Peter Bregman discusses the personal leadership challenge of repeating the things we do right and not repeating the things we do wrong.

His simple prescription is to take five minutes at the end of each day and ask of yourself these questions:

• How did the day go? What success did I experience? What challenges did I endure?
• What did I learn today? About myself? About others? What do I plan to do — differently or the same — tomorrow?
• Who did I interact with? Anyone I need to update? Thank? Ask a question? Share feedback?

Sometimes the most elegant solutions can be the simplest, too.

I’m going to print out these questions and use this hack.  At the end of a week, I’ll report back my results.  What are you doing to improve your situation?

The Best Way to Use the Last Five Minutes of Your Day via Harvard Business Review.

Ariston Anderson conducted a fascinating interview with Francis Ford Coppola that was recently published on Behance’s The 99 Percent blog.

Among some excellent tips on improvisation, working with powerhouse actors, and developing your artistic style, he offers these three rules to aspiring filmmakers:

1. Write and direct original screenplays
2. make them with the most modern technology available
3. self-finance them

Read the whole article Francis Ford Coppola: On Risk, Money, Craft & Collaboration via The 99 Percent

If anybody knows how to improve your chances of sticking with your resolutions, it’s Dan Heath & Chip Heath, authors of Made to Stick and Switch.  Here are their five recommendations:

1. Don’t be ambitious. When change is hard, aim low. A friend of ours, the editor of a wellness magazine, has a “1-Song Workout” that she does on days when she doesn’t feel like working out. She tells herself, “All I have to do is work out for one song,” but of course she often gets in a groove and finishes a full workout. So don’t set an ambitious New Year’s resolution like “I’ll work out four times a week.” Instead, plan to do “1-Song Workouts” on Monday and Thursday. Leave yourself room to overachieve — that feeling of “nailing it” is what will keep you hooked.
2. Watch for bright spots. If you’re trying to eat healthier, for instance, don’t obsess about all the times that you slip and eat an Oreo. Instead, keep a constant watch on what does work. If you ate healthy food all day yesterday, how did you get away with it? Was it because you had healthy “heat & eat” food that was easy to fix? Was it because you never let yourself get so hungry that you’d crave fatty foods? Did you avoid the office lunch at the Mexican place? If you can understand what allowed you to succeed, you can do more of it. That’s bright-spots thinking. (Need a refresher on “bright spots”?)
3. Make simple tweaks in your environment. If you’re trying to increase your savings, pay with cash and leave your cards at home. If you’re trying to diet, carry around a Ziploc of apple slices. If you’re trying to jog, lay out your clothes the night before. If you’re trying to stop oversleeping, set up a double (or triple?) alarm system. (Or buy a Clocky with your Xmas gift cards!) This stuff sounds insignificant, but it will make a big difference.
4. Rely on planning, not willpower. Your Resolution calls for a new way of behaving. And that’s a challenge because you’ve been practicing the old way of behaving for a long time. The old way is well-paved and familiar and comfortable. So you can’t just bet on willpower or good intentions to ensure your success. Use your planning skills. Get yourself on the hook for something! Don’t plan to “learn Spanish.” Register for a Spanish course at your local community college. Do it right now — you’re already online. Or don’t “try hard” to go to the gym in the morning. Email your friend, right now, and tell ‘em to come get you at 7am on January 3.
5. Publicize your resolution. We all know peer pressure works. So use it on yourself. Tell everybody you know what your resolution is. They’ll bug you about it, and you won’t want to disappoint them. Just knowing that they know will make you more likely to succeed. Hell, if you want, tell us. We won’t bug you about it, but we’ll silently root for you.

Courtesy of the Heath Brothers.

As part of their “Tools for Creativity” mini-series, Make magazine recently posted to their blog an insightful and encouraging list of 10 tips for “The Care and Feeding of Ideas.” Some are good reminders; all are practical. My favorite:

Step 6: Make it ugly and quickly, at first
If you’re passionate about your idea (and you should be), your head may be exploding with possibilities … It can be easy to get overwhelmed by all the possibilities, and at this point it’s a good idea to remember the KISS principle. First time out, reduce your idea to its simplest, most minimal execution, and make that version. Otherwise, you can get caught waiting on the tools, time, or materials to make it “perfect” the first time.

Ideas are great, but they don’t happen until you get them out of your head and into some tangible form, no matter how tenuous or ‘ugly’ the first draft seems. Get nine more inspirations in the article.

The Care and Feeding of Ideas via Make

With the change in the seasons, New York-based creativity coach Melissa Rosatti shares her tips for both reflecting on your marketing efforts this past year and preparing for a fruitful new year.  Here’s one…

Money: As the economy continues to be a rough ride, how are you growing in your relationship with money? What is money nurturing in your life? Where does the relationship need attention? As a measure of success, what is important to you in [the new year]?

Read more thought-provoking tips in Marketing Your Autumn Harvest for the New Year from Melissa Rosatti via the Creativity Coaching Association.

Writer’s Digest has compiled a list of the top 15 “secret” expectations, customs, and norms that aspiring writers tend to violate when working with editors.

