Earlier this week, I made an offhand reference to the fact that my wife and I have watched several entire sci-fi series on Netflix streaming at a roughly three-episodes-a-week pace. Several readers wrote in and asked for what series we had watched, so I thought I’d give you a brief rundown of the series we’ve watched while being Netflix streaming subscribers. The links below go straight to Netflix, so you can add them to your instant queue.

Doctor Who (new seasons one, two, three, and four)
Torchwood
Battlestar Galactica (seasons one, two part one, two part two, three, four part one, and four part two)
Bones (seasons one, two, three, four, and five)
Lost (seasons one, two, three, four, five, and six)
Flashforward

Watching these shows a few times a week serves as our “date night.” We’ll turn off all the lights in the family room, pop some popcorn, and cuddle up on the couch for forty or fifty minutes of non-commercial-interrupted escapism (and usually fifteen minutes of plot and character discussion afterwards as we trudge off to bed).

Are You Jumping On The Self-Employed Bandwagon? While there are some very good points here, I think this article tries to create a dichotomy where there is one. For me, the entire point of dabbling in self-employment/small-scale entrepreneurship is to create new income streams so that if something goes wrong with one of them (like losing your job), you’re not in a disastrous situation. It’s not just a choice between self-employment and not-self-employment. (@ passive income now)

How Much is True Love Worth? This is more interesting for me from the perspective of how much of a person’s life they’re willing to hand off to professionals to solve a specific problem. I could write a whole article on this. (@ consumerism commentary)

Why are Friends and Family Always Asking For Free Service? My perspective is that it’s a “familiarity breeds contempt” situation. In other words, if you don’t know anyone personally who can do the service, it seems arcane and difficult and worth paying for. On the other hand, if your Cousin Eddie can do it, it can’t be anything too special, so why should they pay for it? In fact, why shouldn’t Cousin Eddie just do it? (@ investor junkie)

What Is Your Personal Debt Ceiling? This was a brilliant transformation of a hot political issue into some worthwhile personal finance insight. (@ frugal dad)

How to Be the Most Memorable Person in the Room If you’re at a job fair, an interview, a conference, a convention, a party, or any other situation where it’s beneficial to stand out, these points of advice are for you. (@ erica douglass)

One of the biggest challenges I’ve come across since changing my diet has been the struggle to always have ingredients on hand for meals I can eat. Regardless of how carefully I make a meal plan, I always felt like there were one or two meals a week that would throw a monkey wrench in my plans.

I want to make this dish that takes an hour, but I only have thirty minutes.

I’m ready to cook, but this pepper has an enormous soft spot in it.

This curry I’m making requires ginger, but Sarah just used the last of the ginger root in a smoothie.

The temptation in these situations is to just run to the grocery store, pick up the item in need, and rush back.

The problem with such impromptu runs, though, is that they’re expensive. I burn a gallon of gas getting to the nearest grocery store. When I’m there, I’m often tempted to buy something more than what I intended to buy, which just adds to the expense of the trip. There’s also the time factor.

The solution to this problem is simple: have some banked meals on hand.

What do I mean by “banked” meals? I simply mean meals that are already prepared or easy enough to prepare that you can pull them out in a pinch and have a finished homecooked meal relatively easily and quickly.

I generally separate these into two distinct groups: pre-made meals or extremely simple meals. Here are some examples of each.

Extremely Simple Meals
Pasta with sauce We constantly keep spaghetti and either bottled marinara sauce or the ingredients with which to quickly assemble such a sauce on hand. Often, I’ll just boil some water, add the uncooked pasta and some frozen vegetables to the water, boil the pasta until finished, then drain it and add some pasta sauce straight to the pot. Ten minutes makes a great, healthy supper.

Soup The ingredients of a good vegetable barley soup can almost always be found in our pantry.

Sandwiches We’ll often just make sandwiches out of whatever we have on hand. It’s just two pieces of bread with whatever fillings are convenient. The sandwiches are then often grilled or baked in the oven.

Prepped-in-Advance Meals
Burritos Homemade burritos can be made in bulk and frozen, which makes them very easy to grab and microwave for a very quick meal.

Enchiladas A pan of homemade enchiladas, stowed away in the freezer, can be easily thawed and baked at a moment’s notice for a meal.

Casseroles Virtually any casserole recipe can be made in advance and stored in the freezer, ready to just be popped out and tossed into the oven when needed. Just do everything up to the point of cooking it in the oven, then cover it tightly with foil and store it in the freezer. I’ll often make two extra casseroles whenever I make a single one and store the other two for later use.

