After a Hiatus that I used to retool myself, battle the crushing (and evil) behemoth that is the IRS, I am finally again resuming the money making and fun I’m used to. I’m making what I was in the so-called ‘boom’ years (the available financing made this a ‘boom’ time) from a variety of sources. I’ve got my IRS debt down below five figures, so I can start whittling the rest of the debt down.
That feels freeing. Money is a drug, and when you have toxicity flowing about it dims the light on everything else in your life–your relationships–your family. All of it. It’s one system, but when that’s not working it’s as immiserating as anything else. For much of the last couple of years, my income wasn’t the problem (though it went down in 08 as I fled the day-to-day role in the mortgage industry). The overhead/expenses were.
So, H and I took MASSIVE action. Little steps don’t work. Saving a little more or skipping a restaurant meal isn’t enough to get free fast. It’s enough to die slow. We are living ultrafrugally in some areas. Very, very few monthly obligations. No TV, No cable. Went from an expense load of $4100/month to $2400/month. (Gross that up, it’s after tax dough that matters, so at $4100/month, you’re earning 5494 to pay basic expenses.) This frees you up in several ways: both the expenses and the pressure of having to earn that is gone. Makes things faster. Think of a PC running vista when it should be running Windows 2000. Everything works better.
We sold and are selling a lot of stuff to escape the debt. Decluttering works. Even if we get pennies on the dollar for stuff we bought, we don’t have to incur the continued cost of ownership. Half-measures don’t work at all. The consumerist stuff doesn’t lead to peace. It doesn’t bring joy. It doesn’t bring security, it brings dissipation, anxiety. And I struck out on my own as a freelancer during this time, maintaining health insurance and everything else. Once this is over, then we won’t be shackling ourselves with too much–savings first, then stuff.
No splendor to be found when mere stuff is all you have. A new mac will get old, a blackberry will slow down, and a new car will rust. Statement of fact. WALL*E was a great criticism of the consumerist lifestyle (made by a consumerist company). (This reminds me. Must get the Iron Giant to watch with Jack.)
I started seeing the endproduct of consumerism sometime in 2006. I have been on record (as early as 2001) saying that the mortgages were a time bomb or ponzi scam. Because people refinanced with me to pay for boob jobs, pulling $20k out of a $130k house. Dissipation & stupidity. I thought it was going to be more acute, but faster to pass. I thought we’d see giant, clear, quick price drops like we did in the stock market in 2000…with a return to business months after. Not so much.
….
Which brings me to Ubiquitous Capture/GTDing. The reason for this post (my blog–I can meander). Right now, I’ve got about 40 hours of work to deliver for various clients. Probably more. And I need to get it done, and while I’m making progress, stuff has slipped through the cracks. And the standard I insist on upholding is not being upheld. And working “more” isn’t the answer.
I need to have a mechanism for maintaining the lists so I’m keeping my deadline commitments. I need a few lists, and I need to do this religiously. I need to capture everything, and then print and/or do it at least once a day. That means: take everything out of my moleskine, and centralizing it. That means: everything that I’m doing goes on a list. That means all projects get some bullet points.
It also means that I can say, organize a project (like the overdue redoing of this here Thesis theme blog), and gnash on it a little at a time because I’ve again got handy lists.
I’ve tried Evernote. Too cumbersome for me. Google notebook impacts the running of firefox 3. Worked fine in 2.5. Blows in 3 because it somehow gets stuff to refresh on both the browsers I’ve messed with it on, and it doesn’t minimize right. GTD agenda has spammed my blog 4-5 times, so I won’t be messing with them.
Maybe an always open document, but I like the online idea. A ‘daily review,’ is what’s needed. The weekly review = too cumbersome as is. Maybe.
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