Over the past month, I’ve been doing quite a bit of traveling - family-related trips, vacations, and so on. That basically means that I’ve been managing my writing and other professional obligations out of my travel bag for the most part.

How do I do that? How do I manage to keep up with my writing, keep adequate research materials with me, keep track of my ideas and ongoing projects, and manage all of it effectively enough so that I can sit down anywhere and get right down to business.

While figuring out how to write this post, I started by simply making a list of the little things that really add up when taken as a whole, and when I had them all written out, I realized that it might be really effective to just list them all. So, here are ten productivity tips I’ve found that help me keep my ideas and writing straight as a writer on the road.

Get a good messenger-style bag. This has made all the difference for me. Up until recently, I used a backpack as a travel bag and it would quickly descend into chaos, with items floating around all over the place in the bag, making me dig forever for the individual item I needed. Recently, I moved to a messenger-style bag, with a large single pocket for my laptop, a few magazines and books, and some papers, and a side panel with a ton of additional pockets. This has made traveling far easier than before.

Utilize those pockets sensibly. One challenge with having a lot of little items and a lot of pockets is that you forget what pocket you put your things in. What I’ve found is that putting stuff into pockets so that just a bit of the item is peeking out is really useful for finding stuff. When I open up the bag, I can see at a glance where my small notebook is, my pens are, my current reading is, my memory stick is, my USB mouse is, and so on.

Use Backpack to manage notes for projects and meetings and store to-do lists. For simple personal to-do notes, I still use Remember the Milk (which does that job fantastically), but for collecting notes for work projects and making more complex to-do lists, I’ve fallen in love with Backpack. I can use it anywhere I have wi-fi access and it does a stellar job of storing all of the data I need in one place. I actually prefer it to most offline tools - plus, if my laptop has a hardware failure, I don’t lose those notes or project ideas.

Keep a pocket notebook and pen with you always - it’s even more important on the road. Without the familiarity of your normal work environment, it’s very easy to lose ideas through the cracks. This makes the idea of a pocket notebook even more paramount. Keep it with you - along with a good pen - to jot down any ideas that creep into your head that merit any follow-up whatsoever. Then review your jottings once a day or so.

Keep at least one item with you that inspires ideas. When I’m at home, I have all kinds of books and other materials to help inspire my ideas. On the road, such items are unavailable to me. Because of that, it’s vital for me to include at least one item in my travel bag that’s not strictly there to aid as research material, but there solely to inspire my ideas. For me, it’s often recent issues of magazines related to personal finance in some way - Consumer Reports, Money, The Economist, BusinessWeek, or something like that. If I need inspiration, I leaf through those and try to find ideas to riff on.

Distinguish quickly between things that can easily be done on the road and things that can’t. Whenever I’m struck with inspiration, I have a tendency to want to start digging into a hot idea immediately. Of course, there are some ideas that simply don’t work out of a travel bag. The key is to distinguish which is which as quickly as I can. I ask myself a few key questions: to do this well, does it require research materials I don’t have? Are there supplemental materials (such as pictures) I’d need to create elsewhere? The key to staying productive is knowing what you can actually do in your given situation - and figuring it out quickly.

… but don’t abandon a great idea just because you can’t do it right now. What I do for those things is open up a document on my laptop, sketch down all of the details I can, then save it in a folder of things to look at when I get back to the office. A good idea is a terrible thing to waste, but so is chasing something that’s really beyond your means to complete successfully.

Make your work environment as conducive as possible - wherever you are. For me, that means controlling the sound, and that means having a pair of very good headphones that cancel out external sound and only allow in what I want (usually calming music that helps me to write). For you, it might mean other things - a picture of your family or the right kind of beverage might be the key. Make sure whatever it is you need to make your work environment a success is in your travel bag if possible.

Know where to find the things you need to work (such as wi-fi). For me, wi-fi is essential to the work I need to do, so I made a master list of chains that give away free wi-fi to patrons, and I keep it in mind when I’m out and about. Because of this inventory, I often keep an eye open for Panera, Caribou Coffee, and Fazoli’s when I’m traveling, with several other lesser options, and use those places as my “home away from home.”

If all else fails… If I know I’m going to need a piece of information that’s only stored electronically, I make a printed version before I go. I keep a paper copy of my schedule, key phone numbers, maps of each route I’ll need to know, a to-do list, and other such materials so that if an electronic item stops working, gets damaged, or fails in some fashion, I’m not completely lost while on the road. This has saved me more than once.

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or business/entrepreneurship book of interest.

I’m lucky in that I’ve never been truly dissatisfied with my job. I’ve yearned for different challenges before, and I’ve also wished for more flexibility in my schedule, but neither of those actually led me to dislike what I was doing.

But all I have to do is look around me a little bit to find people who are deeply dissatisfied with their jobs. One friend of mine is a father of three who has a job with the state that he deeply loathes in every way. He comes home each day physically and emotionally spent, often ready to simply drop into bed for several hours. He avoids talking about his job at all and when it does come up, you can obviously see that he loathes every little bit of it.

That’s where I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This (by Julie Jansen) steps in - it’s pretty much the perfect book for him. The subtitle pretty much sums it up: A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Gratifying Work. But does the book itself work? Let’s find out.

Chapter 1 - Why Do You Want or Need to Change Your Work?
Negativity and inflexibility. Those are the two biggest problems in any workplace, according to Jansen. You can track almost any significant workplace problem back to one of these two general areas. Negativity is brought in by people doing tasks they don’t like or having conflicting personalities or other conflicts that aren’t properly handled. Inflexibility occurs when people are pushed into schedules that don’t match the other aspects of their life, creating work-life difficulties - their life is making them accept a job situation they may not like, usually because they need money. Many jobs, like a night shift at a factory, can bring about both problems.

Chapter 2 - What Is Your Work Situation?
Here, Jansen provides a lengthy self-test (lots of true-false questions) for you to take to chisel down to the exact problems you’re having with your job. She identifies six categories of job dissatisfaction (discussed individually in chapters five through ten); the test helps you identify which of the six you’re in. For me, though, the test was unnecessary - skimming chapters five through ten made it pretty clear which ones were relevant.

