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Finances

YouTube Review: One Big Happy Life (& Convos About Money)

YouTube Channel Name: One Big Happy Life

Creator(s): Tasha & Joseph

Genre: Lifestyle and Wealth Building

Website: https://onebighappylife.com

Rating: Related imageRelated imageRelated imageRelated imageRelated image

One Big Happy Life started as a lifestyle channel but has naturally turned into an amazing financial channel with so much information on wealth building.  It could be the budget geek in me, but watching the videos immediately makes me want to jump into my budget and finances.  One way this channel differs from others that I have seen is that they actually show their real numbers.  You see how much they make, how much their expenses are, and their net worth.  Tasha has an amazing story where she started as an 18-year-old single mom in the military, making less than $20,000 to now having multiple six-figure incomes in their household.  They were able to do all of this while saving money, paying off debt, taking trips, and starting a business.  If you know me, you know that on and off again, we have followed Dave Ramsey since we have been married (I even co-led the Financial Peace University groups at my previous church home).  And while I think the program is great, it doesn’t work for everyone or even every season.  People tend to lose motivation when they have been paying off debt for so long and have to sacrifice vacations and retirement savings.

Another thing that I like about Tasha and Joseph is, they are doing what works for their family by not being married.  They have specific financial goals, and they break down how much money they would be leaving on the table if they got married.  It honestly makes so much sense.  I know that isn’t the traditional thing to do, but it’s working for them, and it’s their life.  It’s something that should be discussed before you take that jump while in a committed relationship.  They present a range of topics that are important to be apart of your talks about finances including IVF, Business (growing, maintaining, budget), Combining Finances, Holidays, Food (meal planning, shopping, diets), College/Student Loans, Large Purchases (houses, cars), Job Hunting, Home (DIY, repairs, closets), etc.

I’ve been subscribed to this channel for a while, and as they release video’s, I tend to watch them.  But I decided to spend a weekend catching up on videos, and that meant going back to the beginning and just watching the videos that caught my attention.  It’s incredible to see what they have accomplished over three years.  What started as Tasha’s channel to help funnel some of her creative energy while dealing with a job that she didn’t like turned into this brand and multi six-figure business.  They have programs to show you how to launch your own business, build wealth, and creating a life that makes you happy.

My History With Money

With my focus on building healthy goals and habits this year, finances are going to be a significant part of that and is why it is my focus for January.  Some background info on me and finances:  My entire career revolved around finances and financial institutions.  From my first nonpaid job of being a bookkeeper for a family members business in high school, my first paying job in the government to me switching to working in the banking industry for my last ten years of traditional employment.  Most of the time that I was in school was going towards some type of degree in business, finance, or financial planning.  Then my job turned into more of a project management role, and I fell in love and thought that finance was no longer my calling.

If you have read my 2019 Word of the Year blog post, you will see that when I left home for my sabbatical, I handed over our budget and our bills to my husband.  As a control freak that could track down to the penny of our budget, this was major for me but also showed how burnt out I was with everything in life.  Even for a while after I returned home, I didn’t pick up that responsibility again.  How did I feel about that? I’ve learned how to let go of having to be so tightly wound up and stressed out with our money.  But I also missed it.  I missed setting financial goals, seeing our debt go down, and our savings go up.  And after a conversation with the hubby one week, we realized that this is something that we need to do together specifically as we start talking about generational wealth, our family legacy, and our future goals.  What bought this conversation about?  We have had some significant issues with some appliances at our house that were unexpected (we built four years ago). It caused us to pause and realize that our situation looks a little different from last year, and we need to adjust for that.

Read more about our finances in this Year of Healthy post.

My Takeaways

Those issues, along with watching the One Big Happy Life channel, made me pull out our original budget spreadsheet and do some updating.  Our budget spreadsheet started as an idea from a budgeting group on Facebook I was in years ago.  (I wish I remembered the original group or person who shared the budget template because it has been so helpful!)  I used that idea and then created our own spreadsheet with sections that made sense for us. We’ve always budgeted monthly, but one thing I wanted to start doing based on the channel was to create a yearly budget for us as well. With it being the beginning of a new decade, I knew this was a perfect time to develop and start working on our 2020 budget.  Not only did I create the space for each monthly budget, but I went ahead and completed each month with what we knew was coming.  Then I created our yearly budget.  I tell you, something is humbling about seeing how much you are paying one entity for the whole 12 months.  It’s one thing to see your cell phone at $200 a month, but another thing to know that you are paying $2,400 for that little thing in your pocket.

