Ask the Entrepreneurs: 12 Things Entrepreneurs Should Stop Doing

Ask The Entrepreneurs is a regular series where members of the Young Entrepreneur Council are asked a single question that aims to help Lifehack readers level up their own lives, whether in a area of management, communication, business or life in general.

Here’s the question posed in this edition of Ask The Entrepreneurs:

1. Talking About Themselves

Entrepreneurs tend to get so wrapped up in the pitching, convincing and selling of their day-to-day life that sometimes it becomes all they ever talk about. Being well-rounded and conversational will help you have rapport with others around you. While talking about yourself and your business is important, doing so constantly comes off as being self-centered and oblivious to the world around you.

- Kim Kaupe, ‘ZinePak

2. Focusing on a To-Do List

The best leaders I know focus on building the right culture and energy in the office. Sitting in a corner and pounding out to-do items may feel productive, but don’t forget about doing the things that aren’t fully quantifiable. Helping teammates who may be having a bad morning or struggling with a project could be the single most valuable thing you do all day!

- Tyler Arnold, SimplySocial Inc.

3. Eating Pizza

When you head into the startup phase of your company, everything you used to do that was healthy is going to stop. You are going to put on weight. You are going to end up with too much stress and a back that is in constant pain. Don’t eat pizza. It will make it easier to get back in shape when you’re out of that phase.

- Andrew Angus, Switch Video

4. Using Social Media Distractions

Shut down all your personal social media distractions during the work day. Facebook, Instagram, Vine and Twitter will all be there after you complete your daily tasks. Many entrepreneurs don’t realize just how much time they waste reading and engaging on these mediums and also just how much it decreases their daily productivity. To succeed, use your time wisely.

- Anthony Saladino, Kitchen Cabinet Kings

5. Multitasking

Multitasking has its place in the business realm, but there are also times when it should be avoided. If you multitask two separate and very important projects, you can end up with two sets of dismal results. Know when to multitask and when to focus on a single task.

- Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

6. Waiting for the Right Moment

Stop waiting for the right time, and just get things done. Define the one thing you can do today that will help grow your business and not just keep you busy.

- Michael Mogill, Crisp Video Group

7. Attending Management Meetings

Admittedly, management meetings are sometimes necessary and useful beasts. But a culture of meetings is ultimately just a time suck. Everyone has had that experience of waiting for a meeting to end so that real work can resume. To increase productivity, reduce management meetings and time in meetings in general. When you must meet, have a clear agenda and stick to it.

- David Ehrenberg, Early Growth Financial Services

8. Letting Interruptions Happen

Interruptions are just a part of life, but I take steps to prevent them. It is so hard to refocus after multiple interruptions. I don’t even want to calculate how much time I lose to redirecting my attention several times a day. If it gets to be too much, I go into do-not-disturb mode. I close the door, only take scheduled calls and tell my staff that they can email me and I’ll get to them later.

- Maren Hogan, Red Branch Media

9. Going out for Lunch

The lunch hour is one of the most active times of the day and a great time to get work done. After work is when most socializing should be done. Instead of worrying about getting back to the office or getting work done before you dip out, meeting at the end of the day takes off the edge. You can drink without a conscience, leave the office behind and invite others to join to optimize your time.

- Rameet Chawla, Fueled

10. Working on the Fly

One habit to break away from is working on the fly rather than with an agenda. With a startup, things will happen, and you can be pulled in different directions. Don’t make it a habit to make that the way you operate. Make it a point to be proactive rather than reactive.

- Fabian Kaempfer, Chocomize

11. Pleasing Others First

If you are allowing your time and energy to be diverted from your priority tasks simply to make professional acquaintances (e.g., individuals not in your inner circle) happy, then you’re not investing your time well. Focus on the people and activities that really matter, and you’ll be better off in the long run.

- Elizabeth Saunders, Real Life E®

12. Emailing Coworkers

The biggest breakthrough at ThinkImpact has been the realization that we don’t need to email each other. We can use different tools to communicate. Our new favorite is called Slack . It allows you to communicate in one of three ways: via office-wide messages with a related subject, a direct message with a colleague privately or a private group of colleagues.

- Saul Garlick, ThinkImpact

Entrepreneurship can be a long windy road filled with obstacles and it is often traveled alone. 4 Traits Every Entrepreneur Must Have

Featured photo credit: Confident business man smiling at the officevia Shutterstock

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, the YEC recently launched #StartupLab, a free virtual mentorship program.

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The Top 13 Reasons Why You Need to Start Doing Bodyweight Exercises Immediately

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7 Reasons You Should Start Doing Yoga Immediately

Yoga is an ancient practice with origins stretching back thousands of years in India. It is designed to help achieve a more positive outlook on life and a focused, permanent sense of serenity and peace. The word ‘yoga’ itself means ‘union’ and ‘union with the divine’; however, many people have stripped away the spirituality and focus of yoga so that most think of it as a group of intensely athletic people putting their legs behind their heads and curling up into jaw-dropping positions.

