After a long hiatus, I’ve started back in on the Robert Caro books. I was on a tear about seven years ago, when I plowed through The Power Broker and The Path to Power. I was inspired by this Farnam Street post about reading just 25 pages a day. Of course, 25 pages in Robert Caro’s books are pretty dense and consuming! Especially compared to my usual reading habits.
As I creep closer and closer to retirement, I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with my days. And I know I want to do more writing. I’ve participated in InCoWriMo (International Correspondence Writing Month) in the past, and it resulted in some wonderful letters back and forth across the globe. But this time, I’m interested in NaNoWriMo– National Novel Writing Month. It starts in 2 days- July 1. And if you want to do more writing- it’s for you! The goal is to write a novel in one month 🙂
It has taken me years to figure this out- but I’ve finally come around to this fact: I need to keep a reminder notebook. There are just too many things to remember in modern life, and I’ve got to write a lot of this stuff down. And there’s a current sale at Smythson on their gorgeous notebooks. So every time you use your reminder notebook, you will get a little buzz from using their lovely paper.
Years ago, I was lucky enough to be included in a tour of the Pixar Studios in Emeryville. I absolutely love a behind-the-scenes tour, and I was soaking up every bit that I could. As we were walking through the offices of the amazing people who work at Pixar, I noticed a small post-it note on one of their office doors. “Story is Process” it said. And I’ve been thinking about that idea of a focus on process ever since.
I recently shared a few random tips with you all, and now I’m back with more. One to save money, one to keep you safe and a couple that are all about memory keeping. All good tips!
Y’all, it is so tempting to try to optimize everything. If you follow Finance twitter or any number of personal finance blogs/podcasts, you will feel guilty at some point. Guilty because you are not taking advantage of every opportunity and life hack. Guilty because you could have made a bit more money here or there. Well, I am here to tell you to chill out. Because you have to know when to pick your battles.
This post is a bit of a grab bag of helpful tips I’ve come across recently. Not much of a central theme- other than I found them all helpful. A couple are old ones that I love so much, I had to include them here 🙂
I’ve been thinking a lot about retirement these days. (This seems to be true of most people I know in our 50s!) And a lot of attention is paid to The Number– how much you’ll need to retire. And frankly, these discussions irk me. Because they frequently rely on some heuristic. “You’ll need X times your salary.” “$1M is enough!” When, really, to be confident, you’ve got to put pen to paper. Because a budget is key to retirement success.
I estimate that I have just completed my 31st annual performance review process. During that time, I have had nice managers, mean managers, disengaged managers, micromanaging… managers. I’ve even been a manager myself for a decent number of those years. And I’ve got a few thoughts on the performance review process to share.
I’m not big on new year’s resolutions. I’d rather not wait to make self-improvements. And if I am waiting until an arbitrary date like Jan 1, I probably am not that committed to begin with. But the start of the new year is actually a great time to re-evaluate (or start) your estate planning. The time off in the holidays and the presence of family makes it easier to have the conversations about priorities and plans. So while I’m not an expert at estate planning, I do have a few tips for getting started.
