Keep in Contact

Apr 22, 2013 by Ben

This one’s an awesome two-parter.

I was chatting with my friend Rhett the other day and he mentioned that he liked my post on 5 Ways to Simplify Your Email and he also mentioned he just upgraded his phone and despite the people transferring over all his info, he still lost half his contacts.

Keeping up with friends and family these days has never been easier.  We have Facebook, and Twitter and all sorts of ways to text, call or reach out to our loved ones.  I created a Facebook group for my dads side of the family ,as it is very large and spread out, so we could all keep in touch.  I love all the ways technology makes it easy for us to keep up with those we care about.

That said, it can be a total nightmare when you lose your phone if that is the only place all your contacts are kept.  So this post is first about keeping your contacts in a safe place so they are not at risk to be lost forever if you lose your or upgrade your phone.  The best way I have found to do this is to keep all of my contacts in my email (gmail) account and then sync those to my phone.  That way when I get a new phone I can just sync all of my contacts at once and I can never lose them.  They are always online and I can access them anywhere I have internet.

So the first part of this Truly Simple Action for this week is to get all of your contacts out of your phone and into an online service where they can be kept safe.  I recommend Gmail, but other email clients may work as well.

You can do this one by one, but that does not sound like a fun way to spend an afternoon, so lets let the computer do the work.  If you have an IOS device, here is a simple guide to getting your contacts to sync between your phone/tablet and gmail.  If you have an Android phone or tablet, since those are already running a Google OS, it should work by default, but here is some info to help if you need it.

Once your contacts are in sync you can create one on the phone and it should sync over to gmail to keep it safe in the cloud.  Isn’t that nice?  Be careful, because the sync works both ways.  If you delete a contact on your phone, it will delete on gmail too.  Once they are all on gmail, you can get on your computer and do a little contact cleanup as it is much easier to do with a keyboard and mouse vs trying to do it all on a little touch screen phone.

Now that all your contacts are safe, part two of this Truly Simple Action this week is to use them.  Go through your contact list and reach out to a few old friends this week.  Out of the blue, just send them a note or give them a quick call and tell them how awesome they are.  Such a simple idea, but sometimes we don’t do it enough.  The awesome feeling both you and they will get from this will amaze you.

So keep your contacts safe, and use them.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

 

 

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Buy Experiences, Not Stuff

Apr 15, 2013 by Ben

As tax day is here and I prepare so send off a large chunk of cash to uncle sam its important to think about what we do with our money.  We can stock it away for a rainy day (not a horrible idea), or run out and buy the latest gadget the day it comes out.  We can go out to eat every night or save some money and cook at home.  We can buy a fancy new car or go on a big trip around the world.  With money comes choices.

And it is awesome that we have these choices, and we need to choose wisely.

So your Truly Simple Action of the week is to make good choices with your money.  Buy experiences and not stuff.

If you want to be happy, buy experiences and not stuff.  This has been studied quite a bit recently to show that those people who spend their money toward experiences and not accumulating things are happier.

It makes sense.  So instead of that next big thing you want to buy, look toward how you could spend those dollars on an experience.  Take a trip.  Plan an adventure.  Go camping with your friends.

The stuff you want will be there later and will probably be cheaper.  The experiences you miss may not come around again.

If you are in debt you need to work to pay those off.  This isn’t permission to max out the credit card on some trip to Jamaica.   But if you are just spending cash willy nilly on crap you don’t need, stop it and buy some real memories with that money.

I’ve got to run to the post office and send the IRS some more money now.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

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Slow the F*%! Down

Apr 8, 2013 by Ben

This Truly Simple Action is directly solely at me.  If it helps you as well that is great, but I need to hear this right now, so I am telling myself.  Slow the f*%! down Ben.

I had a truly horrible weekend.  I don’t have many bad days.  I am usually extremely happy and very easy going, but sometimes things all go awry, and I know exactly why this happens.

