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 AlteredAgain
Visual Alchemist
Registered: 04/27/06
Posts: 11,181
Loc: Solar Circuit
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 Organizing Daily Life: Systems, Techniques, Hacks  1
#15792859 - 02/11/12 01:58 PM (12 years, 2 months ago) |
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Everybody knows the rush of modern life. Some people decide to remain on the periphery of it by living out on the country, but for the most of us living in or near cities, we're caught in the middle of it. Yeah, we like it that way, but if you're like me, sometimes it just drives you nuts.
Life in the rush, juggling social life, work life, college life, family life, all at the same time; it's challenging, but not unmanageable. Most people handle it quite well. Some just need to stay connected to their smart phone to stay organized, a lucky few are just naturally wired to be on top of their game. However again, most of us stumble and fumble, not all the time, but after that moment we get lazy and forget to tidy up the apartment or procrastinate on that one project, it feels like we're doomed as all the undone tasks pile up higher before us. Well, this thread is for that most of us.
I recently surfed onto shore of a buzz word called "life hacking". I first came across it while I was researching what the hell GTD was and why people all over the DIY spheres of the internet were "hacking their Moleskines". Seemed odd at first, until I realized they were just taking a plain notebook and with the help of a pen and colored sticky tabs creating a complete personal analog assistant with a built-in task manager, project tracking interface, and a kind of life planning application called "Someday/Maybe".
That's when it came to me: This is like hacking into reality, tweaking the OS of yourself if you will. And that's when I discovered these techniques have been around ever since there have been geeks and they're now commonly referred to as life hacks. So that had me curious about what else we can do to better organize daily life.
I guess that's what has me starting this thread. I want to know what hacks you guys have coded into your reality and create a little nexus here on the Shroomery for sharing these kinds of techniques.
Anyone find themselves interested more in the subject, take a look at the book I've attached. Living Simple: Radical Tactics to Reduce the Clutter, Complexity, and Costs of your Life is about just that. I made an effort to rip the book to PDF for offline reading. It's basic stuff but sometimes it's in the basics that we can find the root of great insight. I hope you enjoy it.
Share away.
  
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AlteredAgain
Visual Alchemist
Registered: 04/27/06
Posts: 11,181
Loc: Solar Circuit
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 Re: Organizing Daily Life: Systems, Techniques, Hacks [Re: AlteredAgain]
#15793663 - 02/11/12 05:10 PM (12 years, 2 months ago) |
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To start, I recommend anyone looking to get a hold on their spending habits to log all their financial transactions and record them in electronic home banking software. The hack here is obvious. The only way to get accurate statistics and a clear visual of where your money is flowing, is through processing and recording. An electronic home bank assistant is invaluable for it does much of the thinking for you, if you make the effort to continually feed it with data. Benefits include statistics reports via pie chart or bar graph overviews, budget management and notifications, multiple account tracking, the categorizing of transactions, trend time reports, live balance reports, and vehicle reports. For example, I noticed the cash in my wallet generally depletes to near zero every five days with help of the balance reports. I would have never known that if the system didn't draw a graph using the data.
There's a ton of garbage accounting software out there, so I basically went for the one that is simple and low resource: HomeBank.
With the use of accounting, the question then comes, how do I categorize my expenses? Of course you can just log each transaction onto one pile and the system will still be able to tell you how much money you have, or how your spending compares to your income. But it will never be able to tell you exactly why your spending is the way it is compared to your income. The only way to achieve that kind of detail is with correct categorizing, and this must be simple, yet able to cover all your bases.
After a lot of thinking, I was able to compile a list of categories for myself that I think is able to include every aspect of my daily life and define it within a simple set of categories that enables me to quickly ascribe each income or expense to the most fitting category for most accurate spending habit results.