Chapter 3 - Values, Attitudes, and Change Readiness
Another series of short self-tests comes here, mostly clarifying what aspects of your personal and professional life you value the most, your attitude towards your current career and changing careers, and your readiness to make deep changes. Introspection is the key here - what attributes do you have that open the door to actually making the changes you’re dreaming about?

Chapter 4 - Personality Preferences, Interests, and Favorite Skills
Similar to the first two chapters, this one serves to hone in on your personality, skills, and interests. In other words, what do you enjoy doing that you’re also skillful at? I found this set of questions to be by far the most useful of the three question-oriented chapters, as this material largely pushes you towards the right kind of work for you. It came off much like a very brief nutshell version of What Color Is Your Parachute?, which is unquestionably the best “find the right career” guide I’ve ever read.

Chapter 5 - Where’s the Meaning?
What should you do if you feel like your job has no real meaning? While a job is a job, it can eventually become soul-numbing if you go to work day-in and day-out without believing in what you’re doing or knowing that you’re actually making any sort of positive change in the world. Jansen suggests spending some time focusing solely on what sort of meaning you’re seeking. Is it merely a sense of working for yourself? Or are you seeking work that makes the world a better place or provides social change? I think of this kind of journey as being much like using a tuning fork - when you find the right place, it will vibrate strongly inside of you. Just wait until you find the thing that makes your heart sing out.

Chapter 6 - Been There, Done That, but Still Need to Earn
The challenge of a new career is appealing, but your current job is tolerable and provides a nice steady income, so you’re hesitant to switch. Should you make that leap? Jansen addresses that question here and suggests that you plan what you might do otherwise down to the littlest detail. Once you’ve done that, consider the plan carefully and implement as many of the little details as you can before you make the leap.

Chapter 7 - Bruised and Gun-shy
If you’ve leapt for success in the past only to be knocked down again a few times, you’re probably a bit bruised and gun-shy and thus you’re strongly hesitant to make another leap. I felt this way about my own writing many times. I wrote a lot of short stories in college, but faced rejection letter after rejection letter. Even the two times I received a significant nibble, nothing ever came of it, and I had largely become rather gun-shy about writing. Jansen’s suggestions mostly revolve around training yourself in the basic skills you’ll need in your spare time - for example, if you’re like me, a blog updated on a regular schedule might be a strong move.

Chapter 8 - Bored and Plateaued
Perhaps your job used to be exciting, but has gradually changed over time into something that bores you. You just go through the motions, because there’s really no big goal any more - it’s all repetition and the same old thing. Jansen suggests thinking back to situations where you weren’t bored with what you’re doing and try to figure out what’s different between then and now. That difference is likely the key to what you should be doing, so seek out every opportunity to stretch those muscles in your current workplace.

Chapter 9 - Yearning to Be on Your Own
Some people simply have that entrepreneurial bent within them. They want to strike out on their own, achieving success by their own rules, and being “stuck” as a mere cog in a larger machine doesn’t satisfy them. The solution here is simple - start a side business and throw your heart and soul into making it click. If you have any interest in entrepreneurship at all, regardless of your situation, trying to start a side business will not only open that door for you, but it will show you what it takes to make things succeed.

Chapter 10 - One Toe in the Retirement Pond
You’re near the end of your career and you don’t want to rock the boat, but you’re terribly unhappy at work. What do you do? Jansen finds the answer here in careful financial planning - cut back on the spending hard, start socking away the money big time, and pull retirement closer and closer with every dollar saved.

Chapter 11 - The Ten Keys to Success
Making this kind of big switch requires a lot from you, and Jansen boils it down to ten primary keys: curiosity, decisiveness, perseverance, empathy, flexibility, follow-through, humor, intelligence, optimism, and respect. All of those tools are key when you’re stepping up to the plate to make a career change. Jansen tackles each one with quite a bit of detail and thought. I was particularly intrigued by the “humor” one - I’ve found that time and time again, laughing things off and taking them with a grain of salt has made things work for me.

Chapter 12 - Job Search - the Nuts and Bolts
The closing chapter focuses on the mechanics of an actual job search. In other words, how do you find this new job that meets your needs? This chapter actually pairs very well with chapters three and four, as together they provide the basic introspection and tools you need to find the right job for you. Still, if I were looking simply at a career-hunting guide, I’d stick with What Color Is Your Parachute?.

Some Thoughts on I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This
This book has a strong workbook feel. Roughly a third of the book is done in workbook format, encouraging you to actually write your thoughts on the internal pages. If you get into this book, buying a used copy somewhere (preferably one without any writing in it) would be quite useful. At the very least, get some paper and a pen ready before you start digging in.

How intense would one’s job dissatisfaction have to be before this book becomes appealing? I picked it up mostly because I thought of my aforementioned friend. I think most people do feel some level of unhappiness with their work, but I can’t help but wonder what percentage of people truly want to do something completely different from what they’re doing. I know such people are out there - but how many?

I really like that each chapter has a few suggested books to expand upon the specific topics covered there. Recommended additional reading is always something I like in books, so that I know where to go if a particular topic really tweaks my interest. It’s surprisingly rare in books like this, but I really value it when I find it.

Is I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This Worth Reading?
The title alone should tell you if I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This is right for you. Does the title sound like a good description of the way you feel about your current job? Does one of the above chapters (particularly chapters five through ten) really sum up where you find yourself? If so, I Don’t Know What I Want, But I Know It’s Not This is definitely worth a read.

That being said, this book is really only useful if you’re seriously pondering a drastic career change. If you’re just thinking about hopping to a new job, this book doesn’t help much with that. Instead, it focuses on people who are caught in a career that they’ve found does not work for them. Jansen’s advice is spot-on and it focuses heavily on introspection - figuring out what’s exactly wrong in your own personal situation and figuring out where you need to go from here.