I spent about two weeks tweaking our personal spreadsheet, updating what worked, and didn’t work for us.  Adding trackers to help keep track of our spending, our payments, and our balances.  I sat down with my husband to show him the changes, and we have frequently been having conversations to make sure we are doing this together and on the same page.  Each month, as we smooth out our process, I can make changes to improve it for our situation.  For example, I realized we had a lot of subscriptions, so one month, I created a subscription section on our budget.  The most important thing this did was help me breathe more comfortably when it comes to some of the issues we have had at the house lately.  My process improvement background thankful allows me to think of how can I fix this usually, and how do I prevent this from happening again.  This means not taking for granted that we had a brand new house and adding a line item to our budget to cover home repairs yearly. Keep an eye out for future posts where I share our update spreadsheet with you!

 

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Family Finances Home

Year of Healthy: January

This last quarter of 2019 was a doozy for our household. We’ve had two major appliances breakdown (one decided to go out twice) and our septic system is on the outs.  You are probably wondering, “Why is this an issue when things break?”  Well, we built our house four years ago and no way were we expecting things to start to go downhill in a major way. Let alone, all at the same time.  This has had my husband and I sitting down and figuring out what the heck we were going to do.  Because let’s be serious, no matter what others think, we aren’t rolling in dough.  My husband is active duty military and I’m a recent housewife who is trying to figure out this entrepreneural world.  With 2020 and a new decade here, it’s the best time to work on our budgets.

Been through some bad shit, I should be a sad bitch

Who woulda thought it’d turn me to a savage?

Background Info

I’ve always had a love for numbers.  I’m pretty sure it’s a love that was passed down from my grandmother to my father and then to me.  When I was 14, a family member started a business and I took on the role of bookkeeper.  I also started to help manage my family’s household budget.  I was able to get an understanding of what it took to run a home.  I learned about mortgages, credit cards, and groceries.  It may be different now but in the early 2000’s they were not teaching these things in high school.  I did discover accounting while in high school and enjoyed it so much I made it to a leadership conference for the state.  I honestly couldn’t tell you why I didn’t pursue that path.  But I did start working with finances and eventually financial institutions a week after high school.  Most of the time I was pursuing a college degree, it was connected to Finance, Financial Planning, Business or Human Services.  (I may talk about that path one day but I am honestly still trying to figure it out myself).  But when my job shifted to project management, I put finance on the backburner when it came to my dreams.

I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it
I want it, I got it, I want it, I got it

Personally, when we got married, we made the decision that I would handle the finances.  Combining our money was easy enough and paying the bills was the same.  We didn’t have any major issues.  When we planned on building our house, we knew we wanted to pay off all of our debt.  It would make it easier to get a loan and a good interest rate.  So that was our goal.  We paid off all my student loans, two car notes, and a couple of credit cards we had.  All in all, the total was over $50,000.  We then saved a bit to have a down payment (even though one wasn’t needed) and pay points (and I still don’t know if this was the best idea).  Then when we decided that I would quit my job and start a business three years later, we did the same thing.  We paid off all credit card debt we had. And while I know that debt (especially credit card debt) isn’t that great, it didn’t stop us from accumulating it each time.  We were impatient with things we wanted and used credit cards as a cushion.  Over and over again.

I don’t mean to brag, but I be like, “Put it in the bag,” yeah

When you see them racks, they stacked up like my ass, yeah

Fast forward to my Sabbatical in 2019, I was burnt out on all things including managing our household.  When I left to travel, I turned over everything to my husband.  I was being emotionally irresponsible but I was at a breaking point.  But the lesson I learned through that time was how not to spend money on things I didn’t need.  And even my idea of what I needed, changed.  It took months but I feel like I no longer cared about material things.  When I came back home, I didn’t take over the finances.  I was still very overwhelmed with life and trying to figure out my next steps.  I needed to know what my new normal would look like after being gone for five months.  That brings me to the present.  We decided instead of one of us having a hands-off approach to our finances we really need to do it together.  And this is where our goals and new routines come in.

Whoever said money can’t solve your problems

Must not have had enough money to solve ’em

They say, “Which one?” I say, “Nah, I want all of ’em”

Creating a Budget

I have a spreadsheet that I created from a Facebook post that inspired me back in 2016.  I decided to bring that back and update it.  I added new categories based on our current bills and expenses.  And thanks to a YouTube channel (review coming soon), I also added a yearly budget in addition to the monthly budget I normally do.  Having this spreadsheet alleviates me having to remember things from month to month.  Most of the due dates and amounts of our bills don’t change.  The hardest part each month for us was remembering all of those details including bills that didn’t happen monthly but we still needed to plan for.  Not to mention some type of savings to handle incidentals, goals, and wants.  Having a budget allows us to plan for our future and then follow that plan.