These categories are
- FOOD
- DRUGS
- SHELTER
- HEALTH
- HYGIENE
- DINING
- TAXES
- GOODS
- SERVICES
- CLOTHING
- LEISURE
- TRANSPORT
- EDUCATION
- CAR
- GIFTS
- MISCELLANEOUS
- ATM
- LOANS
- EMPLOYMENT INCOME
- SELF-EMPLOYED INCOME
- OTHER INCOME
Sure, if you have a pet, you may want to add a PET category or whatever else you find missing. This is just what I found fits my needs, but it may give you a good idea of what is essential, what primarily belongs to a home banking category list. Take it, modify it however you will, make it yours. I did design this list with HomeBank in mind so I don't guarantee its effectiveness with other accounting software, but it should pretty much work well with anything.
Attached is another PDF. It contains exact descriptions for each category, so there's no longer a doubt about where that bag of funky weed goes. Yep, DRUGS.
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Edited by AlteredAgain (02/11/12 05:15 PM)
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AlteredAgain
Visual Alchemist
Registered: 04/27/06
Posts: 11,181
Loc: Solar Circuit
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Re: Organizing Daily Life: Systems, Techniques, Hacks [Re: AlteredAgain]
#15808754 - 02/14/12 03:49 PM (12 years, 2 months ago) |
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The point is to always process your inbox to zero. Whether it's the email inbox or the spot you place your keys and physical mail at when you come home at the end of the day. By making sure any newly generated pile of information is processed immediately, we can avoid the first trap that leads to procrastination and subsequently to "not getting things done".
In the case of electronic mail, I've realized this: make the step to host your own email address. Either a home server if you're technically inclined, or pay a standard fee for the web space required. Trust me, it's worth it. Being able to pick a nameserver for yourself is just the allure of it.
I thought of it like this. Most of everyone rents an electronic mailbox in exchange for personal information with one of the giants like Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft. Heck, maybe even Facebook is going to start hosting our mailboxes. They've certainly extracted more than just our mail.
Would you trust a multinational corporation with your physical mailbox? Think about it. Sure, the NSS can snoop all it wants with the designated paperwork—but that isn't looking to change just yet.
Well, you may ask, so what, it's just email? Yes, it's just that, the most basic communication tool that isn't piped though third party interfaces like wall posts and status updates. It's ultimately a simple and very effective way to disperse one's voice across the globe in comparison with analog media like vocal chord vibrations for example. The TAZ explosions in Egypt, Libya, and similar other countries where people organized and assembled happened via one online short messaging service: Twitter. The people there rallied via email basically, just using an enhanced and popular form of it.
So why switch again? Because of the control it gives back to you, where it belongs.
Everyone I know has at least two different email addresses. Personal and Junk. What's really neat about hosting your own is that you can have an unlimited amount of email addresses, using only a single address. Email forwarding is the key and using that you create as many forwards you need. For example, first you'd register your Amazon account with amazon@yourname.com. After that you go into Cpanel and define a forwarding action to your actual email address. And voila, you are now receiving incoming mail from a ghost email address. Do that with every registered account you have on the entire internet, now if one of them ever decides to sell you out with spam, then when receiving it, you'll know exactly whodunit. I just think that's awesome. It gives you some independence from putting all your mail in one box. Say you no longer wish communicating with a provider, you simply make the forward disappear.
So yeah, the point of all this is to process your inbox to zero, as Merlin of 43Folders says. The moment you receive a new item in your inbox, click it only if you're willing to deal with it right away. Respond to it if you can reply in 2 minutes or less. Move it to the "Follow Up" folder if you need to take the time later. If you need to save an email exchange, move it to "Archive". Waiting on a someone else's response, place it in "Hold". Whatever has to be done, get it out of your inbox.
On the other side of the mirror, the reality hack would be to designate a space in your home to be an inbox, where you bring the mail in from outside, drop your keys and PA, and set down your bags. Saw this DIY hack making a front door inbox just using IKEA magazine holders mounted onto the wall, with cell phone charging station and even an Outbox for outgoing mail that needs to be brought to the post office. 
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Edited by AlteredAgain (02/15/12 06:01 AM)
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