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Is personal finance a to do item or an appointment?

Posted by admin on March 15, 2010 in Investment Information

I used to have a good memory and, umm….where was I going with this again?

…seriously, I found that this year the to do list has its limitations. It is easy to jam dozens of items onto a to do list and never get to most of them. In other words, time is not being made to complete each item on the list. After missing paying on two bills by a day each, I have moved personal finance items from the to do list to appointments. The due dates of bills are now posted as appointments in my calendar. Appointments are made to finish my taxes and to review my portfolio.

I ended up moving to this method after reading an article by a new father about trying to stay in shape. His essential point was that the only way to exercise was to book his training sessions as appointments and to treat them like business meetings. After all, people who are late or never attend business meetings are not in business for very long. When he did not  make appointments to work out, there was a natural tendency to make excuses  (now, if you religiously complete each item in your to do list, there is no need to change).

The key though is to treat it like an appointment. Close the door, move all distractions and just get to it. I will let you know how it goes.

As a clarification on last week’s post on the Home Renovation Tax Credit (HRTC), it was stated that landlords may qualify for the HRTC. They do not. The passage has been removed from the post. Sorry for any confusion and, as usual, please make sure you seek qualified accounting advice.