It’s important to remember that the reason for having such things on hand is to make it easier for you to eat at home in a pinch and to avoid unnecessary grocery store trips. Both of these steps are tremendous money savers and key parts of reducing your monthly food budget. Simply having simple spare meals on hand can make a tremendous difference.

As I’ve mentioned before, I was able to create, launch, and build up The Simple Dollar during my leisure time in the evenings after work over a two year period. Simply put, I filled much of my leisure time with this site, day after day, week after week, month after month, until it had built up a revenue stream large enough that I felt comfortable enough to start doing it full time.

This is something that I often encourage readers to do for themselves. If you’re passionate about something, fill your leisure time with it and see if you can build it into something you can do for a career.

There’s a key word I’m using here. Leisure. It’s the distinction between leisure time and idle time that often catches people off guard and makes them feel as though they don’t possibly have time to engage in such an activity.

Here’s a great example of what I mean.

There was a time, early in my career, where if I came home from work and felt tired, I’d flop on the couch and channel surf for an hour or so until my wife came home. At that point, I’d get up and lethargically start making dinner with her. After dinner, I’d often still feel beat, so I’d just play a video game or something else that didn’t require a ton of effort from me.

If that were my evening routine, I would have never been able to build up The Simple Dollar. It simply wouldn’t work.

Now, flash forward to 2006. What did I do then if I came home from work tired?

Simple. I’d directly address the tiredness. I’d go into the bedroom, lay down on the bed, close my eyes, and let sleep take me away.

When my wife arrives home, I’ve spent the last hour doing as much as I could to address my tiredness, leaving me much more capable of utilizing the rest of the evening in a successful way.

The same thing happens in the late evening. Let’s say it’s ten o’clock and Sarah and I have just watched an episode of a television series that we both enjoy. I’m feeling tired but, for some reason, I don’t want to go to bed yet.

A few years ago, I would have channel-surfed or played a video game for the next hour. Now? I’ll go prep tomorrow night’s supper or do some laundry or something like that, pushing me to being tired enough for bed while – and this is key – getting something time-consuming out of the way for tomorrow.

This, of course, leaves tomorrow night more wide open than before, which gives me time to play tag in the yard with my son and daughter and a game with my wife after the kids are in bed.

Leisure time is time spent engaged in an activity for my own personal enjoyment or growth. Idle time, on the other hand, is time spent on whatever activity happens to be at hand. In short, I try to find room in my life for genuine leisure time and avoid idle time.

Some obvious questions pop up.

What if I’m too tired for an engaged activity? Simple: get some genuine rest. Go to bed early. If adequate sleep isn’t doing the trick, work on your diet or talk to your doctor. If you’re doing certain things (like simply sitting there channel surfing) because you’re too tired to do anything else, then you need to make some other changes to your life.

What if I can’t think of anything to do? This can only be true if you have no goals in your life, no desire to find a better job, nothing you wish to improve at, and no activities that you find enjoyable. If all of these are true, then I would suggest talking to your doctor, as I would suspect depression.

What if I just want to “veg out”? There’s nothing at all wrong with a relaxing activity as long as you’re making a conscious choice to engage in it and it’s not done out of idleness.

I’ll give you an example. Sarah and I have watched several different science fiction TV series via Netflix by watching roughly three episodes a week. We set aside that time to just kick back and enjoy the show at hand. We get comfortable in the basement, enjoy the show together, then turn off the television when it’s over and do somthing else.

We don’t idle afterwards, channel surfing. We don’t talk ourselves out of going to bed just to see what’s on the other channel. If we’re tired, we go to bed. If we’re not tired, we’ll go find another activity to do together. If one of us is tired, that one goes to bed and the other stays up to do something else.

What if my leisure time is completely filled with other activities? Committees. Boards. Bible studies. Book groups. Game nights. Boy Scouts. It’s easy to fill up a schedule with so many responsibilities that it feels like you have no time for anything else.

It’s important to remember, though, that you’ve chosen to fill your leisure time with these things. If you’re happy with those choices, great! If you’re not happy with those choices, step back from the ones that give you pause and look for new ways to use that time.

Genuine leisure time is valuable – and more abundant than you think. If you separate it from idle time, it can provide all the space you need to take on personal goals and get involved in things you might not otherwise enjoy. Without it, I would have never been able to start The Simple Dollar and have such a powerful opportunity to bond with my family.