I’d happily give a copy of this to my friend if I thought he’d read it, but he’s not much for reading books. Instead, I’ll try to reflect on what this book says and see if I can guide his thinking a bit when I can.

The current issue of BusinessWeek features a big collection of articles on personal challenges in the workplace. I eagerly read their article about work-life balance as this is something I struggle with, but I was disappointed to find that the article mostly consisted of stories about people who were already well off who simply just chose a different career. While that is one great way to improve your work-life balance, it’s really just one way to do it.

In fact, it’s not even really a choice for many people. Quite often, we find ourselves in a personal or financial state where we simply can’t just pack up and switch jobs. Maybe we really like our jobs, but they just encroach on our lives too much. Maybe it pays really well. Maybe we’re afraid to make the leap into a new career, or we don’t want to rock the boat of our home life too much.

Here are a list of fourteen additional techniques for improving your work-life balance that I’ve discovered over the past few years.

Leave the office early, period.
Easier said than done, right? Not if you set a departure time as a clear goal very early on. If you set an absolute time to leave earlier in the day, that time serves as a deadline to get your tasks done for the day, making you stay more focused throughout the day. Your reward? You actually get out of the workplace at a reasonable time.

Try it! Tomorrow, define an exact time you’re going to leave early in the day and keep your eye on the clock throughout the day. Recognize that you need to get your required tasks done by then, and when you pull it off, get out of there and enjoy your work-free evening.

Reduce your wasted time at work…
Often, I find myself wasting time at work. I’ll surf to some of my favorite political websites, distract myself with something interesting to read, or play a game when I should be working. These things simply waste time - they’re a basic method of procrastination. My best method for counteracting this is by actually blocking the most distracting websites, and also closing all potentially distracting software that I’m not actively using (like my web browser).

Try it! Close all of the programs that distract you, especially your web browser. If you don’t regularly use your web browser for work, hide it, so it’s harder to get to.

… but actually take breaks.
On the flip side of that coin, regular breaks to allow your mind (and body) a break from work tasks can be very helpful if they’re brief and spread apart. If you’re focused on your tasks for an hour or two, by all means, take a short break and do something completely different. Eat a healthy pick-me-up snack (like an orange), drink some water, and do something interesting (like reading The Simple Dollar, for example), but get back to work reasonably quickly.

Try it! Make it your goal to spend the next two hours without any personal distractions, but then have a ten minute break where you get something to eat and drink and do something else.

Write a “to-do” list for the next day before you leave.
One of the biggest challenges at the start of a workday is simply figuring out what to do: what needs to be picked up and continued and what tasks need to be started? It’s easy to waste a bunch of time in the morning getting back in the flow, and that wasted time is often tacked on at the end of the day, preventing you from getting out of there. Instead, before you leave in the evening, make a list of the key things you need to do the next day and leave it right where you’ll find it in the morning, so you can just grab it and dig right in tomorrow without burning that start-up time.

Try it! Before you leave from work, make a list of three things you need to accomplish tomorrow and leave it out where you can find it. Then, the following morning, pick up that list and immediately get started on the tasks. You’ll find that your morning is immediately more productive - getting you on the ball quicker and out the door quicker, too.

Carefully consider your work goals, and tone them down a bit.
Many people find themselves with a work-life balance that’s out of whack because they chose to take on more projects at work than they could reasonably manage. Usually, this results in work encroaching more and more on personal lives, to the discomfort of not only the worker, but the worker’s family and friends. Why do they do this? They hope to get ahead in the workplace, based on a perspective that it will make their life better. Instead, the chase makes their life worse. Why not step back and ask yourself what you really want and whether taking on more projects at work will really get the job done? Perhaps executing a small number of projects well is better than juggling a lot of projects and doing them poorly.

Try it! Take a look at all of the ongoing projects you’re currently responsible for and see if there aren’t any that you can trim away or give to someone else. Also, make a commitment to not take on new projects until you can complete the ones you’re currently responsible for with a high level of quality.

Have “focused sessions” at work, where you eliminate all distraction.
Another aspect of modern work that keeps people in the office too late is distractions - people stopping by, phone calls, emails, instant messages, meetings, and so on. These little distractions destroy our train of thought and make it much more difficult to bring sustained focus to a project. The solution is to have short sessions (an hour or two) where you permit no distractions at all and focus on your work. Turn off your phone. Close your email program. Close your office door. Then, focus on what you need to do.

Try it! For one hour, do everything you can to eliminate interruptions. Close your email program, turn off your phones, close doors that when open invite people in, and so on. Then, use this solid block of time to really bear down on your most important task.

Keep careful documentation of the tasks you accomplish…
Whenever you accomplish a notable task or project, document it. Write down the date you completed it, as well as a detailed summary of what you did, and keep it someplace where you can easily retrieve it. Over time, these documents provide strong documentation of all of the work that you actually do. Not only does this help greatly with performance reviews, it also makes it clear how much work you actually accomplish.

Try it! Start keeping a log of your significant accomplishments. You can either make a daily work log or just simply make a list of every significant thing you accomplish. Include details and don’t forget about it!

… and then discuss a reasonable and more flexible work arrangement with your supervisor.
If you’ve been working hard, accomplishing useful stuff, and maintaining a log of it, your next performance review should be a good one, and hopefully it will end with some discussion about performance-based rewards. Instead of just diving for the money, talk about some workplace flexibility, like some degree of flex time, the ability to telecommute on occasion, or other perks that will help you find more breathing room for the life you want to live.

Try it! The next time you’re talking about a raise, instead talk about getting a more flexible work schedule. More flexibility with your time will save you that money anyway and will also improve your quality of life.

Turn off routes of communication to work when you leave.
Don’t check that email when you’re at home. Don’t leave that cell phone on. Leave the CrackBerry in your bag. Just turn them off when you leave and deal with the problem when you return. There are some jobs where you can’t do this - IT jobs come to mind - but for many jobs, you don’t have to let technology crash the work-home barrier.