One of my strengths is that I am able to get an amazing amount accomplished.  This also stems from one of my greatest weaknesses which is unreasonable expectations.  I expect a lot from myself and I set out to accomplish it all.  When this goes well it goes great.  I kick ass and get more done that most people.  When it goes wrong, it goes horribly wrong and frustrates me more than anything.  As per last week’s TSA, I have been doing too much lately and it has come back to bite me in the ass.  The combination of too much going on with not enough hours in the day has set me up for some frustration as of late.

I need to slow down.  I need to not let my expectations frustrate me in the face of the reality of how long things really take to complete.  I need to try to do less and be OK with it.

If any of this sounds familiar, let this note to myself be a reminder to you to slow down.  If you are in the same boat as me I would love to hear how you deal with this?  Telling myself to slow down is easy.  Putting it into practice is really difficult for me.

So your Truly Simple Action this week is to slow down, but I want you to tell me how you do this.  How do you pause and reset your expectations toward reality and let things take the time they should take?

I would love to hear from you on this.  Please tell me in the comments below.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

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Do too much

Apr 1, 2013 by Ben

This may sound like an April fools post, but here me out on this one.  I usually am talking about doing less and simplifying your life, but there is a good case to be made for trying to do too much.  I always have several ideas, recipes and projects in the works around my house, but I try to not do too much so I have time for what is really important, like friends and family.   That said, lately, I’ve been swamped with a few big projects that have been taking all of my time.  I am officially doing too much and it has its negative side affects, but it also has a couple of positive ones too.

The negative side affects are clear as I do not like being exhausted or spending so much time away from my wife and family.  The benefit from being busy and doing too much is that it forces you to focus on the priorities and find the things in your life that you waste your time on.  In the last several weeks I have barely watched an hour of TV.  I haven’t played video games or wasted time online in weeks.

If you want to find the areas in your life that you waste your time, take on too much.  Fill your schedule with way too many projects that have deadlines and you will quickly realize what you you waste your time on and what you can cut out.

All that said, I miss my wife, walking my dog, spending more time with friends, and will be happy when all these projects are done and behind me.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

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Just Clean Up One Area

Mar 25, 2013 by Ben

Like many others you may have resolved to be a little more organized this year.  Part of many new years resolutions is the notion to clean up the mess and be more organized.  The problem with this resolution is that its too vague.  Be honest, if you’ve made that resolution this past January first, have you done anything about it yet?  Are you organized?  Are you on your way to being more organized?

Big lofty goals like this one are nice, but they are too big and lofty and can easily be forgotten as you don’t do any meaningful action to work towards them.  If you’ve read any of this site, you know we are all about the meaningful action so today we take some.

Your Truly Simple Action for this week is to clean up just one area in your house.

Pick an area.  Any area.

Clean out that junk drawer.  Organize your closet.  Get rid of some junk you don’t need and make some money doing it.

Just pick one area that is cluttered and aim to tackle that area this week.  Start small.  Don’t aim to clean out the whole house because you will never do it.  Just pick one small area and get it done.  This will not only feel awesome, but set the path toward your goal of being organized.

It’s a good idea to pick an area that you see often.  This is good for two reasons.  First you no longer have to look at that cluttered area once you’ve cleaned it up.  All those nagging reminders of, “oh yeah, I need to clean that up”, will be replaced with awesome feelings of accomplishment.   Second, those positive feelings of seeing that cleaned area combined with the great feeling of accomplishment for getting it done with lead toward more opportunities to clean and get organized.

So that is it.  So simple.  Just clean one area.  Its not hard.  You have time.

Write down on a sticky note right now the area that is popping into your head to clean.  Put that note somewhere you’ll see it.  Schedule a day in your calendar to clean that area.  Do it tonight.  Just get it done and let those positive ripple effects start to happen.

Ben…

Truly Simple Actions The goal of the TSA project is to improve your life and help make this world a better place, one simple action at a time.  Take time this week to do this one simple thing. Previous TSA’s:

 

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