In July, my wife and I are attending a wedding for a couple that we’re very close to. As that date approaches, the couple is pretty heavily involved in planning things – and they’re really beginning to realize how many little things there are to take care of.

Meanwhile, there’s another couple that are close friends of ours who recently had a baby. Their wedding shower is set to happen a couple months after the birth of their child. I can tell by their Twitter feeds that both of them are running low on sleep.

In both of these cases, the people in question don’t need physical things. Instead, they’re in a situation where they’re under some significant pressure and the greatest gift you can give them is to relieve that pressure.

This is often true of many people in your life. Almost every adult has some sort of pressure bearing down on them – spiritual, emotional, physical, temporal, or something else – and relief from that pressure is the greatest gift you can give to them.

Over the last few years, my wife and I have slowly been migrating towards this direction for our gift-giving. Rather than simply passing an item to someone, particularly the people we care the most about, we ask ourselves, “What can we do to make their lives better?”

Often, such a gift doesn’t have much of a financial cost. The cost is usually in the form of time and/or energy.

More importantly, such gifts usually end up meaning a lot more to the recipient than just another tchotchke.

The best way to demonstrate what we’re talking about is to use the examples above.

For the soon-to-be-married couple, we asked them how their wedding planning was going. They were worried about several issues, but one that stood out to us was the idea of having a small “gift bag” for each attendee. They wanted to give each attendee a memento of their day, something unique that would really stand out. We offered to handle this for them by making individually wrapped homemade soaps for each gift that were in line with the theme of the wedding. All they’d have to do is give us a bit of suggestion for what they’d want in the soap – scents, oil types, and so on – and we would make the soap, wrap it up, and distribute it for them. It’s a problem directly off their shoulders.

As for the couple with the new baby, the biggest thing they need is time for rest and for intimacy with each other. We can solve that by simply giving them a few gift certificates for evenings of babysitting.

So often, gift-giving occasions are met with consternation and cost. They often mean an outpouring of money onto some object that you’re not even sure that the recipient will value – or else you’re just grabbing an item off of a wishlist, which is just a step or two away from just thoughtlessly handing them cash.

Instead, simply step back and ask yourself what the recipient actually needs in life. What, in their life, is causing pressure or is creating a vacuum? What do they have too much of – or too little of?

If you have an older relative or friend, the thing they’d most value from you is likely companionship. Why not promise to spend a few Saturday afternoons with your grandma or grandpa or mom or dad playing cards with them or watching a movie with them?

Parents? They almost always value trusted babysitting. Teenagers will usually value time you spend taking them to do something fun. Younger children love trips to the park (and their parents often value it, too). Many single people greatly value expertise in fixing things, so if you’ve got some skills to share, that’s a great opportunity. Weddings? Take care of a detail for them.

The list goes on and on.

Remember, if you want to give something that the recipient will actually value without spending money on something you’re not sure they’d value, just look at their situation and ask yourself what they most need in their life. Do they need companionship? Rest? Experiences? Something taken off of a long to-do list?

Whatever it is, if you can provide that, you’ve given them a gift that matters without spending unnecessary cash. That’s something everyone can appreciate.

What’s inside? Here are the questions answered in today’s reader mailbag, boiled down to five word summaries. Click on the number to jump straight down to the question.
1. Where to keep emergency funds?
2. Catching up on retirement savings
3. Negative items on credit report
4. Head over heels
5. Helping a child in trouble
6. Preparing for career switch
7. Renting in retirement
8. Disability and ethics
9. Student loan concerns
10. Swimming pools

I picked up a nasty case of conjunctivitis from one of my infant son’s friends. As I type this, my eyes itch terribly and one of them feels like there’s some grit in it.

Thankfully, I have an abundance of cold, wet washcloths. Every once in a while, I’ll go sit in a chair and hold them over my eyes for a while and this soothes the itching and grittiness – for a little while, anyway.

Q1: Where to keep emergency funds?
We have six months expenses as an emergency fund. “High yield” savings accounts are at about 1% these days. Money market accounts seem to be .05%. Do you have a recommendation for a good type of account for an emergency fund?
- Tracy

High yield savings accounts really are the place to keep emergency funds, because they’re the only place available to most people that have the factors needed to hold an emergency fund.

First, it must be liquid. You have to be able to pull your cash out at any time. This eliminates things like CDs and real estate.

Second, it must not put the balance at risk. Quite often, you need the money most when the markets are down. This eliminates things like stocks.