Try it! When you get home, shut off the technologies that connect you to work and just enjoy some uninterrupted personal time. After all, the freedom is what you work for, right?

“Unwind” with something personally and spiritually fulfilling and relaxing.
Many people “unwind” by vegetating in front of the television. Big mistake. While it can help you relax, it also provides minimal spiritual and personal fulfillment and is quite often loaded with tons of mixed messages, ones that we’re particularly susceptible to when we’re tired. Instead, seek out other ways to unwind. Perhaps sitting on a park bench will do the trick for you, or maybe you can unwind while playing with your kids. Meditation, prayer, and yoga also work. For me, actually, cooking can really do the trick.

Try it! Instead of unwinding in front of the television, try another simple activity to unwind. Give meditation, prayer, or yoga a try, or go to a park and enjoy nature. Better yet, find a simple activity you really enjoy, even if it seems silly.

Set aside blocks of uninterrupted time to focus on what’s really important to you.
One of the biggest challenges I had in figuring out my own work-life balance was my children. They deserved my uninterrupted attention sometimes, and when I was juggling my full time job and my burgeoning writing, it was very difficult. The way I managed it was to realize that time with my children every day was of paramount importance, and so I just scheduled a three hour block of time each day that I spent solely with my family, usually from five to eight each evening. We ate supper together, played in the yard together, read stories together, and so on. Setting aside that block of time made my life bearable - without that time block, I would have felt very empty with regards to my life.

Try it! Figure out which element of your life you’re missing the most because of a work-life balance that’s out of whack and set aside a block of time to focus solely on that element. It might just be a big block each week, or it might be a smaller block every day, but set aside that time for what’s most important to you.

Get involved in a significant and personally important project outside of work.
Some people tend to get absorbed in their job because they don’t have a deeply meaningful element of their life outside of work, so they let their job become their life. Over the long run, this is dangerous, as it wears you down and spits you out. A much better approach is to find a major project to involve yourself in outside of work, whether it be your family, a community group, a volunteer project, or something oriented around personal growth or fun.

Try it! Spend some time to find out about and get involved with groups or projects of personal interest to you, and when you find one that really clicks, dig in deep and get involved.

Actually use your vacation time, even if it’s just spent around the house.
At my previous job, there were people who consistently lost their vacation time simply because they didn’t use it. Quite often, these same people were those who were tied to their desks and clearly unhappy about it, with that unhappiness eating into their productivity and effectively eating up the time they could be spending on vacation. Don’t let yourself fall into that trap. Instead, keep focused on your work and actually use your vacation, even if it’s at home. Take that time to do something fun and different or dabble in an area you’ve never tried before.

Try it! Never let your vacation time lapse. Instead, always use it up - and use some of it to just stay at home and try some new things or complete some personal projects left undone.

Get adequate sleep.
“Doesn’t a couple more hours of sleep eat into my personal time?” Sure, but if you’re exhausted, you’re spending more time getting less done at work and enjoying your time at home less, too. A solid night’s sleep vastly increases your concentration level, making you more productive at work and adding to your enjoyment of your personal life as well.

Try it! If you feel tired on a regular basis, try to adjust your sleep so that you get closer to an optimum amount of seven to eight hours a day. If you get less than that, cut out some nonessential activities (like television watching) for sleep; if you get more, try going to sleep later or getting up earlier.

This week, The Simple Dollar is taking a deeper look at five common personal finance debates.

A while back, I posted an article entitled How to Choose a Career - The Simple Dollar Way, where I advocated strongly for allowing your passions and talents to lead you to a career, not the money.

This led to a lengthy discussion, where many people argued rather strongly on behalf of simply chasing the money. In the words of Carlos:

I’m not suggesting that you do something you hate, but, one’s income is the single largest ‘asset’ they have. Earn some bling, pile it up to the sun, walk away when you tire of it.

Which avenue is the right one to take?

What Are The Options?
On one hand, you have the option to do what you love. The careers that many people are most passionate about are not high paying - they usually revolve around chasing an artistic dream or taking on a social work-oriented career. Others might thrive on starting their own business, even though the odds of success are long and the income can be very dodgy, especially at first.

On the other hand, you have the option to do whatever makes the most money. For many people, this means doing something they’re not as happy doing as they might otherwise be.

Paul, another commenter, summed it up well:

I agree with some of the others here. I would have loved to continue to follow my passion, but I also have to feed my family. I loved being an Emergency Medical Technician but $10/hr doesn’t quite cover it.

So I switched to dispatch and make $15/hr, a 50% increase. Still in the same line of work, but I’d rather be back on the ambulance.

If Paul did what he loved, he’d be making $10 an hour as an EMT in the back of an ambulance. Instead, he chose to follow a path he didn’t like as much, but it earns him $15 an hour.

So What Should I Do?
The real answer to this dilemma comes down to this: what do you want out of life? What do you see when you close your eyes and imagine yourself in five years, the way (in your heart of hearts) you want things to be?

Do you see yourself working at a job that you’re truly passionate about, doing work that you feel is important? Do you see a career that flows so perfectly with your personal activities that the border between “work” and “fun” doesn’t even exist? If that’s the case, then chase the dream - it will lead you to that life. Find your passions, match those passions with your talents, and run with it.

On the other hand, maybe you see yourself enjoying the fruits of your labor. Do you see travel? Do you see a nice, big home with kids playing in the yard? If your visions show you the trappings of a life separate from work, then it might be wise to chase the money, as this will allow you to fill that life with as much value as you wish.

There is no right answer here. At different points in my life, I chose each path. Earlier on, I chose the money. I followed the training and a career path that I thought would pay well and that I enjoyed quite a bit, but I knew that it was not the thing that my heart cried out to do. Eventually, I jumped the rails and moved onto a path where my work days are often so enjoyable that they just naturally flow with my personal activities - chasing the dream.