While that certainly happens–I’ve actually done the leg behind the head thing a few times, but only after years of careful stretches and practice–yoga has so much more to offer than flexibility and the idea of garnering a strong body. People of all shapes, sizes, ages and abilities can do yoga and adapt it to suit their individual tastes and needs.

If you think yoga might not be for you, I urge you to reconsider. Here are seven of my top reasons why you should start doing yoga as soon as you can.

First of all and most obviously, yoga is a fantastic workout for your body. You can adapt the practices to your own speed and level of comfort. No matter which yoga exercises you choose, the practices will always be part of a great workout routine. There are some fantastic series of movements out there that are perfect for every kind of day and for every kind of person, meaning there’s no reason not to start doing some yoga as soon as you can.

Yoga stretches and exercises are designed around the idea of moving your body to increase its strength and durability. Therefore, doing yoga on a regular basis will really get you to be much more in tune with your body and know when something is really working and when it isn’t.

Of course, this isn’t always a good thing, as it can be discouraging when certain exercises aren’t working for your body the way they were the day before; however, it does have its benefits, and it makes improvements in your physical state that are much more pronounced and noticeable.

A big part of yoga is the breathing exercises–or the pranayama–which are incorporated into positions and then on their own. The exercises encourage a more focused and centered way of breathing, and while they might not be something you’ll do consciously every day, they’re absolutely sure to provide methods of effective stress-management and generally make you feel much better.

Plus, as someone with asthma, it really helps to open your lungs and explore what it means to breath consciously. Trust me: do those pranayamas for a few weeks, and you’ll feel the benefits.

Another minor but pleasant benefit is that doing yoga can actually help you get better sleep. This might be due to the fact that a few sequences of poses and movements are intended to be done right before sleep, but regardless, studies have shown that doing some light physical activity before our heads hit the hay can help us get off to sleep more quickly, which usually leads to a much better quality of sleep.

It also might be due to the fact that if you have problems getting to sleep, working on problem-areas through yoga can help alleviate pain symptoms and increase the likelihood of better sleep. Another possibility is that most yoga sessions have a cool-down sequence at the end, which can definitely induce some easy slumber. As someone who’s fallen asleep in class many a time–to the point where my mat neighbor and I have a buddy system in case one of us starts snoring–believe me, this really works and should be done at home.

Yoga is pretty effective at helping you develop some premium, proper posture, since a lot of the breathing and seated positions require a straight back for proper effect. Good posture is definitely going to develop during yoga practice.

You’ll start off slouching and slumped, reflecting the figure of someone who spends most of the day at their desk–believe me, I’ve been there–and yoga will help sculpt your back into the kind of poised posture that’ll make you walk taller and feel immensely better about it.

Another side effect of yoga is that it will help you develop some truly incredible mental and physical strength. The whole point of yoga is to work on your body’s strength so that you can sit for longer in meditation, and the physical investment in the stretches and positions ensures that you’ll experience plenty of physical strength benefits as a result.

The breathing exercises can improve your lung capacity, and lunges and stretches can increase your core strength as well as every muscle you can think of; meanwhile, the exercises force you to focus on the moment, and during meditation, to clear your mind, which helps alleviate stress and improve your mental health.

Meditation, meditation, meditation. It’s really the key to all things yoga. Even if you can do every kind of complicated pose under the sun, it loses all of its true meaning if it’s not done with focus and thought. Meditation has been shown time and time again to be a beneficial practice that everyone should implement into their daily routine.

Meditation isn’t necessarily sitting with a bowl of incense and working your way through a book of Tibetan chants in a darkened, candlelit room–rather, you can meditate anywhere quiet and at absolutely any time you like. All it takes is five minutes with some alone time and peace and quiet. Meditation improves your quality of life by allowing your mind some time to process everything that goes on in your life. It’s a hugely important and integral part of yoga practice and something that can really change your life, allowing you to embrace calmness and serenity with ease.

From the outside, yoga seems like some impossible superhuman carnival trick. 10 Must Have Yoga Accessories

Featured photo credit: Caucasian woman practicing yoga at seashorevia Shutterstock

Young, free and happy. Well, more young, free and trying to find his way in the world with an obsessive to-do list, an iPod and a cookie recipe but it's the thought that can counts. Writes for WhatCulture, TeenEvents, MaximumPop! and Lifehack amongst others.

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How to be Productive by Doing More and Working Less

Everyone wants to get more done in less time, but becoming more productive can be a long and difficult process. Of course, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Imagine how much more you could get done if you could actually be productive the entire time you are at work. This infographic can help.

Working less and accomplishing more isn’t easy.: 6 Rules to Work Less and Get More Accomplished

Perhaps the most important thing mentioned here though is the fact that it’s OK to make mistakes and skip days when you’re trying to create a good daily habit. It’s all too easy to say, “oh well, I missed it, I guess I can’t stick with this,” but if you keep trying to develop a good habit, you will get there. Once you really establish a good habit, you’ll be amazed how much it seems like second nature to you and how you ever managed to get through life without such a great habit.