When you keep peeling things away like that, you’re eventually left with high-yield savings accounts and money market accounts. Unfortunately, the rates on them are poor right now, but that’s not the point. You just need a place that’s liquid and your balance is not at risk.

Tracy also had a second question worth discussing.

Q2: Catching up on retirement savings
Also, we are in our early 40s. I have almost 200,000 in 401ks, but my partner has about 80,000. We plan over the next five years to save most of her income to try to catch up. Do you have any other advice for us on how to get her retirement savings on track?
- Tracy

Maxing out your 401(k) contributions is one path, which it sounds like you’re following.

Another way to do it – one that I’d suggest doing, actually – is to open a Roth IRA. With a Roth IRA, you contribute after-tax money (which means it comes out of your take-home pay), but if you just leave it there until retirement, you don’t have to pay taxes on the money you’ve gained in that account.

Having some of your money in a Roth IRA and some in a 401(k) puts you in great shape with regards to taxes now and taxes later. Plus, you have the power to control your own investments if you use a Roth IRA (I invest through Vanguard in a Target Retirement fund).

Q3: Negative items on credit report
I pulled my credit report and found that there was one potentially ‘negative’ area – it looks like a credit card with Chase Bank was opened in 10/2005, and was closed at credit grantor’s request. The last report was Mar 2006, and it looks like there was marked a 60 days past due, with a ‘high balance’ of $125. This seems strange to me, only because I was living in Japan from 2004-2007, and was not in the US at this time to open an account with Chase.

Additionally, there are no charges listed, and it doesn’t look like this was used.

I’m wondering how this could have been opened in my name – I did not receive any credit card offers at my address in Japan. Should I dispute this? Does it matter?

I’m trying to build credit – I have 3 credit cards, with no late payments and I pay off the balance each month. I have never taken out a loan, however, so my only way to build credit is through credit cards.

I took the FICO score estimator and got a range of 720-770, which seems good, but it bothers me that a credit card went past due in my name when I was out of the country.
- Rachel

That seems rather unusual. Given that the card seems to have been used ethically, my first suspicion is that someone in your family opened the card for some reason, perhaps because their own credit was in a bad situation at the time.

It’s also possible that there was an error with the Social Security number at some point.

If the account is closed, I wouldn’t worry about it too much, although it is strange.

Q4: Head over heels
My boyfriend lives in Boston. I live in Los Angeles. We met on New Years weekend and since then one of us has flown to see the other almost every single weekend. This is getting really expensive, but a day doesn’t go by when I don’t really really want to see him. What should I do?
- Glenda

Do you have an easy opportunity to professionally transfer to Boston? Does he have an opportunity to professionally transfer to Los Angeles?

If either one of you has this option available, it’s worth considering. You may also want to consider job searching in Boston (and he can look for lobs in Los Angeles).

In short, if you’re single and unencumbered, this is the kind of thing that you should try to make work. This is one of those things that, if you don’t run with it, you’ll find yourself regretting it for the rest of your life. Don’t let it pass.

Q5: Helping a child in trouble
We have an employed 29 yeqar old son who is beyond a spendthrift. He puts himself in situations that put us in jeopardy financially. I am looking for the pyscology articles of why he does what he does. Any suggestions. And yes he has had a substance abuse problem. Supposedly he is in rehab.
- Lionel

You don’t know if he’s in rehab or not, yet he has the ability to make financial moves that put you in jeopardy?

For starters, I would not allow him any access to any of your assets. If he has a credit card of yours, cancel it. If he has the ability to draw on your funds, deny him that ability.

For another, it sounds like he has an addictive personality, which can be incredibly financially dangerous. People with deeply addicitve personalities (of which I know a few) will spend every dime they have and every dime given to them by anyone and any dime that they have access to in order to chase their addictions.

The only solution to this is professional help, and a key part of that is their own desire to want that type of help. Until then, I would not allow him access to anything that could harm your financial position.

Q6: Preparing for career switch
After six years in the workforce, I will be going to law school in August and leaving behind a low-paying career. I have about $10,000 left in consolidated student loans, which I have been dutifully repaying since I graduated from college.

I have been preparing an expense budget for the next phase of my life and discovered that I will actually have more monthly income from my housing budget than I take home now. The end result is that I think I may be able to continue making my $117 a month student loan payment from my undergraduate studies without much pain. If I don’t, I can add that money to my budget for savings/IRA. What do you think I should do?
- Tammy

It depends on the interest rates of the loan.