The points boil down to basic professionalism and common courtesy that are applicable to anyone wanting to succeed commercially while working for, with, or through a client or some kind of gatekeeper. Non-writers can substitute the word “artist” for “writer” and nearly every point will still resonate. But the list a refreshing reminder of what editors are looking for in the writers they work with.  One of my favorites is:

10. FINISH THE JOB.
“I often feel like writers fall back on lazy tendencies. Quite often, I’ll give a substantive editorial suggestion, only to have the writer write or call back and say, ‘Great idea. Can you go ahead and make the changes required?’ “

Do professional creatives really need to be reminded that getting the job done to the client’s satisfaction is the surest path to swift payment and repeat business? At least in the eyes of the editors surveyed in this article, the answer is yes.

What Editors Won’t Tell You, But We Will via Writers Digest.

Josh Kaufman’s Personal MBA site is based around a list of 99 mostly business books he recommends.  Investing the time to read them, he says, will give you a world-class education and save you the $150K business school pricetag.

I’ve been a fan of Josh and his site for several years now, ever since reading his Personal MBA Manifesto on ChangeThis.  In fact, I enrolled in the first Personal MBA Crash Course earlier this year and got a hellaciously good education for the small price. As a CPA with corporate-level management experience, I felt I had a strong grasp on how business works. But the course really opened my eyes to why business, systems, and people (including myself) work the way they do.  Needless to say, I’m a huge fan of do-it-yourself (DIY) education.

A feature he’s added recently to his blog is book summary posts. When he reads a non-fiction book, he maximizes his return on the effort—and improves his retention and understanding of the subject—by writing about the “10 big ideas” he learns from the author.  It’s an old study trick, and it still works.

I read about one book a week. The vast majority of the time, they’re non-fiction, business or self-improvement volumes… perfect for following Josh’s example.  In this spirit, I’ll be adding a book summary category and posting the 10 big ideas I learn from the different books I read.  The first covers Amanda Ripley’s The Unthinkable.

Photo by janetmck

Many of us are living close to our financial limit these days. We pay our bills on time, but there’s not a lot left over. That could be a dangerous situation. If things go wrong, your financial situation can change very quickly from adequate to critical. Without a cash reserve, you could find yourself in serious trouble.

It’s important to have a cash reserve of at least three months’ living expenses. Invest your reserve in a safe, liquid account. Consider investments such as a bank CD, a money market fund, or a very short-term bond fund. Make sure you have easy access to the funds without losing too much interest. And once you’ve built your fund, avoid temptations to raid it for non-essentials.

Great, Rex, I get it.  But how the heck do I build that reserve in the first place?

There are only two ways to build up a cash reserve: reduce expenses (decrease outflow) and gain revenue (increase inflow).

I know you’re thinking, “well, duh!”  But it’s important to realize that it really is that simple.  Well, simplistic; not simple.  If it were that simple, you’d probably have that savings account filled up already.

Here’s an no-brainer way to start: A Dartmouth economics professor and three colleagues published a report late last year that found by simply texting people and reminding them to save money increased their savings-account balances by 6%.  The increase was even greater if the message included a reminder of the specific goals customers gave when setting up their savings accounts.

Yes, a simple, daily text message increased savings. One of the authors noted that it’s likely caused by the additional attention it forces you to pay to your savings, rather than a lack of self-control.  In addition to reminders you could set up for yourself via Google or Yahoo, the brains behind SaveEveryWay will do it for you.

Personal finance blog The Simple Dollar offers a step-by-step guide to creating an emergency fund.   Here’s the recap:

• Set your initial target low
• Find your breathing room
• Make it automatic
• Set reasonable milestones along the way

Actually, there are a number of incredible free resources with useful tips to help stretch your dollar in all kinds of ways:

Wise Bread

Get Rich Slowly

Frugal for Life

You can also read Jeff Yaegar’s book The Cheapskate Next Door.

Ultimately, expenses can only be cut so far.  No matter how spartan you’re willing to live, you’ll probably still need to pay for some kind shelter and to feed and clothe yourself.  In another post, we’ll explore some of the ways to increase the inflow of money.

Photo by nieve44

Planning what to do in case of a disaster is an important part of being prepared. The Internal Revenue Service encourages taxpayers to safeguard their records. Some simple steps can help taxpayers and businesses protect financial and tax records in case of disasters.

Listed below are tips for individuals and businesses on preparing for a disaster.

Take Advantage of Paperless Recordkeeping for Financial and Tax Records

Many people receive bank statements and documents by e-mail. This method is an outstanding way to secure financial records. Important tax records such as W-2s, expense receipts, tax returns, and other paper documents can be scanned onto an electronic format.

Be sure you back up your electronic files. You can copy them onto a ‘key’ or ‘jump drive’ periodically and then store them in a safe place. Making duplicates and keeping them in a separate location is a good business practice. Other options include copying files onto a CD or DVD. Also, many retail stores sell computer software packages that you can use for recordkeeping.