The answer only comes with a lot of introspection, and just because you choose one answer right now doesn’t mean that later on you might not choose another. Perhaps you’ll work for the money for a while and spend your time really figuring out your dream and then one day you close your eyes and imagine yourself doing something completely different. Or maybe you follow your passions for a while, then eventually settle down with a spouse, two kids, a dog, and a house in the suburbs.

The only thing you must do is this: close your eyes, right now, and imagine where you’d like to be in five years. Don’t let anything else interfere with it - what do you want, in your heart of hearts? Then open your eyes and start moving in that direction.

After my article a few weeks ago on how the status quo bias costs you money, a reader I’ll call Jeff made a very astute observation: the status quo bias often keeps people from making the best career decisions.

Let’s back up a second, though. What is the status quo bias? From the earlier article:

Most people are familiar with the status quo bias. In simpler terms, it simply means that people prefer things to stay relatively the same. We talk to the same people, follow the same path to work, go through the same daily routine, and so forth. We enjoy little changes - like reading a different book, going on a different trip in the summer, or watching a different movie - but radical changes? Not so much.

Let’s roll back the clock about a year. I was burning the candle at both ends keeping up with a burgeoning writing career and a full-time job that often spilled out into the evenings and weekends. Between the two, I was burning myself out and I knew that I had to buckle down and choose one or the other. I even more or less knew that I was going to choose the writing.

Yet I put myself through many months of utterly exhausting misery while I “made up my mind.” Why did I do this? It turns out that the status quo bias was really the culprit.

The real problem was that I was so used to the routine of my old job that I had a hard time seeing my life without it. The routine of getting up in the morning, heading into the office, getting there about 7:30, seeing the same people at the office every day, going home at about 4:30 or so, and getting up the next day and repeating it had been done so many times, I could scarcely imagine my life without that routine. Add into that the routine of the twice-monthly paycheck and the “five days on, two days off” routine of the standard workweek and breaking away from all of those molds at once seemed almost overwhelming to me.

It felt safer to keep things relatively the same, even though it was wearing me down. Even though I knew the choice I would eventually take - and I also knew that the current state of affairs was untenable over the long term - I held onto the status quo as long as I possibly could.

Even more amazing, I repeatedly tried to justify reasons to stay with my current job. I did like it, for the most part, but there were aspects that I didn’t like, mostly bureaucracy and my tendency to burden myself (or be burdened) with responsibilities out of my area of expertise. Because of that, I kept telling myself I would be foolish to give it up, and more than once I began drafting posts saying I was going to stop with The Simple Dollar, only to talk myself out of it.

This leads straight back to Jeff’s observation that the status quo bias often keeps people from making the best career decisions. Clearly, the status quo bias was at work when I was making my career choice, and it took a lot of time and a lot of positive encouragement from my wife for me to finally make that career change.

Hopefully, you’re one of the lucky ones, the people who read this article and thought that the decision and change was quite easy. For the rest of us, though, the status quo bias can be quite a challenge. Here are five things that really helped me overcome it and make a strong but challenging career choice for myself.

First, share the whole situation with someone you trust and whose opinion you respect. Quite often, that person can see from the outside that the new path is really the right one for you to follow and will often become your cheerleader and motivator, encouraging you to make the switch. For me, this was my wonderful wife, who supports me in so many ways - without her encouragement, I would have never made the switch.

Second, focus on the positives of the career change. When you’re trying to stick with the status quo, it’s very easy to look at the negatives of the change you’re considering. For me, I kept looking at the risks - the loss of regular and dependable income, the uncertainty as to what opportunities the future might hold down that path, and so on. Instead, look strongly at the positives - which for me included a flexible schedule that left me a lot more time with my kids and the opportunity to do something I deeply, deeply enjoy (write).

Third, be realistic about the balance of positives and negatives of your current job. It was easy for me to paint my old job as glowing during that time. I would think very positively of all of the aspects that I liked and tried very hard to not think about the negative aspects. One exercise that helped me was making myself list ten things I liked about my current job, as well as ten things I didn’t like. Doing that helped me see that just like any job, it’s a mix of things I liked and things I didn’t.

Fourth, have a nice fat emergency fund to make the leap less scary. Once I began to see that there was a real conflict going on between my two career paths, I started tightening the screws on an emergency fund, saving my nickels and dimes for a rainy day. Even then, I knew that whichever path I chose, I would be helped by having cash in hand. Obvious for the new job, but even if I chose to stay with the old one, the emergency fund would help out with making some bigger purchases easier (like an inevitable car purchase I would have had to make if I were to continue commuting).

Finally, try a dry run at your new job. At one point, I took a full week off from my old job and “pretended” I was engaged at my writing career. I went through an entire week and discovered that this was actually a path I could see myself following. It made the idea seem more real, more tangible, more possible.

All of these tactics helped me overcome the “status quo” that was my earlier job and move on to my new career as a writer. Without these tactics, I likely would have stayed in my old job - and I might have regretted not taking the leap for the rest of my life. Don’t let the status quo bias influence your career choices - step back and take a serious look at things and you might find that change is the right path for you.

When I walked away from my nice and steady nine to five desk job in March, a lot of people asked for my reflections on it, and I provided my thoughts two weeks after quitting, which were almost entirely positive. Naturally, many of those readers wanted me to return to the topic in a few months to see whether I still felt as positive about the decision to quit a full-tme decent salary job to essentially work at home as a writer on an extremely flexible schedule. My reflections below will likely apply to anyone with young children who has made the decision to work at home.

Below is a mishmash of reflections on that change.

My family is the big reason I quit, and that’s been a huge positive
I quit my job because I felt like the demands of my simultaneous 9 to 5 job and my writing activities was simply eating too much away from the time I could spend with my family. I have a two year old son and an infant daughter and, at the time, I continually felt regret that I wasn’t spending quality time with them.

That concern is now gone. I spend hours upon hours each day with my wife and my kids. A couple hours of playing in the yard and at least two meals a day at the kitchen table with my children is not only now the norm, but the expectation. I read them stories, teach them things, kiss their “owies” when they get hurt, and reaffirm their self-confidence. We go to the park, the circus, the zoo, the library, and all sorts of other enriching activities.