From my perspective, continuing to make that $117 a month payment instead of putting the loan in forbearance is essentially a $117 monthly investment that returns the interest rate of your loan. If that interest rate is very high at all, it’s a very good investment to continue, especially if you can afford it.

Of course, I am assuming that you have at least some emergency fund already in place and don’t have any history of accumulating debt, but both of these seem to be true based on your comments.

Q7: Renting in retirement
I have a friend who plans on renting for the rest of her life as she doesn’t like the idea of being tied to one area (as the [slim] chance to move could occur if she lost her job) or having to do maintenance on a property.

Recently her parents have become concerned that she will still have to pay rent after retirement. They have offered to give her a sum of money to assist with the down payment. This is making her consider purchasing a home since “the market is great for buyers” and her mom and dad are giving her free money.

Since we both live in the same high priced real estate area, we have used the ‘NY Times Rent vs Buy calculator’ to determine that she can only afford a $160k house. Looking at what’s available in the area; this leaves her with 1 and 2 bedroom condos, which are suitable for her.

I did a little Google-ing about renting during retirement and came across nothing but retirees that sell their homes to move into an apartment. In this scenario, it seems one would be putting money into a home for ~30 years and then be able to sell to break even or make a profit. After selling the home, the cash on hand could be seen as liquidating a retirement account that money was added to over time but with much greater risk. Whereas with a rented property, money would be put into someone else’s account, never to be returned.

Why can I not figure out how renting is better than buying in this scenario? Is the free money really worth it?
- Brian

Renting versus buying isn’t the cut-and-dried case that many people seem to believe that it is. One isn’t necessarily better than the other. It heavily depends on the situation of the person involved.

In many locations, the cost to rent per month is substantially lower than the monthly mortgage payment, the utilities, and the maintenance costs. In many areas, the gap is substantial. In retirement, cash flow is often paramount, and if you’re spending less per month by renting rather than buying, it makes sense. This is particularly true if you’re diligent about saving at least some of that difference.

However, in her situation, with relatively low-cost condos available and a big cash boost in her back pocket, the balance shifts strongly toward buying.

Q8: Disability and ethics
The world is a mean-spirited place sometimes. I have gotten many comments saying that I do not deserve disability from taxpayer money and that I knew what I was getting into when getting legally married, so I should stop complaining and suck up the dramatic decrease in our finances. I obviously don’t agree! I think government policy is VERY wrong and people need to know about and understand what the government is doing to us.

During the boom years, I was very much looked down upon for not being able to rake in cash through working. Now that more people are hurting financially, I am despised as a leech on society. If I got a vote…I’d vote to NOT be disabled…so would Rhett. I’d love it if some money person like you would write about what it’s like to live on very little. How would a money expert spend their money if they were me? What would they eat? How would they cope with it all? What are our best options?
- Wendy

My feeling is that regardless of how you feel about a particular type of financial aid, if it’s already funded and available to you, you’re throwing money away by not taking it. That doesn’t mean you can’t be politically opposed to it, nor does it mean you’re politically in favor of it. You’re simply talking about the immediate financial position you’re in and how to maximize that position.

If I were you, I’d take advantage of all aid that I was eligible for, but I’d also try to work in whatever way I could.

Most importantly, don’t be ashamed of who you are and stop worrying so much about what other people say. The person you have to wake up with in the morning and go to bed with at night is you, not all the naysayers and critics. If you’re happy with the choices you’re making in your situation, then that’s enough.

Q9: Student loan concerns
In 2011, I decided that instead of doing a year-long resolution, I would instead do a smaller resolution for each month. I wanted to slowly build myself up into a better person all around, instead of trying to jump into a huge goal that would fail within a few days. Plus, I continue what I learned from one month into the next month, slowly adding up skills and benefits. For January my goal was to get my finances under control. I joined Mint.com, I started reading finance blogs (yours included!), and being more aware of how I spent my money. While it has been difficult, I have learned a lot, and my mindset about money has really changed.