Buy myself all of my favorite things 

Initial Conversation About Goals

While I created our spreadsheet, I needed to make sure Chris was apart of creating it.  Which was helpful because I forgot things, he remembered.  I remembered things, that he forgot.  We also talked about what our goals were and realized they were just a tad bit different (after almost ten years together, that happens).  He wanted to immediately pay off debt and I wanted to build a savings cushion first.  I wanted to start planning out ways to generate income without us having to go to a job every day.  He didn’t want to have to wait to buy the things he wanted.  We need to get on the same page and create our short and long term goals.  We need to break them down into monthly, yearly and lifetime goals. Then decide what actions we need to take to make those happen.

Yeah, my receipts, be lookin’ like phone numbers

Regular Conversations About the Budget

I’ve always heard that finances are one of the biggest problems when it comes to marriage.  We didn’t have that problem because we didn’t talk about it.  When we both were working this was easy because we didn’t really have to say no to anything.  If we didn’t have the cash, we put it on a card and worried about paying it off later.  When we moved to one income and had to hear no more often, it really didn’t bother us too much.  But when things started to happen with appliances in the house, we didn’t have a way to say no without it really impacting our lives.  I like washing clothes daily.  I cooked way too much not to have a working refrigerator and I liked flushing the toilet after use.  All first world problems that I have become used to.  With broken appliances, comes repair or possible replacement cost.  And with costs moving into the thousands, we need to figure out how to come up with this money and quick. Which means we need to start talking about money.  What expenses did we have that we can get rid of?  What ways can we make more money without compromising our time and other goals we set for ourselves?

You like my hair? Gee, thanks, just bought it

I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it 

Turning Plans Into Actions

After we create our budget and then talk about it on the regular, we need to actually make sure we are hitting our goals.  There are two ways to eliminate debt and save money.  One way is to decrease spending and the other is to increase income.  There are many financial gurus out there who advocate for one way or the other.  I plan on doing a bunch of research to find what are some of the best ways for us to do one or the other or both.  We also will start to include our finances in our prayers.  I know for me, I sometimes don’t want to bother God with those types of things.  Outside of praying to hit the lottery, I don’t talk to God about helping me come up with the money for an unexpected expense.  And that has to change.  I’ve seen God do some amazing things and my faith in Him needs to extend into all areas of my life including our finances.

I’d rather spoil all my friends with my riches

Think retail therapy my new addiction

Let’s Do This

Like previous months, keep an eye out on my stories on Instagram and Facebook to see how we plan on doing all of this.  I’ll share books, podcasts, and YouTube channels that I am diving into.  I’ll even share my spreadsheet.  Two major holidays just passed in December for us.  My birthday and Christmas.  Christmas is a major spending holiday and for the past two years, we have been able to avoid making purchases the focus.  Truthfully, my greatest gift would be for us to find financial freedom.  So I can do without all of the crazy spending that we normally do.  It’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.  Plus, we can always plan for next year.

Enjoyed the quotes throughout this post?  Check out 7 Rings by Ariana Grande. Let’s continue the conversation in the comments below!

Music video by Ariana Grande performing 7 rings. © 2019 Republic Records, a Division of UMG Recordings, Inc.

Categories
Book Review Family Book Review Finance Book Review

Book Review: The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma

Title: The 5 AM Club

Author: Robin Sharma

Genre: Fiction/Self Help/Business

Publisher: Harper Collins

Rating: Related imageRelated imageRelated imageRelated imageRelated image

 

This post was originally posted as a guest post on TwentyFourDoors.com.  Check them out as they connect Millenials to information from homeownership to starting an Airbnb.  Follow them on Instagram and Facebook.

This review has taken me a long time to write mostly because I just wanted to sit with the lessons I learned from this book forever.  Without a doubt, this is my favorite book that I have read.  Ever.  This book makes me meditate for long moments and reflect and plan.  This book has sparked ideas.  This book helped me revive some things that I thought were dead.  This book has made me emotional.  This book has just done so much for me. Initially, I read it during my Sabbatical earlier this year via Libby (available to read via Kindle app).  At that time, I knew it had the potential to be life-changing, and I decided to order a physical copy to read again.  Which I did at the end of the summer.  A chapter a day.  Taking my time and highlighting.  Writing out my thoughts as I journaled.  I did not want to finish this book ever.  I’ve never been one to re-read books, and I’ve found a handful this year that I wouldn’t mind reading twice.  But this is the first book that I knew there was a high probability that I would be reading it yearly.