The flexibility of my schedule gives me some aspects of being a stay at home parent. We still take our children to daycare on an irregular basis (usually our older one, because after several days he begins to loudly miss the people there, especially his closest friend and his favorite teacher, but we’ve taken the younger one, too, in order to spend a day solely with our son), but that’s aided by the fact that my wife is currently on a lengthy break from her own job. When she returns, I’m not sure what we’ll do quite yet.

The best part, though, is experiences like this: I’ll be eating lunch with my son and he’s starting to get sleepy. He says he wants to go to the park and I say, “Sure, we can go right after your nap.” Then we trudge upstairs, I read him a book, and he drifts off to sleep. A couple hours later, after I’ve finished some work, I hear him awaken and so I stop what I’m doing, roust him, and we head off to the park. I’ll get the stuff I’m working on done late in the evening or early tomorrow morning - right now, there are important monkey bars to climb on. That is something that could never possibly happen at my old job - it happens all the time now.

The huge amount of time that I didn’t have before has opened the door to countless projects
Since I’ve quit, I’ve written a book (due to be published on December 17), went on a vacation with my family, planned another vacation, polished up a second book proposal, and initiated two other big projects that you’ll see in the coming months. None of this would have happened without stepping away, and all of them help to cement the decision I’ve made, shoring it up with other opportunities.

In an average week, my career shift has freed up about fifty five hours, and I had already been devoting about thirty to The Simple Dollar and related activities. Now, The Simple Dollar (and related activities) eats about fifty hours out of the week, which means I have thirty five hours (or so) to spend with my family and on personal projects that I didn’t have before.

I feel genuinely fulfilled by my work
When I’m actually engrossed in writing, I deeply enjoy it. I almost can’t believe that I can earn a living doing something that I enjoy so much. While I do still have management-type things to worry about (making sure I’m working on the right stuff, interacting with editors, etc.), they’re only a small fraction of my time and quite manageable. I get to spend the vast majority of my time on the things I’m passionate about.

Those are the good things. What about the bad things?

I miss my old job - at least the socialization aspects of it
Let’s face it: at my new career, I’m at home by myself in an office. No one else is there - just me and my work. If I’m stuck, I can’t just get up, stroll down to the refrigerator, get out a beverage, and chat with two or three people along the way. Instead, I’m alone.

Sometimes I just randomly IM people. At other times, I send emails. On occasion, I’ll even place some phone calls, just to hear a voice and to socialize a bit. I tend to miss people.

I get stir crazy and often have to leave to go do something
After a few days straight of not leaving my property, I get really stir crazy and get compelled to go do something during the day. I usually turn one of these trips every week or two into a grocery shopping trip and about once a month I’ll make a library trip, but many of the other sojourns are simply excuses to go interact with people.

My solution, over the last month or two, is to simply look for more social organizations to participate in - blogger meetups, public speaking groups (like Toastmasters), and so on. I’ve also gotten more involved with some community groups and committees. I simply need to do something out of the house, preferably with other people.

Time management is a completely different challenge than before
With my previous career, it was always pretty obvious what needed to be done next - and I just did it. If I was ever unsure, I’d just ask my supervisor.

Now, I’m effectively deciding the priority of all of the stuff I want to work on, and that can be tricky. I’ve discovered, for example, that even though I might be several days’ ahead on articles for The Simple Dollar, that doesn’t mean I should give more articles a low priority, because just when I do that, something comes up that eats a few days and I’m right back where I was at. I also have to make a lot of hard judgments on starting new projects. Will they actually fit? What will I have to cut back on to try out this new initiative? Sometimes it’s obvious - sometimes it’s very hard.

Another big challenge is knowing I have the freedom to just slack off whenever I want. I could easily just retire to my comfortable chair with a book, or browse a mountain of blogs, and really, in the end, no one would be the wiser. The only drawback would be that I’d simply be less productive. I’d miss out on writing opportunities and other interesting chances.

My biggest frustration is the interruptions
Where I used to work, if you closed your office door, that meant you were left alone, period, unless it was a mission critical emergency. Doing that meant I could have time to really focus on a complex task without interruption.

At home, the same isn’t true. If I’m settling in to focus, I have to turn off the ringer on my house phone, turn off my cell phone, log off of all instant messaging programs, close my email program, close the blinds on my windows, and shut my office door, and even that’s only a partial block. I still get interruptions from things like my wife coming in and asking me if there’s anything else we need to add to the shopping list, or my two year old pounding on the door yelling, “MY PANTS ARE POOPY!”

Once I’ve lost the focus, it takes me a while to get back on the proper train of thought - I can’t just sit down and pick up with the sentence I was on when I walked away.

The new money management stresses me out sometimes
Without the drumbeat of a steady paycheck (and a drop off in income), careful money management and frugality are more important than ever. My income is simply no longer steady from month to month - some months leave me feeling rich, while other months seem to point towards poverty. It’s not consistent.

As a result, our emergency fund is bigger than ever - almost a year’s worth of living expenses in cash. With this, I can handle the variability of any month - or even a downhill string of months. This has meant something of a slowdown in our debt repayment schedule, obviously, since the total income isn’t as big as it once was and also there’s not as much cash to go around.

Interestingly, our actual living expenses have gone down significantly, too. I have more time for frugal projects - our garden is tremendous this year, and we’ve made tons of bread, fresh pasta, and other such things.

So, in conclusion…
It was a great decision. I feel more fulfilled by the work/life balance than ever before. The change is not without problems (mostly social interaction-type problems), but overall I’m still very glad I made the switch. If you’re thinking of doing the same, give it some very strong consideration, particularly if you’re self-motivated and can keep yourself on task outside of a management structure.

Each Sunday, The Simple Dollar reviews a personal productivity, personal development, or business/entrepreneurship book of interest.