However, one thing continues to plague me, and I have yet to figure out a good answer. I, like many others in my age bracket, have a fair amount of student loans. Thankfully I have no student loans from undergrad, these are strictly loans from my mental health counseling masters program. I have consolidated all my loans through the federal government into one big loan. Currently I owe $46,942.39. My monthly minimum payment is $118, but I usually try to pay $130. I am currently paying on the income contingent plan, as I needed to have the lowest monthly minimum payment to get by. My interest rate is 7.350%, and I have $1,056.19 lurking in outstanding interest that has yet to be added to the principal balance. Here is my problem: when I have outstanding interest, even if I pay over my monthly minimum, none of my payment goes towards the principal. So basically I am just throwing money at the interest, which feels like plugging holes one at a time in a sinking ship. However, I am living in Chicago and I make roughly $28,000, so I am not really able to pay much more than the $130 a month. However, I wonder if I should even bother paying over – since I am a mental health counselor, I believe I am eligible for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program (http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/PSF.jsp). After 120 payments, my loan will be forgiven, as long as I continue to work in my field (which I am obviously planning on doing).

So, do I bother to really try and tackle this debt? Or do I just keep making minimum payments for 10 years and let it all get paid off at that point? How do I save the most money doing this?
- Kelly

Given your income level and the fact that you’re probably stuck making those minimum payments for the foreseeable future, there’s no reason not to try to take advantage of the loan forgiveness program.

I would get enrolled in the program as soon as possible, then focus on making those minimum payments like clockwork.

Yes, there’s a risk that you won’t be in this field in ten years. However, your current income is pretty much limiting you to minimum payments or something close to it, so I wouldn’t worry too much about that risk.

Q10: Swimming pools
What do you think of swimming pools? Do you think it’s worth it? Can you tell me some pros and cons? Interested in buying, however not sure it’s the right thing to do…
- Paul

With a major purchase like a swimming pool, I would encourage you not to get one unless it’s something you’re already doing. If you’re the type of person who goes to a public swimming pool very regularly to swim, then you’ll probably get value out of your own pool.

However, I’ve seen many people sink money into a pool that they think they might use, only to find that they rarely use it and are unhappy with the upkeep costs and the money they’ve sunk into it. My in-laws have a swimming pool that they do use during the summer a little, but I suspect if they had the chance to re-do things, they probably would not have purchased the pool.

Never sink a bunch of money into something you “might” use. If it’s not something you’re actively engaged with, I’d be very careful about laying out the cash.

Got any questions? Email them to me or leave them in the comments and I’ll attempt to answer them in a future mailbag (which, by way of full disclosure, may also get re-posted on other websites that pick up my blog). However, I do receive hundreds of questions per week, so I may not necessarily be able to answer yours.

Every Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal finance or other book of interest. Also available is a complete list of the hundreds of book reviews that have appeared on The Simple Dollar over the years.

A few months ago, I reviewed Brian Tracy’s book Goals!, which was a solid primer on setting specific goals for yourself. If goals are a focus point for you, I highly encourage you to take a peek at my review.

Since then, I’ve looked at several of Brian Tracy’s books. Some of them seem good, while others seem like rehashes. The best ones focus specifically on a problem or challenge that productive people face.

Eat That Frog! falls into that category.

Here, Tracy tackles procrastination. Eat That Frog! is a fairly short book divided into a number of short essays on how to overcome procrastination. I selected six of the most compelling to discuss below.

Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything
The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, simply says that 20% of the time you invest in something will produce 80% of the results. For example, I absolutely find it true that 80% of the content I actually write is done in 20% of the time I often spend on writing.

One big key to avoiding procrastination is to learn to recognize and harness that 20%. When you’re productive, ride that train until you stop being productive, and do this regardless of when the project is due. It’s far better to spend an hour now when your mind is in gear and you’re able to really knock out some work than to spend four hours later where it takes all you’ve got to squeeze out just a little result.

Use the ABCDE Method Continuously
The “ABCDE method” refers to simply grouping your tasks to be done by priority in addition to by due date. A tasks are of the highest priority, whereas E tasks are ones that you can basically drop because they’re unimportant.

If you prioritize your to-do list as well as look at it by due date, then it will become clear exactly what you should be working on – the A-1 task. Focus on that, and only that, until it’s complete.

Upgrade Your Key Skills
I essentially discussed this idea in my post this morning. If you put regular time into building up your key skills, then large projects that utilize those skills seem less frightening and much more manageable. If you can type at ninety words per minute rather than twenty, putting together that report is much easier.

Since many of the tasks we face come down to execution of our basic skills in some combination, the sharper our basic skills, the easier any project we face becomes and the less likely we are to procrastinate about it.

Get Out of the Technological Time Sinks
Cell phones. Web browsers. Twitter clients. Facebook. All of these things are giant technological time sinks. They’re constantly available, making it incredibly easy to just send a text or check a website or send a Facebook update or tweet something. Boom – concentration broken.