Source – Social Caffeine

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Space Rockets and Agile Programmers Are Doing It…Why Aren’t You?

Are you like everyone else when it comes to setting goals? Do you define what you want to achieve and then start working towards your big goal?

You work hard on a daily basis to reach that goal, but at some point you start to feel frustrated, because you’re not making any noticeable progress after all.

This makes you very confused and angry, yet you can only blame yourself for this situation. You have made a classic goal-setting mistake.

Do you know what it is?

Let me tell you about a real experience I had couple of years ago. This happened when I was competing in a national level triathlon race.

A triathlon consists of three different sports (swimming, cycling and running) and every race starts with the swimming part. As soon as the start signal goes off, all the contestants run into the water and start swimming.

After myself and the rest of the contestants had swam for some time, I realized that this one guy was swimming in the wrong direction. He kept going and going, until at one point he stopped. He realized that he had swam in the wrong direction and now everyone else was in a completely different place. Naturally, he had to change his course and catch up with the rest of us.

This kind of scenario can happen in your life, whether you are a triathlete or not. You set a goal and start taking action on it, but unfortunately this is not enough. If you don’t know your current position in relation to your goal, then you are going to be like the triathlete I just mentioned; you will keep going and going but your actions will only take you further from your destination.

When you get further away from your goals, most likely there is one critical piece missing in your goal-setting process. Eventually, this missing piece might get you lost — and even make you quit on your goal.

Now, you don’t want that to happen, do you?

When a rocket is launched into space, do you think it just follows a straight line from earth to its destination in space?

Nope, it doesn’t.

It makes small adjustments to its course along the way. This is how it stays on track and reaches a very specific but distant destination in space.

It’s the same with agile programmers: they know exactly where they are in relation to their end goal (a finished application). They make necessary adjustments to their actions along the way if they find that they are on the wrong track.

Back to you: do you know why you get lost so easily? Well, it’s because you are not adjusting your course like that space rocket, or not following procedures like those agile programmers.

In both of the previous scenarios, adjustments are made all the time. In contrast, you just set your goal and take action on it, without stopping to correct your course. If you don’t reflect on your current progress and just keep doing your work, then the confusion is inevitable.

Finally, you should also pay close attention to your attitude.

You might think that pausing to reflect is a waste of time (it’s slowing you down), even if you understand the need for it. If you think like this, you clearly need to change your attitude towards the reflection time and understand its true value. Stopping down for a moment could save your whole project. Instead of just blindly taking action, you’ll start to see where you have deviated from your goal and you’ll be able to take corrective action immediately.

When you are on the right track, you are more motivated to keep on working towards your goal instead of quitting.

Let’s talk some Scrum. It belongs to a family of agile software development methodologies and one of its characteristics is a daily 15-minute time-boxed meeting called The Daily Scrum.

Every day during the 15-minute period, the team has a meeting stood up, where everyone reports their progress by answering three questions:

What have you done since the last meeting?What are you planning to finish by the next meeting?Is there anything standing in your way?

With these questions, it’s easy to see what everyone has been up to, what’s going to happen next, and if there are any issues that might be stopping the developers’ progress.

“Ok, so this stuff is for software developers,” I hear you say. “How does that help me?”

This is exactly what we are going to find out next.

Daily Scrums can be applied on your own work as well. Let’s see how to do it:

Know your goal and sub-goals. It goes without saying that you should have a clear and explicitly defined goal, as well as milestones related to your end goal. If you don’t have this plan set, then do it now.Schedule and location. Schedule a 15-minute block on your calendar, which occurs every day, at the same location, at the same time. To make sure you don’t exceed the 15-minute limit, get a timer, set it to 15 minutes and start it as soon as your meeting starts. The best time for this is before the end of your working day. This way, you have some kind of idea what you have done, if you have encountered any issues and what you  want to do next. The fixed location helps you to form the Daily Scrum habit.Have your meeting. Answer the three Scrum questions I mentioned earlier and write them down in a document. Then, spend some time figuring out if you are on the right track in relation to your goals.Take action accordingly. Once you have had your Daily Scrum, form a plan for what to do next. Do you need to do something differently? What does it take to remove the obstacles in your way?

Take a moment to think about the best answers to these questions.

As you can see, daily reflection is very important so that you can see where you are in relation to your goal. Otherwise you could be working hard for nothing. In a worst case scenario, you may have to start your work all over again.

With a 15-minute daily meeting, you can stay on track and take corrective action right away, instead of doing it weeks or even months after starting your work.

Over to you: how do you keep track of your current situation in relation to your goals? Do you review your work in any way? Please share your comments and experiences on the comment area.