My Thoughts:

The 5 AM Club by Robin Sharma is the first and only book of his that I read.  I don’t even remember how I came across it.  I’ve never heard of him before and didn’t even have this book on my radar.  But something made me borrow it on Libby when I saw it.  While this is every bit of a self-help and business book, the story is told as fiction.  Sharma uses the story of the Spellbinder, the Billionaire, the Entrepreneur, and the Artist to share with his readers the way to Own Your Morning and Elevate Your Life by joining the 5 AM Club.  Warning…I can’t help but include spoilers in this review, and I include a trigger warning for a brief mention of suicidal thoughts.

We are introduced to the Entrepreneur who is currently going through a crisis with her business.  She is being pushed out of the company that she started by her investors, and it has her contemplating suicide. As she is doing this, she catches a glance of a conference ticket that she was gifted for the Spellbinder.  She decides that even though she doesn’t believe in these types of conferences, that this is her last chance.  She goes and starts to listen to the Spellbinder, an older, well-dressed man who is a master of his trade in leadership and inspiration.  While speaking, you can tell that he isn’t looking too well, and he eventually collapses on stage, bringing the conference to an end.

Staying for a while after the collapse, the Entrepreneur is sitting next to the Artist. They strike up a conversation and are soon interrupted by a homeless guy.  They start talking about the memorable moments of the session.  The homeless guy starts to go into in-depth details about how the Spellbinder has inspired him and gives hints to what he has been able to accomplish.  The Entrepreneur almost immediately starts judging and doubting him based on how he looks.  Eventually, he offers them an opportunity to come to his beachside place the next morning to begin to discuss the ideas that he has learned to help own his morning and elevate his life.  They both take him up on his offer to meet him back at 5 AM, but they doubt seriously that he will show up, let alone that they will be getting on a jet.

But the next morning, when they go to meet him, they are greeted by a car that indeed, takes them to a jet, and sure enough, they are taken away to this beachside residence.  They see who they think is the Homeless man standing on the beach and go to him, only to find out it is the Spellbinder, who happens to be Mr. Riley’s (the Homeless man who will now be called the Billionaire) friend and mentor.  He is at the residence to refresh and vacation after passing out from exhaustion on stage. Mr. Riley meets them and then explains he will teach them different lessons each morning they meet at 5 AM.  While the Spellbinder is an older gentleman who is calm and pushing the later part of life, Mr. Riley is an eccentric middle-aged man who is quirky enough to bust out in pushups or start yodeling mid-conversation.  He keeps both the Entrepreneur and the Artist on their toes and laughing throughout the whole adventure. They travel to different places to get some of the lessons and are quickly becoming members of the 5 AM Club.

The Entrepreneur is almost the main character.  The storyline follows her from her potential suicide attempt to being threatened by her investors that are trying to take over her company.  Her goals go from preventing the takeover to truly living a happy life so she can be the best entrepreneur there is.  The Artist seems to want to be understood. He follows the typical artist lifestyle where he wants to create what he wants and have others love it.  Unexpectedly, the two end up starting a relationship and falling in love.  While this story isn’t a major theme in the book, it is still there and, in my opinion, not necessary to teach us any of the lessons.  But I am sure the purpose is to remember that becoming better at your business or craft, isn’t what life is all about.  It’s important to enjoy life and enjoy it with those around us.  Eventually, they get married, and the vacation has to come to an end.  But they are officially members of the 5 AM Club.  The epilogue gives you an update on everyone five years later (and be prepared to cry).

This is one of those books where you have to wait to get most of the information.  While the text was full of amazing quotes (and hard not to highlight whole pages), some chapters didn’t actually “teach” me anything towards the 5 AM Club.  Plus, I found myself asking when will we get to the part that shows us WHAT to do at 5 AM quite a bit.  Even the Artist asked it a couple of times in the book.  One thing that came out of this book for me was a list of people I wanted to learn more about.  Lately, it seems to be a theme for me to encounter books that talk a lot about or quote a lot of other people.  Some of the people I am familiar with like Rose Parks, Picasso, Albert Einstein, and Nelson Mandela.  Others I have either never heard of or heard of them in passing like Rumi, Charles Bukowski, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.  Since I am always interested in learning, I realized that I could learn more about these people and their practices since they were significant enough to get mentioned in some of the books I am loving.  I created a list in Evernote “People to Look Up” and am adding a goal to my Year of Healthy to try and learn about someone new once a week.  I imagine this will open up a wealth of resources to me.