The solution is to turn all of these things off. Turn off the internet connection. Turn the cell phone completely off. Deny yourself the ability to easily access these services until the task you need to complete is finsihed.

Slice and Dice the Task
If the task before you seems monumental, it’s easy to put it off until later rather than facing it. Instead of dwelling on that monumental nature, though, consider breaking that task down into smaller pieces until each piece seems manageable and comfortable.

In fact, such a breakdown of a project can be a very useful first task to approach. If you’re thinking about a project but don’t want to work on it because it seems overwhelming, instead just spend some time breaking that project down into smaller pieces.

Single Handle Every Task
One key way to avoid procrastination, particularly of smaller tasks, is to “single handle” them. In other words, when you first pick up a smaller project, don’t put it down until it’s completely finished. Don’t even give yourself a chance to divide the project’s time and thus procrastinate on the second half of it.

This was my worst procrastination tactic in college. I’d do half of my calculus homework, then drop the other half, only to find myself doing it in a panic at 7 in the morning while in the dining hall for breakfast.

Is Eat That Frog! Worth Reading?
If you find procrastination to be a consistent problem in your life, Eat That Frog! offers a concise and valuable collection of tactics to try. The reasons for each person’s procrastination are different, so it’s good that Tracy’s tactics are fairly diverse and attack many different avenues of procrastination.

As with any book like this, though, the value of the book relates directly to how much you put into it. If you just read it and toss it aside without applying anything, you might as well read a page-turning novel.

However, if you’re really committed to cutting procrastination out of your life, Eat That Frog! is one of the best books around, along with the excellent The Now Habit.

Check out additional reviews and notes of Eat That Frog! on Amazon.com.

I’ve mentioned deliberate practice in the past, but after several experiences in recent days, I felt like it was a vital topic worth revisiting.

What’s deliberate practice? I first learned about the topic from Stephen Dubner at the New York Times, who was writing about how Alex Rodriguez built his baseball skills. Dubner noted that not only did Rodriguez practice in abundance, he applied three basic tenets to his practice:

1. Focus on technique as opposed to outcome.
2. Set specific goals.
3. Get good, prompt feedback, and use it.

This scene from The Karate Kid illustrates that idea:

I described it in this way:

Many people, when they want to learn how to play a guitar, pick it up and try to bang out some awful rendition of Stairway to Heaven. They’ll practice at that song some, trying it over and over again, and they might eventually figure out how to make it passable, but playing anything else is going to be rather difficult and the person (unless they have obscene natural talent) will never get good enough to play in front of others and earn a positive reaction.

On the other hand, if you sit down for an hour and just work on a single chord, then spend another hour just working on one other chord, then spend two or three hours alternating between the two, you’ll begin to master the basics of how to actually play a lot of things. Add a third chord to that and you can play most of Tom Petty’s songbook. Add a couple more and you can play virtually every well-known pop and rock song of the last sixty years.

So let’s start there, with music. Just be patient – we’ll get around to some personally applicable stuff in a bit.

As many of you know, I’m learning to play the piano. I take lessons once a week from a wonderful piano teacher, and I do my best to practice during the week.

When I have practice time at home, I can choose either to attempt to play a specific song – say, Clocks by Coldplay – or I can choose to work on things like mastering jumping back and forth between chords over and over again, or play scales over and over again, while focusing on getting the finger work for these repetitive moves down cold.

The first kind of practice – playing the songs – is a lot more fun. It’s enjoyable to tackle a song that I really like. The other type of practice – deliberate, repetitive tasks – can be really boring at times.

What’s interesting, though, is that when I go to piano practice and run through what I’ve been working on, I’ll find that if I work on a particular song all week, I’ll be better at that song, but I’ll be just as bad – if not worse – at other songs. On the other hand, if I work on those boring deliberate tasks all week, I might not be as good at that one song, but I’ve usually improved at it and I’ve improved at every song.

The deliberate practice is boring, but it pays off.

The same thing is true with public speaking, appearing on the radio, and podcasting. In each of those cases, it’s always most fun to think about and practice the message I want to deliver as a whole.

Instead, I find that if I practice deliberately – focusing on specific things like speaking at a slower cadence, using voice practice to lower my speaking voice a bit, using good posture to project my voice, and improving the language of my message – not only does the presentation at hand improve, but so do all future presentations, impromptu or otherwise.

So how does this help me maximize my career and my income?

First of all, modern workplaces do not encourage deliberate practice. Most modern jobs simply want people to be competent in a lot of areas, not excellent in one or two. Deliberate practice focuses on excellence in a specific area, so your employer isn’t going to invest time and money in your deliberate practice.