(Photo credit: Old Compass via Shutterstock)

Timo Kiander, a.k.a. Productive Superdad, teaches WAHD super dad productivity for work at home dads. If you want to get more productive in your own life, grab 222 of his best Tips for Becoming a Productivity Superstar.

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Why Doing More Can Turn Into Unproductivity

There is a certain limit when performing an action, after which the action you take turns into unproductivity. This is happening mostly because of unrealistic deadlines and lack of planning — or goals that are not specific enough.

If you work harder and longer days, you may get more done. At the same time there is a price to pay for this and in the worst case, that price may halt you down completely. Especially if you are not willing to change your working routines.

When you are pushing harder and trying to do more, you are going to be stressed out about the situation. The more stressed you are, the more difficult it becomes to cool down and recharge your batteries after your working session ends. You keep pondering about work matters when you are not working. In many cases, you wake up during the night, thinking and stressing about the work you have to finish.

Stress (the negative one) affects your health and well-being in a terrible manner. If you value your health and put it as a priority in your life, it is time to slow down the working pace.

If you want to do more work, can you be sure that the quality of the actions you take won’t suffer?

I have experienced this myself. When I did more stuff (and especially in a smaller block of time), I wasn’t able to concentrate enough on the task I was doing. This led to a situation where I had to go back and fix my work before my quality standards were met.

When you work too much, ask yourself this question:

“Am I giving enough focus to my current task so that it gets done correctly the first time?”

If you aren’t, then pay close attention to it, because otherwise you are increasing your already high workload. However, if you spend a little time on this question it will save your time in the long run.

People often talk about taking massive action and why it is beneficial for reaching your goals. However, sometimes massive action can cause massive stress and frustration.

This happens, when you are taking action for action’s own sake. However, if you knew the right type of massive action to take you would get much better results as a return, thus saving you from frustration.

In order to take the right type of massive action, you should have a clear idea where you are heading. After that, you should link your planned action steps to your goal and be absolutely certain that the action you are taking is essential for reaching that goal. When you take the focused (and right) massive action instead you are guaranteed to see results faster.

There are two things that keep us going, even if we have a lot of work ahead of us: passion towards the topic and motivation for consistent action.

The danger of working too much is that you are going to burn out these two crucial elements quickly. When this happens, you find work to be meaningless and you can’t find any reason to take action. Even if you know what your passion is but you don’t want to take action on it, you feel greatly frustrated and sad inside.

To prevent this situation occurring you have to work to the right rhythm: reasonable-length working sessions combined with moments dedicated for mental and physical regeneration (exercise, sleep, meditation, etc.).

This keeps the motivational flame alive — and you are still excited to pursue your passion.

Doing more isn’t always for the best. Take a look at the above criteria and evaluate what you’ve got on your plate. Are you doing too much? Be honest with yourself and make any changes that you need.

Then you can turn that unproductively back into productivity.

(Photo credit: Mowing job via Shutterstock)

Timo Kiander is an online business productivity and time management enthusiast who blogs at http://www.timokiander.com. Visit his blog and grab the free e-book: “101 Tips For Becoming a Productivity Superstar”

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Six Major Mistakes When Doing Powerpoint Presentations

One of the editors here at Lifehack, Chris Smith, frequently writes about technology. As I was reading some of his recent articles, I was influenced to write a tech article of my own, so here it is.

So, you are sitting in a company meeting and the presenter puts up the first slide. You are probably thinking to yourself,

“Oh no, not another Powerpoint presentation – BORING!”

Unfortunately, most people who use Powerpoint, Keynote or other similar software for making slide presentations completely abuse the technology. Instead of using these programs to enhance their presentations, they end up putting their audiences to sleep instead.

I’ve been guilty of abusing this technology myself when I first started using Powerpoint as a product marketing manager. Originally, the intent was to replace the use of cumbersome overhead slides and when I realized just how easy it was to create new slides with a computer program, like everybody else, I just went crazy with it.

I’m still using Powerpoint these days in my talks and seminars but fortunately after seeing many others make the same mistakes that I did with their presentations, I took it upon myself to get some training on how to best use this tool. To help you out with your own presentations, I have identified six major mistakes that most Powerpoint users make and how you can avoid them.

Quite often, the text used on slides is much too small to read once projected on a screen. A good test to use is go to the back of the room where the furthest audience member would be sitting before you do your presentation.  Put on the slide with the smallest sized text. If you can’t make out the text easily, then neither will any audience member sitting in the back of the room. You will have to make your text size larger (I would suggest at least 35-40 font size minimum). Also, it is a good idea to use sans-serif fonts like Arial (rather than serif fonts like Times Roman) on slides since they are easier on the eyes on a screen.

Another major mistake that many people make is trying to fit in too much text on any single slide. It is a nightmare for audiences when they see a slide jammed full of text. If audience members start reading all the text on such a slide, they will not be able to listen to you as the speaker at the same time. A good rule of thumb to use is have no more than four to five bullet points per slide (I often use just three points) and no more than five words per point. If you have more bullet points, divide them up on separate slides.