While reading this book, I had no choice but to think of each stage of my life.  I can see clearly where I made mistakes, and I better understand how they happened.  I see ways that I self-sabotaged myself when I was doing great.  This book is going to be a major part of my Year of Healthy with all of the nuggets on goal setting and habit building.  And it’s not just the getting up at 5 AM.  It’s what you do during what Sharma calls your Victory Hour that makes a difference.  Here are some things that I will be trying from the book:

~ The Victory Hour – Investing sixty minutes in developing my best self and my greatest skills

~ Intense Visualization – envision what your perfect day should look like and then go out and try to live that day

~ Eliminate distractions, especially during your Victory Hour

~ Morning Routine: Move, Reflect, Grow (the 20/20/20 Formula)

~ Exercise and sweat hard, journal/meditate/plan/pray, read/listen/study

~ Evening Routine: No technology, time with family, reading, winding down, prepare for the morning

~ For 90 days, invest the first 90 minutes of your workday on just one activity (the 90/90/1 Rule)

~ Work for 60 minutes without moving, then spend 10 minutes refueling (the 60/10 Method)

Here are some great lessons and quotes from the book

~ All change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end.

~ To have the results the top 5% of producers have, you must start doing what 95% of people are unwilling to do.

~ When you feel like surrendering, continue.

~ To double your income and impact, tripe your investment in two core areas – your personal mastery and your professional capability. (the 2x3x Mindset)

~ With better daily awareness you can make better daily choices, and with better daily choices you’ll start seeing better daily results. (the 3 Step Success Formula)

~ …if you want to be the best in the world…you need to put in enormous amounts of practice time to advance your expertise.  Specifically, a performer must invest at least two hours and forty-four minutes of daily improvement on their chosen skill for ten years.

~ Enhancing anything in your day, ranging from your morning routine to a thought pattern to a business skill to a personal relationship, by only 1% delivers at least 30% elevation only a month from starting.  Stay with the program and, in just one year, the pursuit you’ve been focusing on has elevated 365% at least.

~ Personal discipline is a muscle.  The more you stretch it, the stronger it grows.

~ Increasing self-control in one area of your life elevates self-control in all areas of your life.

~ The way you practice in private is precisely the way you’ll perform once you’re in public.

I could list so many more great lessons and things that I want to start implementing, but you would be reading forever, and I want you to grab a copy of the book and read it for yourself.  I couldn’t help but give this book a 5-star rating.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.  If you have read it already, let me know some of your favorite parts in the comments below.

*As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases using the links included in this post.

 

Categories
Faith Family Finances

2019 Word of the Year Update: Growth

When I picked my Word of the Year for 2019, this blog wasn’t what it is today.  It was still my Professional Organization business page.  I had a couple of blog post, but I never encouraged people to read them.  They were just there. So I didn’t need to explain my Word of the Year or talk about it.  But like my blog post, it was just floating around.

Towards the end of 2018, around September/October,  I was starting to feel a shift.  I was a wife and a business owner, but things weren’t feeling all that settled for me.  I had quit my job to start my business and stay home and do a better job of supporting my husband.  I was active and plugged in at church.  I was leading a small group. I was feeling the pull to get into God’s Word.  I felt like I was doing all of the right things but still felt off.  My Word of the Year for 2018 was Intentional, and I was owning and doing that quite well.  But I wasn’t present much in my home.  I prayed about my feelings, and I felt God respond to me with Growth.  And just like that, I had my Word of the Year for 2019.

After the beginning of the year, a few friends and I got together to do vision boards, which turned into vision notebooks.  I will tell you right now, that notebook barely got used this year.  But more on what it turned into later.  After creating our vision notebooks, we made some goals and documented what we felt like our action steps should be.  Here are mine:

Faith: Build my personal relationship with God through His Word

Action Step: Create a Bible Study calendar of what I want to study

Family: Spend more time focusing on how to make my home healthy

Action Step: Cook and eat dinner together at least 3x a week

Finances: Create and stick with a budget

Action Step: Have monthly conversations with Chris about our budget

Friendship: Focus on quality friendships, not quantity

Action Step: Continue to hang out and relax with friends at home (mine or theirs)

Fitness: Walk as a form of exercise

Action Step: Walk around the neighborhood at least 1x a week

At first glance, I failed three out of five of these.  And one was done unintentionally.  As much as I could look at this as a failure, I won’t because I’ve seen God move in so many ways this year and I have experienced growth like never before.  I remember when I was praying about growth, I felt like God reminded me (possibly through a quote I’ve seen) that asking for growth means to expect some stretching.  But I never expected the type of stretching and growth I received.