A little while back, I discussed my thoughts on finding a career - in a nutshell, my belief is that the best possible career is one that balances your passions and your natural talents. Is Your Genius at Work? takes something of a different tack on that idea. Dick Richards, the author of the book, argues that we all have an inherent exceptional talent of some sort, and that by discovering what that talent is and figuring out how to use it, we set the stage for a masterful career.

While I’m not entirely convinced that I agree with this philosophy, I do agree squarely with Richards on one thing: discovering the things you’re naturally talented at can be an incredible boon to your career, whatever it is. It may require you to restart your career, or find a completely new career, but if you’ve got natural talent in some area, you have a giant leg up on the competition.

The entire point of Is Your Genius at Work? is to tease out your “genius” - in other words, it’s about discovering your strongest talents.

Is Your Genius at Work? is really like two short books in one. The first half of Is Your Genius at Work? is rather like a normal book, discussing the ins and outs of discovering your “genius,” figuring out how to use it, and putting it to work. The second half of the book is a mountain of exercises for figuring this out yourself.

Chapter 1 - Answer Four Key Questions
Richards states that the process of discovering your genius (your innate true talent) comes down to being able to answer four questions: What is your genius? Is your genius at work? What is your purpose? Is your genius on purpose?

I found Richards’ language to be a bit over the top, so I felt it useful to translate what he was saying. The four questions, in my own mind, boil down to: what are your greatest talents? Are you applying them in your career? What do you hope to accomplish with your life? Are you applying those talents towards that great accomplishment?

Chapter 2 - Recognize Your Genius
So, how do you figure out what your “genius” is? Richards says that there are three steps to the process. The first is noticing certain aspects of your experience - look for events in your life where things just click for you. The second is to associate that information with other events in your life - when have you experienced similar moments of just having everything click? The third is to figure out what those patterns have in common, because they’re all clues to your underlying genius.

Makes sense, right? Just look for the instances in your life where you do something that amazes others or is a big step beyond everyone else and figure out what they have in common. When it clicks into place and becomes clear - that’s your genius.

Chapter 3 - Notice Yourself
Obviously, it can be pretty difficult to notice our own behaviors, particularly in the intensity of the moment. Richards offers a few approaches - finding the common thread and so forth - but the real key, I think, is to simply become more mindful of your behavior.

Here’s an approach that worked well for me: just take note of all of the things that you do that either earn a lot of compliments from others or feel particularly enjoyable to me. Once you have a bunch of items, look at them long and hard and try to figure out what they have in common with each other.

Chapter 4 - Find the Face of Genius
Richards argues here that discovering one’s genius is the core part of figuring out our purpose in life, and that without it, we wander aimlessly, hoping to find answers and often feeling depressed about the direction of our lives.

In other words, we inherently want to use our genius. It’s what we yearn for, on some level - to use the things that come most naturally to us to benefit ourselves and the wider world. The problem is that modern life often puts countless obstacles in the way of finding and applying this genius - we’re pushed and pulled into countless activities and places from a very early age, without the room to breathe to figure out what our genius is.

Chapter 5 - Harvest Your Experience
Here, Richards focuses on evaluating your life experiences for finding your genius. While it’s easy to look at the positives for this, I was most intrigued by Richards’ suggestion that you also look at the negatives. What sort of negative labels do people apply to you? Do they say you’re flighty, or that you’re neurotic?

Those signs are probably clues to your genius, but also signs that you might not be in the right area to apply them most effectively. Use such negative statements as clues to figure out what you inherently do well - even if it’s something that’s not convenient or valued in your current environment.

Chapter 6 - Pursue the Blinding Flash
At some point, you’ll have an epiphany - a blinding flash of a moment where you discover what your genius actually is. It might come from self-discovery, but it also might come from the comment of another.

The key thing is that you’ll know it - it’ll ring very, very true for you. When you recognize it, don’t let go. You now see the “blinding light” - now comes the chase. Where can you go to maximize your use of that blinding light?

Chapter 7 - Detect Your Purpose
On the flip side of your genius is your purpose. It’s the thing you feel called to do in life. When you’re heading in that direction, you can feel it - it’s much like a compass finding its true north. When you’re not headed in that direction, it just doesn’t feel right.

Although I haven’t really found my genius, I do know my purpose - sharing thoughts and information that helps people. My purpose in life is to help people to help themselves - give them a push to consider their situation and maybe make a change, intellectually or otherwise. Whenever I’m writing a Simple Dollar post, talking to people, answering emails, or preparing other such things, it feels right - it feels as though I’m called to do it.

Chapter 8 - Tune Your Self
Richards closes by tying these ideas together. Your life and work should be the application of your genius to achieving your purpose. I view this philosophy as being exactly what I was talking about in my career advice: find your passions and your talents and find a way to do them both.

For some, this whole exercise might lead to a complete change in career direction. For others, they might find that they’re already pretty close to the path. I think, right now, I’m fairly close to my path.

The Exercises
The last third or so of the book is done in the format of a workbook, with specific exercises designed to help you tease out your genius and your purpose. For the most part, they take the concepts of the earlier chapters and boil them down into a simple, concrete activity that you can do in a half an hour or so.

Take the first exercise, for example. List all the words you can think of that end in -ing and describe activities you enjoy, then make another list of nouns that describe what you naturally create around you - what you bring to the table. Then, simply choose the word from the first list and the word from the second list that seem to resonate the strongest with you. For me, I came up with “writing about humanity.”

Some Thoughts on Is Your Genius at Work?
Richards focuses very heavily on words and labels. While I wholeheartedly agree with the concepts in this book (which I tried to isolate above), he spends a lot of time focusing on creating descriptive labels, an aspect that I didn’t find nearly as intriguing or powerful. Coming up with a name for your genius isn’t nearly as important as understanding it deeply.

The half book / half workbook format is very nice. I think it’s a method that should be used in more books, particularly ones that one should read to help themselves come to a decision or improve their way of living. It works really well here.

To really work, this book requires some serious introspection time. It’s not one of those books with tips that you can immediately apply and improve yourself. It’s more fundamental than that - it requires introspection to be useful.

