activities and groups until you find the thing that clicks for you.

Read. This might seem shocking – reading is as sedentary as you can get, right? Actually, reading is incredibly mentally stimulating and can actually raise your energy level if done in moderation. Choose items that aren’t easy reading for you – instead, find things that push your understanding and knowledge and make you learn and discover new things about yourself and the world.