When choosing a place to keep your important records, convenience to your home should not be your primary concern. Remember, a disaster that strikes your home is also likely to affect other facilities nearby, making quick retrieval of your records difficult and maybe even impossible.

Document Valuables and Business Equipment

The IRS has disaster loss workbooks for individuals ( Publication 584, Casualty, Disaster, and Theft Loss Workbook) and businesses ( Publication 584-B, Business Casualty, Disaster, and Theft Loss Workbook) that can help you compile a room-by-room list of your belongings or business equipment. This will help you recall and prove the market value of items for insurance and casualty loss claims.

One option is to photograph or videotape the contents of your home and/or business, especially items of greater value. The photos or videos could be digitized and kept with your electronic backups.  Or, you could store the photos with a friend or family member who lives away from the geographic area at risk.

Check on Fiduciary Bonds

Employers who use payroll service providers should ask the provider if they have a fiduciary bond in place. The bond could protect the employer in the event of default by the payroll service provider.

Continuity of Operations Planning for Businesses

How quickly your company can get back to business after a disaster often depends on emergency planning done today. Start planning now to improve the likelihood that your company will survive and recover. Review your emergency plans annually. Just as your business changes over time, so do your preparedness needs. When you hire new employees or when there are changes in how your company functions, you should update your plans and inform your people.

There are real benefits to being prepared for disasters. The following preparedness strategies are common to all disasters. You plan only once, and are able to apply your plan to all types of hazards.

• Get informed about hazards and emergencies and learn what to do for specific hazards.
• Develop an emergency plan.
• Learn where to seek shelter from all types of hazards.
• Back up your computer data systems regularly.
• Decide how you will communicate with employees, customers and others.
• Use cell phones, walkie-talkies, or other devices that do not rely on electricity as a backup to your telecommunications system.
• Collect and assemble a disaster supplies kit. Include a portable generator.
• Identify the community warning systems and evacuation routes.
• Include required information from community and school plans.
• Practice and maintain your plan.

Update Emergency Plans

Emergency plans should be reviewed annually. Personal and business situations change over time and so do preparedness needs. Individual taxpayers should make sure they are saving documents everybody should keep including such things as W-2s, home closing statements and insurance records. When employers hire new employees or when a company or organization changes functions, plans should be updated accordingly and employees should be informed of the changes.

Make sure you have a means of receiving severe weather information; if you have a NOAA Weather Radio, put fresh batteries in it. Make sure you know what you should do if threatening weather approaches.

Count on the IRS

In the event of a disaster, the IRS stands ready to help. The IRS has valuable information you can request if your records are destroyed.

Immediately after a casualty, you can request a copy of a return and all attachments (including Form W-2) by using Form 4506, Request for Copy of Tax Return (PDF).

If you just need information from your return, you can order a transcript by calling (800) 829-1040 or using Form 4506-T, Request for Transcript of Tax Return (PDF). There is no fee for a transcript. Transcripts are available for the current year and returns processed in the three prior years. IRS.gov is an indispensable resource as you prepare for and recover from disaster.

Jumping off the cliff.
Pulling the trigger.
Taking the plunge.

Whatever you want to call it, I’ve just done it.

As of July 1, I’ve left the comfortable confines of corporate life to make my own mark on the world. I’ve joined the ranks of the willingly self-employed in order to realize my vision of …

Crap. What’s my vision again? If I can’t remember it, it must not have been that important. And if it’s not that important, how can I make any money at it? Oh no. Maybe it’s not too late to ask for my old job back…

And so it goes. From the soaring heights of self-empowerment to the depths of despair and debt in five seconds flat. An emotional roller coaster.

But also necessary. Alan Moore, who wrote V for Vendetta and Watchmen among other popular comics and graphic novels, described his own transition experience:

Quitting my day job and starting my life as a writer was a tremendous risk. It was a fool’s leap, a shot in the dark. But anything of any value in our lives whether that be a career, a work of art, a relationship, will always start with such a leap.

But now that I’ve leapt, how can I be sure to land on my feet rather than my face?  It’s inevitable that from time to time I’ll feel like a fool and regret my decision. That’s fear talking. What Seth Godin calls the “Lizard Brain.”

Consistent action and focused intent are the only ways I’ve been able to overcome it and get things done.  I’ve picked up a little trick that seems to help. I even use it at the gym. Once I’ve picked my goal—let’s say, to run two miles—I ignore it. Instead of focusing on the Big Goal, which inevitably makes me anxious and want to quit before I embarrass myself by failing to achieve it, I focus on the little milestones.

When I’m running, I don’t count how many laps I have to go, I count how many laps I’ve made and only think about making two quick turns on the track to get me to my next half-lap goal. The chatter in my brain sounds something like this:

5… 5… just have to get to 5½.
5½… 5½… two quick turns and I’ll be at 6.
6… 6… just have to get to 6½.

Before long, I’ve tricked myself into running 18 laps and I’ve accomplished by two mile goal.

E. L. Doctorow said that “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

Leaping, running, driving.  The metaphors may be a bit mixed, but the advice is still solid: Take a chance and keep at it, and you’ll get there.