A sure sign of an ineffective presenter is when he or she looks at the screen and reads off every last word up on the slides. From a presentation skills point of view, this is bad because the presenter loses eye contact with the audience. You also don’t want the audience to have to look at your backside all the time. Again, limit the number of words on each bullet point so that you can speak more naturally by expanding on what is actually on each slide.

Another indicator of an inexperienced Powerpoint user is when too many of the fancy functions from the program are used in the presentation. This would include the use of too many different slide transitions, animations, sound effects, etc. You are not there to impress the audience with your vast knowledge of the different bells and whistles that Powerpoint has. These can get rather tiring on the audience. Keep things simple and remember that the slides are there to enhance your verbal presentation, not the other way around.

It is true that a picture is worth a thousand words and images can definitely enhance your presentation. The key is to use them to illustrate major points you are making. Don’t have too many images on any single slide. I usually use just one image per slide. Make sure the image is good enough quality by testing it out on a wall or screen first. Sometimes images that look fine on your computer monitor may end up looking bad when blown up on a wall. Also, make sure any images you use are relevant to the points you are making during your presentation. Don’t just put up images for the sake of having pictures up there. There must be some obvious connection between the images you use and the points you are trying to make.

Technology is technology. This means that it can fail when least expected. I’ve had to resort to using somebody else’s laptop when my own failed. It was a good thing that I had a backup copy of my Powerpoint file on a flash drive. From a speaker point of view, it is also a good idea to be able to deliver your presentation without the slides just in case of projector failure. I often bring some props to use in case I have to do a sudden version of my talk without slides and yes, I have had to do this in one or two cases.

So there you have it. If you can avoid just these six major mistakes that many presenters make out there, the effectiveness of your presentations will be increased dramatically. After you have created them, rehearse your presentations in advance with the slides, as your efforts will make you appear to be a more professional presenter in front of audiences.

Clint Cora is a motivational speaker, author & Karate World Champion based near Toronto, Canada. Get his FREE 3-part Personal Development Video Series on how to expand your comfort zone and finally conquer even your most daunting goals in life.

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Defining What Done and Doing Look Like

From fjota on flickr

I have been a productive worker wannabe for several years now. I have read a ton of books, prescribed GTD as much as I could, bought all the gear in the world that anyone recommended as being the best, and constantly failed at it. It wasn’t until I slowed down, settled with a set of tools and got back to the basics that I started to understand what being productive was.

Being productive isn’t using your gear or being knowing the Getting Things Done flow chart inside and out. David Allen reminds us what being productive is at its most basic level:

“You have to define what done means and what doing looks like.”

It’s really that simple. What I think is so amazing is that GTD is a very basic idea yet when we are thrown into the “rat race” of work and life, we easily forget to apply the basics. Either that or we have yet to master them. Let’s look closely at defining done and doing.

This was something that took a long time to “get”. I understood that defining a project was naming something that had more than one action to accomplish, but I still had trouble defining my outcomes with the project. Not so much with smaller things like, “schedule some time with a [insert friend name here] and catch up” but more along the lines of “development new web service testing suite for [insert web service here]“.

There are hard edges with some projects while others are like a big ball of stuff just sitting there and taking up space. We have to be able to get through the stuff, find the things that are important, and then define what complete looks like. Luckily there is an awesome way to do this; use Mr. Allen’s 5 Phases of Project Planning. Here they are in a nutshell:

Define purpose and guiding principles. (Why is this being done?)What is the successful outcome? (What would it be like if this were totally successful?)Brainstorm (Get creative and write down and link anything that comes to mind about the project)Organizing (Create priorities and an order to the project)Identify next actions (keep reading for this)

Now, like I said before, some project are pretty self-evident in what needs to happen. But there are many that are large and nebulous that need a clear outcome and a structure to complete. Once you define what “done” is, then you can move onto deciding what doing looks like.

Coming up with the next action of a project may seem like its easy, but in practice can be very difficult. The biggest problem is that we tend to “over-generalize” our projects and tasks and add things to our lists like:

Plan birthday party for AmyCreate brand new web app for ‘X’Lose your protruding gut

These are some great things to accomplish, but they are far from being next actions. What we need to do is granularize our projects and get down to the “dummy level” with our tasks. We have talked about this many times before at Lifehack, but it needs repeating as this is the heart of getting more accomplished and being less stressed while doing it.

I liken this to the idea of “cranking widgets” and checking off easy todo tasks off your list one at time. This will eventually lead you to completely large scale projects while keeping yourself way less stressed.

So, instead of “plan birthday party for Amy”, I’d better create a highly doable next action like, “draft a list of people to invite to Amy’s party.” Then I can get the ball rolling. In fact, all it takes to make a dead project move forward is identifying a single next action that you could do given the right context.

That’s what doing looks like.