Faith: Build my personal relationship with God through His Word

Action Step: Create a Bible Study calendar of what I want to study

I did not do this action step.  Well, I did partly. I accomplished my main goal of building my personal relationship with God through His Word.  When I went on my sabbatical at the beginning of this year, I was so broken.  I felt like I had no choice but to spend time with God.  I knew He was the only one, and the only way I would be able to be healed.  I had no clue what I was doing most of the time, but I still let God guide me. I’ll be releasing a new series on my blog soon that goes into depth on not only what God taught me to do during this time, but what He wanted me to share.  I was able to build a daily habit of, at the very least, reading God’s Word.  I was apart of a few online Bible studies while I was gone.  I also created an ongoing list of topics in Evernote I want to study.  I feel like the result of all of this is that I know God more, I feel God more, and I’m listening to God more.

Family: Spend more time focusing on how to make my home healthy

Action Step: Cook and eat dinner together at least 3x a week

I ran away from Florida, including my home, in February.  And I didn’t return into July.  So I didn’t do this action step either.  But I ran TO family. During those five months I was traveling, I stayed at four different family members houses. We talked, we cooked, we ate, we laughed, we cried (okay I mostly cried), we loved on each other.  I skipped going home for the holidays in 2018, and I truly felt like that contributed to me feeling broken.  But while I may have ignored my immediate homefront, God knew I needed the love and support of my extended family.  I’m so thankful for them. I was able to hear stories that explained our history.  Stories that provided a sense of healing in some areas of my life.

Finances: Create and stick with a budget

Action Step: Have monthly conversations with Chris about our budget

Man, did I feel the impact of this one!  So not only did I not create a budget, but I turned over all things related to money over to my husband.  When I say, I ran away; I ran away.  I didn’t have a care about anything.  Our house. Our bills.  NOT A THING.  And because I was no longer managing the money, that meant I no longer had access to money.  Thank God for my family because that allowed me to have shelter and food, but I no longer had the lifestyle I used to, and that took a while to get accustomed to.  But it taught me what I needed vs. what I wanted.  It helped me to see how much waste I had in my spending. It helped me to stop spending.  And even now that I am back home and have access to money again, I choose not to spend.  I’m more careful about what I think we need.  It’s even changed some of my long term goal planning.

Friendship: Focus on quality friendships, not quantity

Action Step: Continue to hang out and relax with friends at home (mine or theirs)

Man oh man did this one hit hard.  First, I didn’t do anything intentionally for this one.  But something about leaving for five months does something for superficial friendships. Second, I am still walking through this one. I learned during this time how many Sunday only friends I had.  Meaning, I only saw them on Sundays when I went to church.  Or my physical presence sparked a reminder to chat or see each other later in the week.  So after a couple of weeks of being gone, my phone became pretty quiet. But again, God knew what He was doing.  I needed all of the voices away from me.  I needed to stop looking for approval from others. And I didn’t realize how bad it was until most of everyone went away.  What hurts the most is I did lose a few that I thought were super close to me.  But it also made me realize I wasn’t that great of a friend either.  I seriously needed to look at what Biblical friendship looked like and how to offer it to others.  It’s funny that my goal was to focus on quality friendships, and that is precisely what happened.  I can say that the quality of the friendships I have are getting better.  BUT with that, I say, not everyone is my friend.  Some people are just acquaintances.  Even more, are my brothers and sisters in Christ. Which of course, changes who gets what access to me.

Fitness: Walk as a form of exercise

Action Step: Walk around the neighborhood at least 1x a week

This was so simple, but the furthest thing from my mind.  I didn’t even try to accomplish this.  If you know me, you know I always joke about being allergic to exercise.  And while going away on my sabbatical and coming back all fit and healthy would have been great, it just wasn’t even on my radar.  Especially being around family that loves to cook and eat as much as I do.  But I will explain more about this in a later blog post.