Is Is Your Genius at Work? Worth Reading?
Is Your Genius at Work? is one of those books that’s either going to be incredibly worthwhile or useless to you. The keys for making it incredibly worthwhile are pretty obvious, too: are you willing to take the ideas seriously and actually put in some time in introspection and doing the exercises? Do you yearn to feel like you have a purpose in life or in your career? Do you have only a vague idea of what you’re actually talented at (or none at all)? The more you said yes there, the more effective this book will be.

I think this book would have been incredibly powerful for me a few years ago, before I actually spent the time to recognize what I’m good at and what I’m drawn to do. Those are the things that Richards really focuses on in this book.

My advice? Read it if you’re young - in college or younger. Read it if you feel like your career is going nowhere. Read it if you don’t feel passionate about your career at all. Read it if you feel like your natural talents don’t match what you’re doing. If you feel like your career is in good shape and it fills you with at least some degree of excitement, this book probably won’t help that much. If you’re on the other side of that fence, Is Your Genius at Work? might just be incredibly helpful in figuring things out.

Carlos left an interesting comment in yesterday’s article on finding a career:

The “do what you love, and the money will follow” mantra is getting very old. My loser brother (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) has a Master’s Degree in social work from a well-known and prestigious university. He’s 39, and earns $8.50/hour counseling troubled teens. He could earn more/hour working at a convenience store, and probably have less stress in his life. His ‘passion’ doesn’t provide him with enough income to contribute to a 403(b) or Roth IRA. His ‘passion’ is blinding his attention to his own future and long-term financial well-being.

Perhaps you’ll remember that several weeks ago, I posted an interview with one of my closest friends, Rachel. Rachel had the brains and the opportunity to follow pretty much any career she wanted, but she chose to do just what Carlos’ brother did - she’s a social worker.

I asked her point blank in that interview why she chose to make little money doing social work when she could easily be earning more doing something else. Here’s what she said:

I think the easy answer to is say, “Because I want to help people.” But really, how cliche is that! Also, it might have been an answer that could have gotten me to this point, but it certainly wouldn’t have been enough to keep me here. What keeps me here, simply put, are the people, both the ones I work with and the ones I “care for”. There’s just something very human about this work. Sometimes I think about looking for a job that pays better, but then I think about how much I’d be losing just so I could be “financially secure”.

In other words, Rachel finds an incredible amount of value from the non-financial aspects of her career, so much so that these other aspects make the financial aspects pale in comparison. She has the tools and skills to earn a lot more - trust me, Rachel is one of the most intelligent people I know and if you get into an area where she has some expertise, you’d be shocked at how deep the rabbit hole of her intellect goes. But Rachel finds enough non-financial value in her career choice that, for her, it more than replaces the financial losses of her career choice.

When you’re in the process of defining your career, you have a spectrum of choices available to you. You can look entirely at the choices available to you based on your natural skills and choose the one that simply earns the most, regardless of your actual passions. You can follow your passions and choose a career that fills you with intrinsic joy every single day, but doesn’t earn much at all. Or you can do something in the middle.

I’m a strong advocate of something in the middle. That’s why yesterday, I suggested using both skills and passions to find a career, because a job for which you have absolutely no passion is a job that will make life miserable, no matter how much you make.

SP, another commenter on the thread, was criticizing the concept, but actually agreed with this entire idea:

I like math, I’m good at it. I like problem solving so engineering is a good fit for me. But is math/engineering my passion? Well, no (unless this is a job interview). But it is something I enjoy that people will pay me a considerable amount of money to do.

He likes math and problem solving (passion) and is good at it (skill). Mathematics might not be his biggest passion, but it’s one he was able to transform into a pretty lucrative career (engineering). His job clearly doesn’t depress him, though it’s perhaps not the maximum fun use of his time. That’s exactly what I’m talking about.

I took a significant pay cut to do what I’m passionate about - writing. Because of the path I chose, I get to spend 90% of my workday researching, writing, and creating content. That’s the part of the job I’m passionate about, and that’s why at the end of almost every work day, I don’t stumble downstairs depressed and empty, the way I would sometimes feel after my old job. Instead, I bound down the stairs and run out in the yard to play with my son, almost as if I’m going from one fun thing to the next. Again, there is some skill-passion balance here, but I found that I was far more happy earning a little less and moving that slider far closer to the passion end of the scale.

Frugality is all about finding the maximum value in everything, from your purchases to how you spend your time. I get far more value out of spending an hour earning $15 doing something I dearly love versus earning $30 doing something that I enjoyed every once in a while but mostly filled me with frustration. I may be earning less per hour, but those hours are filled with a degree of happiness that was unreachable before, and I’m actually in better financial shape for it - lower taxes, no commuting costs, no eating out all the time, no quick stops at the bookstore or electronics store to buy something to be a balm for the way I felt.

I think both Rachel and Carlos’s brother have found a passion-income balance that works for them. It’s far farther down the passion end of the spectrum than I would choose, but I respect their choice. They did not put their “seeking income” blinders on when making a career choice. Instead, they found something that brings an incredible amount of value into not just their careers, but their lives as a whole - their work and their life choices are intrinsically tied to their core values. I can’t speak for Carlos’s brother, but Rachel has found a lot of creative ways to become very financially stable even while earning a pittance - she gets a lot of free meals, virtually free housing, and is actually funding her own Roth IRA. She sacrifices a ton of material stuff in exchange for other values.

The best career for you is the one with the maximum value for you - and that’s not measured in just dollars and cents. Yes, income is one big piece of the puzzle, but if you lead with just that piece, you’ll likely find yourself doing something that earns well, but something that results in you feeling very empty and tired at the end of the day. And if you find yourself burning that extra money sitting in Starbucks, buying flat panel televisions, and doing activities in the evening and on weekends that are simply there to take some of the edge off the dull pain of the job you hate (except for that paycheck you love), you’d be far better off in a career with a little less paycheck and a little more passion.