Like I said before, I know that if you are a GTD or productivity kind of guy or gal that this stuff is pretty basic. But the thing is that staying productive is all about mastering the basics. When life and work sets in and you are bombardo with the “real world” it’s important to know the basics well and use them immediately.

Chris is a developer, writer, tech enthusiast, and husband. He holds a degree in MIS and CMPSC from Penn State Behrend. Chris is also interested in personal productivity and creativity and how to utilize technology to get more things done. Check out his tech writing at androinica.com where he writes about Android.

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30 Easy Ways to Save Money (and No, you are not doing them all!)

Let’s keep this one simple and clean - just a bunch of relatively easy ways to save money. As you incorporate more and more of these tips into your life, the savings add up and it wouldn’t surprise me if you could save thousands over the course of a year.

It will take a little work on your part but those thousands of dollars in savings are what helped us get out of debt earlier, kept us out of debt for several years and will hopefully help us pay off our recent auto loan soon as well.
Cook at home often: If both the husband and wife work, this is likely to be very difficult. Start out with the habit of cooking at home once a week and slowly increase the frequency until you find a balance between saving money and getting stressed out.

Make your own coffee: Everyone seems to have heard of the latte factor. Even though the author may have overestimated the savings from skipping a latte at Starbucks, don’t underestimate the ding it puts in your pocket in the long run. You don’t have to entirely ban drinking coffee, but skip it as often as possible unless you make it at home.

Brown bag lunch at least a few days a week: Lunch times are great opportunities to network and make connections that could improve your career growth. So unless there is a common eating area for brown baggers, you may choose to limit brown bagging lunch to three days each week. Find a balance between saving some money and making the connection. In my case, I take my lunch with me 2-3 times a week and eat out the rest of the time.
Make a list before going shopping: They call it impulse buying for a reason. Humans simply have a very tough time resisting the temptation to purchase extras while shopping. Without a list you will buy items that you simply do not need. Even worse is when your forget to purchase the actual item you came to the store for in the first place. If you plan on cooking at home, pre-plan a rough menu and make a list before you go grocery shopping. Getting all that you need in one trip can help avoid another unnecessary trip and temptation.
Go grocery shopping while you are in a hurry: Maybe you need to go out in a couple of hours. Or your favorite show is going to be on TV after a couple of hours. Try to squeeze in the grocery trip in that intermediate time. Armed with your grocery list, you should be in-and-out very quickly with little time for meandering and getting tempted to buy things you don’t need.
Watch out for expiration dates on perishable goods: This one seems intuitive when you read it, but I am surprised at how many people do not pay attention to expiry dates. No point getting a gallon of milk if it is going to turn sour with a couple of days. Same goes for meat, eggs, yogurt, spreads, frozen items, deli/bakery items etc. Some people say you can use a few items a few days after expiry – but I personally value my health more than money and would rather avoid buying such items in the first place.
Buy in bulk whenever possible: When it comes to non-perishable items, buy in bulk whenever you find something on sale. The items I usually stock up on are, cereals, tinned goods, rice, beans, pasta, coke, toothpaste, body wash, shampoo, toilet paper etc. For such items, shopping at warehouse stores like Costco, Sam’s Club etc can save you quite a bit of money, provided you stick strictly to your shopping list when you shop at these places.
Buy generic products whenever possible: Does it really matter whether your cereal is made by Kellogg's or is the store brand? Does it matter if your milk is Oak Farms or the store brand? For a few things (like soda in particular), I prefer brand name products. For others, I do not mind generic store brands if they can save me money. Find what works for you and switch to generic brands for at least a part of your grocery list.
Use grocery store bags to line trash cans: This may not work if you use a massive trash can but we use a small sized one for which the grocery bags are a perfect fit. This not only helps us save some money, but reduces our environmental foot print and avoids the kitchen from stinking from a huge overflowing trash can.

Consolidate and pay off debt as soon as possible: If you carry any debt, focus on consolidating it to a lower interest and paying it off as soon as possible. Money paid in interest is money thrown away! Why spend your hard-earned cash to make the financial institutions rich?

Pay your bills on time and avoid late fees: Get organized about your regular bills. If possible, automate the payments. Most utilities and other recurring bills can be set to be charged to a credit card or deducted from a checking account these days. Also, many banks offer free bill pay programs. So there really is no excuse for forgetting to pay a bill on time and forking out the late fees. Say, by chance you do forget a bill, if you are a first time offender, call the company and request politely to waive the late fees, and more likely than not, they will oblige.

Be aware of your bank balance and avoid over draft fees: If you use your checking account often or have some bills that are paid automatically from your checking account, be aware of the balance and avoid overdraft fees.

Avoid ATM fees: Be aware of the ATM withdrawal fees charged by your bank. While some banks waive fees for all ATM transactions on any ATM machine, most don’t. So be sure to use only those ATM machines where your bank will not charge the fees, or withdraw directly at your bank.
Avoid credit cards with annual fee: Credit cards with their cash back bonuses and reward points are a great way to save some money. Just make sure that the card does not charge you any annual fees! There is no dearth of cards that offer fee-free reward plans, so there really is no reason to pay the annual fees.