Okay, this wasn’t a topic with an action step.  But I wanted to share what came out of my year of growth.  This did.  This being my blog. While on my Sabbatical, I read The Alchemist, and it sparked me to do some writing.  Remember that vision notebook I created?  This is where I wrote about my fears, random thoughts, and ideas that popped into my head, what I wanted to do.  Most of it was just rambling, but I felt like I needed to share what I was learning in a more structured format. I had previously started to share bits and pieces on my Instagram, but I realized I wanted to change up my website.  I had already received confirmation that I was done with the business, so the site was sitting there.  I started to map out what I wanted the blog to be.  And I realized today that I’m not sure I have been all that clear and it may be taking a direction I didn’t intend.  And while that can be good in some ways if God is directing you that way, it can also be harmful if its a distraction.  Being able to discern between the two is essential.  So I want to clarify what my blog is.

My blog documents my journey of growth. It is God and His Word, first and foremost that is guiding me. As I take this journey, I come across books, podcast, shows, movies, messages, people, quotes, etc. through my research that allows me to continue to grow.  I want to share that with all of you.  And not just to say, look at me I am growing.  But to say, if you are struggling, you are not alone, here is what helped me, I hope it helps you.

I realized my blog has been a little more lopsided towards books.  While that is my passion, getting in a reading rut lately helped me realize that is not all that I use to help me grow.  And while my social media tends to show more of a variety, I wasn’t showing that on my blog.  So I need to do better going forward.  The good thing is, God has been downloading a lot of stuff into me that has me digging deeper and researching more.  I already have over 30 blog posts drafted up with ideas.  I’ve been taking this blogging thing seriously for about three months now, and I thank you for joining me so far.  I hope you stick around and continue to see how this journey is going.  My biggest prayer is that you know that you are never alone, and God is always guiding you.  Be on the lookout for my 2020 Word of the Year.  It’s a God thing because there is no way I would have picked this one.

What was your Word of the Year for 2019?  Have you picked your 2020 one yet?

 

Categories
Book Review Faith Book Review Family Book Review

Book Review: Do More Better – A Practical Guide to Productivity by Tim Challies

Title: Do More Better – A Practical Guide to Productivity

Author: Tim Challies

Genre: Christian

Publisher: Challies

Rating: Related imageRelated imageRelated imageRelated image

Do More Better breaks down the importance and practicalities of having a routine to increase your productivity.  Tim Challies has his hands in a lot.  He is a Pastor, husband, father, book reviewer, blogger, amongst many other titles. I found him while doing some research on YouTube one day and was distracted by him giving book recommendations. Which led me down a rabbit hole of watching a few of his other videos (I may have watched every book recommendation video he has, but I digress).  I went to his website to find out more information about him, signed up for his emails, and my first thought was, “How does he do all of this?”. When I saw that he had a book on productivity, it was a no-brainer for me to grab it.  It was a quick read, with a lot of information that I already knew but wouldn’t be bad for someone that needed the basics of increasing their productivity.

My Thoughts:

As this is a Biblical based book on productivity, it wasn’t a shocker to find “good works” a topic.  My experience is that many people are quick to downplay or flat out deny good works.  After all, we are saved by grace and not good works.  But like many other unpopular (as in you don’t hear them talked about often) bible verses, people tend to ignore what the Bible actually says about the good works we should be doing.  I wonder if so many people focus on the fact that we are saved by grace and not works to get away with doing good works?  I understand wanting to keep people away from thinking they can work their way to salvation.  But I don’t hear much preached about doing good works as a result of our salvation.  The reason we should be doing these good works?  For God’s glory.  Since our purpose in life is to do things for God’s glory, the things that prevent us from doing that is considered a theological problem per Challies.

Do More Better is an action based book.  Tim Challies starts by walking you through what is productivity, what is stopping you from being productive, and then he actually walks you through the steps that he does to help with his productivity.  Now I am one of those people who doesn’t usually do what a book tells me.  If it says stop and write this down, I won’t.  I’ll probably highlight it.  Think about going back to it later, maybe.  But unless I’m reading something for a specific reason, I just don’t do it. But since turning over a new leaf and actually trying to use the books and resources as tools for improvement, I am doing what I am told, and I am sharing with you.  After all, that is why my blog is much more than just a book review site.  By giving you my answers to the action items, you may consider the section to follow a bit of a SPOILER.  I don’t want to ruin the book for anyone, so I will bold the beginning and end of the parts that give some information away, and you can skip right past them.

