2025-01-02 @ 2345

New Year, New Plans

Plan, plan, plan!  Always plan ahead.  Here are eight things you need to do for the beginning of the year.

1.  Check all the important dates

Go through the entire year of the calendar, plus a little bit of the beginning of the next year, and do a what-events-fall-on-what-day investigation.  Make sure you start a plan for each event or holiday you want to celebrate or emphaze.  Please review the birth dates that you are supposed to remember!!

2.  Budget, budget, budget

Please budget accordingly, and make it a must-do routine.  Write out all the expenses and calculate the total amount you will spend.  It is not about not having the money for your activities, it is for your own understanding of where your money is spent on.  The better you track your expenses, the more likely you will save more money.  Once you know where you have spent your money, the more reluctant you will want to spend your money.

3.  Learn new rules

New rules as in by-laws, tax laws, new penalty of speeding on the road, etcetera, will help to protect and benefit you in the new year.  In Canada, I recommend checking Federal rules (Immigration Policies, Travel guides, Federal Licenses Renewal Requirements), Provincial rules (OHIP Coverage, Provincial Licenses Renewal Requirements, Driving Regulations), and Municipal rules (Waste Program, Recycle Program, Speed Camera Locations)

4.  Work plans

Make plans for your work so that you are on top and ahead of yourself.  You must see what is ahead of you for you to act accordingly.  It will give you peace of mind whenever emergency happens, you will be able to adjust your schedules and plans swiftly.

5.  Study plans

Not everyone is into upgrading themselves, but it should not be you.  Learning and studying are much more than knowledge enrichment.  They are also a process of keeping you up with continuous critical thinking and memory training.  As we age, not going forward means going back.  Practise is only way to make you closer to perfect.

6.  Travel plans

Well, if you have money for traveling this year, good for you.  Remember to make a plan.  Beginning of the year is the best time to go through your potential availability for vacations.  If you cannot make a definite plan for it, you should keep it in mind when in the calendar are the points of flexibility.  Also, plan way ahead of time if you require exchange for foreign currency, especially for USD as it is quite costly if not carefully prepared.

7.  Project plans

Your success in your work projects can most likely reflect your success in life.  Treat every project like your last one in life.  It would help you to achieve your best.  Set purposes, budget, timelines, deadlines, milestones, and most importantly, meeting dates.  Communication is the key to a successful team work.  For individual projects, meeting the set deadlines is the key to a successful individual work.

8.  Update on your personal items

Personal items would include: Federal, Provincial, and Municipal licenses renewal; auto, home, health, incident, and life insurances renewal.  Also review all your subscriptions renewal, such as Netflix, Spotify, YouTube Premium, etcetera, to make sure your payment methods are up-to-date.  Since it is the beginning of the year, you might want to double check whether there is an increase in fees or not.

#PlanPlanPlan
#PlanningForSuccess

2025-01-01 @ 2319

Reflection, Not Celebration

Happy 2025!  I wish everyone another year of happiness.

We have always been told to celebrate on anniversaries and holidays.  As the world we live in changes every second, we should consider spending the time reflecting on ourselves.  A reflection is usually done at the end of a milestone, however, I believe adding a reflection at the beginning of your planning would be a key to a greater milestone.

Here are three things we can surely reflect on in the new year.

1.  Always Mind Your Own Business

You will always be influenced by the noises in social media.   In a world like this now, do not get emotionally involved or attached to things and news that upset you.  Instead of just reporting or stating the facts, most reporters, journalists, and the nobody-social-media-posts will say anything to make sure you sympathize with their stories and/or point of view.  You have to focus on yourself first, and people who are around you.  Do not put yourself in a situation that you cannot afford to get out of.  Losing friends and families over some terrorist attacks overseas does not justify yourself with more dignified human qualities.  If you cannot how to handle emotions, please do everybody a favour and do not watch or read the news.

2.  Always Plan On Everything

This is a very fragile world.  You must plan before you act.  Treat everything you do like a real-life work project, so when the time comes, you will know exactly what to do.  Personal finance and daily schedule should be your focus.  Schedule your daily exercises, laundry dates, study hours, work hours, etcetera, to motivate you to follow through your planning.  During the day, record everything you do in your schedule; then at the end of the day, you can now review you have done for the day, and compare the recording with your planned schedule.  This way, you can refine your schedule based-on how feasible and doable with the tasks you have planned.  When you plan on another project, you now have a baseline on how to integrate the project timeline with your most refined schedule.  About personal finance, you must have a budget for the year, and a projection of your budget for the next ten years.  The long-term projection helps you to budget yourself now.  It helps you to understand what you need to do now if you see the trend of the spending in the next decade.  It also helps you to schedule yourself accordingly.  I do suggest you to keep a five-year daily schedule if possible.  This way, you will never miss an important date!

3.  Always Leave A Margin

Whatever you do, always leave a margin.  Always arrive ahead of time, not on time.  Always get up earlier than you need to.  Always eat but not full.  Always spend less than you need to.  Always leave a space for an argument.  Always keep a slight distance with others, physically and personally.  Always pay more attentions to everything than you need to.  Always put a second thought on the one thing you rely on the most.

I hope you will take the time to reflect on yourself and eventually become the master of yourself.

#Happy2025
#ReflectOnYourself