Disconnect land line if possible: Unless you have small kids in the house or older people to take care of, it is more than likely that you will be able to survive with only the mobile phones and can get rid of the land line. We have survived without any problems for over 4 years now with out a land line. Our Internet comes via cable.
Instead of buying books, borrow books from the library: Whenever possible, borrow your books instead of buying them. The card to your public library is free and the libraries are generally well stocked. In my city, the chain of public libraries is connected and the available books can be checked online. If there is some book that I cannot find in my local branch, I can make a request online for it to be brought in from one of the other branches to mine which is very convenient.
If you have to buy books, check if you can buy it used: Used books do not quite give the same feeling as leafing through the crisp pages of a brand new book. But considering that you can get used books for almost as much as half the price of a new book, it is a small price to pay. My favorite place to buy used books is a local chain called “Half Price Book Store”. Check if you have something similar in your city. For text books, look online on bulletin boards, mailing lists etc, and price compare on websites like addall.com.
Price check before buying anything expensive: For other items that are expensive, do a price check before buying the item. If you can wait for a while you can track the prices and grab a great deal when it comes along. Frequently available online coupons make it even more easy to save some money. This is especially true while purchasing any electronics.
Avoid impulse buying: Make it a habit to avoid impulse buying. Many of the things you want to buy do not seem all that necessary, if you only you wait for a day or two. Also, waiting means you will be able to check prices and make an informed decision to buy it at the best possible price.
Bottle your own water: Drinking water is good for your health. I always make it a habit to keep some at my desk at all times. Bottled water is the most convenient since it can provide protection against accidental spills. That said, buy bottled water only once in a while, and then reuse that bottle to fill your own water. If you are not happy with tap water, invest in a Brita Filter – in the long run it can save a lot of money.
Avoid the vending machines: Almost everything that is dispensed via vending machines has a huge markup (and is rarely healthy). However, if you suffer from snack attacks at work, consider creating a secret stash of snacks. If you like drinking soda and have a fridge at the workplace, save a refrigerator pack in the fridge with a post-it with your name on it. If you have a long commute, consider a stash for the car as well and avoid a quick drive-thru visit.
Keep your car as long as possible: When possible, try to keep your car as long as possible. Find the balance between the money spent on repairs versus the monthly installment on another vehicle and choose to run your old car as long as the repair costs are low.
Do regular scheduled maintenance on your vehicles: Do not skimp on or forget to do regular oil changes. Remember to check the air in your tires often. And use the grade of fuel that the owner’s manual recommends. These small acts can significantly lengthen the life of your car, giving you years of use.

Avoid buying a new car: When you eventually buy a car, see if you can make do with a pre-owned vehicle. A new car depreciates significantly the moment you drive it out the dealership. Is the new car small really worth thousands of dollars? Pre-owned cars that are only a few years old with low mileage are the best bargains. Regardless of the purchase, learn to negotiate with car dealers.

Ride your bike or carpool whenever possible: In many of the cities in the US it is hard to get by without a car. That said, just because you have a car does not mean you have to use it every day. Whenever possible, ride your bike or share a ride with a colleague or spouse and save both on gas and reduce the environmental footprint.
If you watch a lot of DVDs, get an online DVD store membership: Membership to online movie stores like Netflix or Blockbuster Online can save you a lot of money compared to buying DVDs or renting it from a local store. You need to wait once you order the movie, but if you watch a lot of movies at home, then you can easily get into the habit of ordering ahead of time so you always have something at home. If you are patient and your library has the resources, check to see if they have a movie section. You won't get anything very new, but they are free.

If you like watching movies at the theater, go before 6:00 pm: This is one of our soft spots when it comes to spending. We really like watching movies in the theater with the big screen and the great sound effects. But instead of paying ~$10 a pop for the ticket, we usually go before 6:00pm when the tickets are a little less expensive. Also, for movies that we don’t absolutely want to watch right away, we just wait until it screens on the discount theater where the tickets are $2 a pop. We avoid the temptation to buy snacks, by usually going for a theater some time soon after our lunch or sometimes sneaking in our own snacks in the purse.

Regulate your electric use: When not in use, unplug electric appliances. Apparently, unplugging the TV instead of just switching it off can save a lot of electricity! When not in a room, switch off the lights and the fan. Use a programmable thermostat to control your A/C and heater usage. If that's too much, at least know what each appliance uses and unplug a few of them.