*****BEGINNING OF WHAT MAY BE CONSIDERED A SPOILER*****

One of the first early action items Challies gives is to pick a habit other than productivity that you will work on outside of productivity.  Since I am currently on a sabbatical without any rigid responsibilities or timelines, my sleeping habits have been off.  I’m actually dealing with a reversal of my days and nights.  I can’t fall asleep at night, and I tend to fall asleep around 8 am. It’s been absolutely horrible.  With that said, my habit that I would like to work on is actually waking up at 9:00 am.  (I would prefer 5:00 am, but we will save that for another book review).

To create a plan for increasing your productivity, you need to understand what your current responsibilities are.  Challies calls them Areas of Responsibilities.  I won’t go into specifics of what he recommends (that’s why you need to read the book), but I listed the five areas I picked: Spiritual, Personal, Family, Family Management, Hobby.  Each Area of Responsibility then has what is called roles (or tasks/projects).  Mine are below which reflect where I am currently (as in today) in life.  Which means on sabbatical and traveling.  I expect mine to change when I am back home.

Now, according to Challies, you are ready to create mini mission statements for each role.  It helps you understand your why and will help make decision making more manageable in the future.

Spiritual

Bible Reading– Read the whole Bible, so I am familiar with all of the Bible stories and major themes

Bible Studying– Build a personal relationship with God by truly getting to know Him through His word

Prayer– Continuously communicate with God, whether scheduled or unscheduled

Discipleship– Continue to share my faith, primarily through social media, to show people the importance of reading and studying the Bible for themselves

Personal

Eating Habits– Continue to eliminate food triggers that activate my IBS or Malabsorption issues

Self Care– Take time daily to do things that relax me so I can truly feel joy and peace

Administration– Plan and review my life to ensure my purpose is on track

Family

Wife– Love and respect Chris the way God wants me to

Daughter/Sister– Love and communicate with my family

Friend– Show my appreciation and stay in contact with them

Family Management

Cleaning– Stay on top of cleaning, not only my area/stuff, but help others to show the love for the gifts that God has blessed us with

Cooking– A stress reliever that helps me show love for others and helps keep everyone eating right

Hobby

Reading– Continue to read and apply what I learn to my life

Blog– Document what I am reading and learning to share with others

*****END OF WHAT MAY BE CONSIDERED A SPOILER*****

As you can see, there are plenty of action items that are given during the audit of your responsibilities.  I appreciate Challies giving the details of not only his duties but showcasing how his wife’s and a friend’s audit looks different.

Moving on to the tools Challies finds essential to help with your productivity, he recommends some tools that I believe most of us are familiar with and probably use already.  These tools help with tasks, scheduling, and information.  I personally use 2 out of the 3 he recommends.  And the only reason I don’t use the first one he suggests is that I prefer to manage my task using option 2 AND 3 together (thanks to my previous project analyst/professional organizer life).

Because he outlines how to use all 3 tools, I personally didn’t need this information, but it was detailed enough that someone starting from scratch could follow along and set theirs up.  Rebuilding these types of habits has been a recent focus, so I actually had most of this setup and in a pretty similar fashion as Challies.  I did adapt some of his ideas: for example, when setting up a task, start with an action word and a colon to ensure you are only adding a task that requires an action.  For me, this also helps with block scheduling.  If I see that I have five tasks that start with Call: for the week, I can block those task to be completed together.

Although Challies is giving specifics for how he sets up the tools he recommends, they are generic enough that no matter which tool you use, you can follow his set up process.  Challies and I disagree on the efficiency of using all 3 of his recommend tools.  In my opinion, if you can find 1-2 tools that can handle task management, scheduling, and information management AND you actually organize it correctly, go for it. At first, I was thinking because it was an older book, some of the tools were still new, but the book was published in 2015.  Many employers, schools, or volunteer organizations have required the use of these tools for years now, and they just continue to be improved.  My opinion is it’s more efficient and practical to use fewer tools as long as they accomplish the same goal.  Challies doesn’t really give a reason to keep them separate other than he gave you the information.

I gave Do More Better 4-stars.  Although the book had a lot of information that I already know and practice, it was geared towards those who are just starting to get their productive lives together. It was well written just for that purpose.  Plus, I was still able to learn some things and apply them to my life.  The whole piece on Area of Responsibilities and writing out mini mission statements made me slow down and honestly audit what my life is currently about and what type of changes I need to make.  I know going back and reviewing that information alone will help me maintain my focus on my purpose.

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