On the other hand, people who do excel at a particular skill tend to rise quickly, earn more, and often eventually become independent contractors, earning even more. Think about it this way. If you have several new employees at your company and one of them is astoundingly good at some particular attribute of their job – say, speaking or managing the books – that person is going to stand out. They’re going to be first in line for promotions and raises and they’re most likely going to be the one that has the door open to them for new career paths.

Here’s an example. Let’s say that you’re in an adminstrative assistant pool at work. Most of the people in the pool can type at about seventy words per minute, as can you. However, you go home at night and put in an hour of deliberate practice to improve your typing speed and eventually you inch up to ninety words per minute. You’re now the most productive typist in the pool. A permanent adiminstrative assistant position opens up. Who’s going to get it – and get the financial rewards that go along with it?

Here’s another example. Let’s say you just got a postdoctoral research position at a university and you’re in a lab with three other postdocs. Each day, you spend an extra hour or two focusing on honing your presentation skills. Eventually, you’ll be outshining the others when it comes time to present your research, and your lab head will notice this. You’ll be chosen to go to conferences to present the lab’s work, enabling you to make contacts that will eventually further your career while the others are left behind.

Applying deliberate practice to key skills you’ll use in your career path – or even simply on skills you enjoy building – can have a powerful positive effect on your career trajectory, earning you more money and more opportunities.

For my work purposes, I have a desktop computer and a laptop computer. The desktop computer is the central machine, with a big external hard drive attached to it to back up my files. My laptop is the machine I use when I’m not able to be in my office, and it just syncs all of the files I need with my desktop computer.

Both of these computers are PCs. I purchased them because the cost was substantially lower.

However, most of the software I use regularly functions much better on Macs, from image and video editing to the writing and programming environments. On top of that, my desktop machine has some ongoing hardware issues that cause the machine to crash once a day or so. I’ve thrown my hardware expertise at it and my conclusion is that the motherboard is at fault.

At this stage, it would be easy for me to convince myself that I needed to just migrate completely to a Mac-oriented setup. I have money set aside to pay for everything I would need for this migration, including hardware and software. I can make an incredibly powerful case for the switch when I lay everything out.

The truth is, though, that I don’t need it.

Right now, I’m constructing this post on my laptop without any problems. In a bit, I’ll do some basic photo editing on this very laptop, again without any real problems. I can access websites, update The Simple Dollar, and do all of my writing right here.

All of the key uses for a Mac setup revolve around things I might do, not things I need to do. That alone puts this move securely into the “want” camp instead of the “need” camp.

My cell phone? It addresses things I might do – make calls and texts on the go – instead of things I need to do. It’s a want, not a need.

Our television? It addresses things I might do – watching television programs or playing video games – instead of things I need to do. It’s a want, not a need.

In all of the cases I’ve mentioned above, I’m in a situation where I’ve convinced myself that something is a need when it’s really a want. That in itself isn’t a problem when I’m willing to recognize that these wants are keeping me from other financial goals.

The problem really is that so often, people in a financially tight position continue to believe that many of their wants are actually needs. They’ll drown in debt, but you’d better not even suggest that they lose their grip on their cell phone. They’ll go bankrupt, but they need that cable service. They can’t pay their credit cards, but they’re socially obligated to eat out three times a week.

Wants, not needs.

If you’re wanting to achieve a financial goal in your life, you have to be honest with yourself about what things in your life are needs and what things are merely wants. Are you able to eat? Do you have shelter? Do you have clothing to keep yourself warm? Are you able to get to work and accomplish your tasks there? At that point, your needs are met. Anything beyond them are wants.

“But life is boring without anything that I want!” If you’re willing to step back and look at what you’re actually desiring, you can find a lot of what you want for free or for extremely minimal cost. Hit the library and stock up on free DVDs, CDs, and books. Have potluck dinners with friends and family. Go out into your community and see what free things are actually going on (concerts, plays, talks, etc.) and what free things there are to explore (parks, trails, wandering walks).

Of course, I’m not saying you should never choose your wants. Instead, I’m merely suggesting that mindfulness about the abundance of things in your life that are there just to fulfill your wants can give you a powerful new perspective on how you choose to spend your money.

Just ask yourself if this thing you’re wanting to spend money on fulfills something you might do or something you genuinely need to do to survive. When you take that idea to heart, it becomes clear how deeply abundant our modern lives really are.