Plan vacations ahead of time: Vacations are a necessary part of saving our sanity in the busy lives that we lead. But vacations are also a huge drain on the family finances. You can cut the cost of a vacation significantly by planning and booking ahead of time. Bookmark travel sites for finding inexpensive airfare, hotel etc., and book at least two weeks in advance.
Finally, keep distance from lavish, high-roller friends: If you have lavish friends who buy a new car every other year (or worse still, lease it), have large screen TVs and every other conceivable electronics gadget, eat out at fancy restaurants every other night and just live way beyond their means, keep the distance. They may be nice people and mean you no harm, but hanging out with such people often can lead to a lot of unnecessary desires and discontent. What’s more important – your friends or your peace of mind?Whoa, that article ended up being a lot longer than I anticipated. Hopefully, I haven’t put you to sleep! Despite the length though, it barely scratches the surface when it comes to ways to save money. Make it a sub-conscious habit to save money in things that you do every day, even if it is a few dollars. All that money saved can add up significantly and you can save it or spend it on things that really matter!

NOTE: I am not saying that you should follow *all* these tips. Trying to be too frugal can make both you and the people around you very miserable. So, pick out a few tips at a time that will work for you and make them a habit, before deciding if you can incorporate more money saving habits in your daily routine.

Written by Sam Baker of GradMoneyMatters.com - a site dedicated to providing students a choice of money making ideas so they can say no to debt. Republished 6/19/2011.

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How To Get More Done At Work By Doing Less

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An idea worth doing: TEDxChange @ TEDxKibera

Melinda Gates blogs about a new and interesting collaboration:

After TEDxChange last fall in New York, we were interested in finding ways that we could keep the global conversation around health and development going. That’s why I’m excited to share our latest plans. Next week, we’ll be partnering with TEDxKibera in our first salon: TEDxChange @ TEDxKibera.

The TEDxKibera team has hosted more than 11 events within Nairobi’s Kibera slum in the last year, and the community they’ve developed is dynamic. We’ll be hearing from leaders in the community and discussing ideas about how all of us can get better about capturing and sharing progress, successes, and lessons learned.

The TEDxKibera team writes of the January 23 salon:

In this event, we’ll come together to explore the dynamism and potential of Kibera. First, we’ll hear short talks from people around the community. Then, we’ll engage in a candid discussion about what we all can do, individually and collectively, to highlight the important successes in communities like Kibera and inspire further work.

While the event won’t be livestreamed, we’re hoping to bring video from the event to you. And more important, the conversation will continue, around the world …

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10 Things To Stop Doing in Your Relationships

Want to build positive relationships? Then make sure not to commit the following 10 things that disrupt relationships:

Giving hurtful comments. Are you hurting others by your lack of tact? You might think that you’re being helpful, but your intentions might have hurt the other party instead. Put yourself in others’ shoes first. If it’s not a comment you appreciate hearing yourself, then perhaps it’s not something others will appreciate either.Giving solutions when the person is really looking for a listening ear. Probably an understatement: A lot of times what people want is a listening ear. Deep down, people have solutions to the problems they are facing – they are just looking for someone to share their frustrations with because they have had a long and hard day. I had a friend who would always butt in with suggestions whenever I shared my frustrations. Our conversations became stifling – in the end I stopped talking about them altogether because I wasn’t getting the refuge I wanted. Be more conscious of what the other party is looking for, and adjust accordingly to fit that.Being judgmental; Thinking you are above others. No one likes to be judged or labeled. If you are constantly judging others for what they do/say, it might be good to reflect that upon yourself.  Putting someone off doesn’t make someone a better person; it just makes him/her appear insecure. Humility is a timeless virtue that’s appreciated by everyone.Being defensive to criticism. How well do you respond to criticism? Do you become defensive and wall yourself up? Or do you graciously take it into stride and use the criticism constructively for growth? Learn to deal with critical people – it might be the most important skill you can ever acquire.Telling people what to do. Most of us don’t like it when people try to boss us around. Learning to energize people and get them on board a common vision is more empowering than trying to order people around.Being aloof; Not being responsive. I have experienced situations where acquaintances do not respond to correspondences, possibly because they do not see them as important. Subsequently I form a very bad impression of them, and deprioritize their requests when they seek my help later on.Thinking you know it all. The more I learn, the more I realize what I don’t know. There is a wealth of knowledge out there for us to learn. Thinking you know everything, rejecting new methods and vehemently insisting on your ways prevents you from connecting with others. Be open to trying new things.Being a complainer. It’s okay to complain every once in a while, but doing it all too often puts off people. Complaining too much makes you an energy vortex – it becomes draining to be around you. People like to be around positive people, not energy vampires. If you are one, it’s not too late to change – start by focusing on positive things around you and work from there.Not following up on things you agreed on. One of my pet peeves is when people don’t follow up on things they agree on (be it appointments, favors, etc). I think it makes them unreliable and leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. These are the same people that I make a note not to work with in the future.Not listening. Are you present in your conversations with others? Or is your mind on something else? When conversing with someone, learn to not only listen, but listen actively. Seek out the underlying message behind what someone is saying.

Here are some classic posts on dealing with people which you should check out:

Let’s work hard to build more meaningful relationships in 2011!

Image © Shutterstock

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