100 Things To Do On a Free Day

100 Things to do on a free day in no particular order, repeats allowed:
1. Pre school
2. Play with my kids
3. Science experiments
4. Take my wife on a shopping spree
5. Learn to fish
6. Go golfing
7. Fly to my brother's house and go golfing with him/them
8. Learn to fly an airplane
9. Learn to fly a helicopter
10. Sail
11. Learn Spanish
12. Learn Chinese
13. Read a fiction book
14. Read to my kids
15. Have my kids read to me
16. Rent/buy rollerblades and go rollerblading
17. Miniature golf
18. Cook lunch
19. Cook dinner
20. Do laundry...is that a free day thing...I don't get around to these things on other days-Support day?
21. Learn to Sail
22. Play the song Sail while sailing
23. Go sailing with my wife's grandmother and say "look I'm sailing...I sail"
24. Watch What About Bob on a boat even though I think I like it about as little as my wife's G-ma
25. Play guitar
26. Have my wife teach me to crochet
27. Go to the zoo
28. Go to the temple
29. Have a picnic
30. Fly to NC and play a board game with old friends (not old ones, but old ones you know?)
31. Learn to scuba dive
32. Plan a vacation for another free day (or is that a support day or delegate thing?)
33. Read
34. Sleep in
35. Breakfast in bed
36. Kiss my wife
37. Give my wife a massage
38. Get kissed by my wife
39. Go for a long walk
40. Eat cake
41. Go get a maple bar and a slurpee and figure out how to mail them to NC
42. Read the newspaper
43. Go to an estate sale
44. Go to an auction
45. Play football
46. Play soccer
47. Play basketball
48. Play volleyball on a real beach
49. Go to the beach with my kids
50. Build sandcastles
51. Lie on the beach
52. Learn to surf
53. Surf
54. Go someplace warm and exotic and surf
55. Go visit my cousin in NY and surf in cold water
56. Surf in the surf tee hee.
57. Visit a rainforest
58. Visit a national park
59. Visit a state park
60. Learn Dvorak (typing)
61. Lean Dvorak song on piano
62. Learn to play piano
63. Learn a piano concerto and duet with my wife and teach my oldest child a song on piano and invite people over for a concert with brownies
64. Make brownies with my son
65. Help my mother clean out her basement
66. Ride a horse
67. Ride my brother's horse
68. Golf
69. Eat delicious food
70. Eat delicious food in Italy
71. Hang glide
72. Climb cliffs
73. Go spelunking
74. Write a book
75. Do a crossword puzzle start to finish
76. Make a crossword puzzle with fun words like spelunking and galoshes
77. Write a song
78. Write a song and play and sing with guitar/piano with high school best friend
79. Eat Pringles
80. Go on a campout without pre-planning (prob with my kids) a la my high school self with two besties (not with my kids then..)
81. Row
82. Explore an island
83. Draw with sidewalk chalk
84. Golf with my Father-in-law and Brothers-in-law
85. Learn to fish
86. Shoot a gun
87. Get really good at archery
88. Take up fencing again
89. Poke someone with a sword (with safety gear)
90. Plan a bank heist scenario
91. Write an action novel with a bank heist scenario
92. Shoot the bull
93. Camp in a tee-pee
94. Make (have made) cowboy and Indian costumes and get laser tag equipment and play cowboys and Indians on real horseback
95. Before doing above research if laser tag equipment could harm horses. If so, do above with broomstick horses with kids instead of adults
96. Plan and act out zombie scenario for my brother-in-law's birthday
97. Watch Bones with my wife--all day
98. Pick a new show to watch with my wife
99. Play video games including retro ones
100. Watch old timey horrer movies with bro-in-law

Idea from Work Less, Make More: Stop Working So Hard and Create the Life You Really Want by Jennifer White

Today Matters--The Daily Dozen

I have developed the habit of listening to audiobooks on my commute. Since my commute is only about 20 minutes each way, I get less than an hour of "reading" in each day which usually is not enough time to finish a book in the 21 days I have before the library calls the audiobook due (I rent books on my smart phone from OverDrive). So I have gotten into the habit of listening while I do the dishes. This gives me extra listening time soI can finish a few books a month (somehow my wife and kids dirty a lot of dishes while I am at work:)). While I think this annoyed my wife at first because she was not always interested in my book, now I think she appreciates only having to do the dishes occasionally and has moved into the other room while I listen and clean. Now I only annoy her with conversations about the books...we can't win them all.

As an aside: according to Tom Corley http://richhabits.net/?s=read+non+fiction 63% of wealthy people listen to audio books during commute to work vs. 5% for poor people... I must be one of the 5% :) I wonder if when I become wealthy I'll pull the wealthy up to 64% and the poor people will drop to 4%...

I recently finished listening to a book Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices to Guarantee Tomorrow's Success by John C. Maxwell. I really liked how he discussed how each practice affected him in each decade of his life. This sort of showed me a timeline of how practicing each of his "Daily Dozen" principles could affect my life if I start living them now. As a physical therapist I recognize how small changes in behavior can make large changes over time, but it's easy to give up before you see the fruits of your labor. Almost like a farmer giving up on his seeds because he doesn't see them germinating underground. Many times it takes a long time to see progress and it can be difficult to recognize the progress as it comes slowly. I often tell my patients that they may not notice the changes just like a child cannot see their growth in height day by day, but it is significant if measured against a standard scale every 6 months or year.

Maxwell recommends ranking the daily dozen from 1-12 with #1 your strongest and #12 your weakest. Then discuss your ranking with a friend. Then spending 60 days working on two practices from your top 6 and one from your bottom 6. I had trouble ranking them 1-12, but dividing them into top 6 and bottom 6 was easier. Below see the list of "daily dozen" in the order he covers them in the book. I am starting by working on #'s 2, 4, and 5. However, I find that they all are connected and I can't help but be working on others simultaneously. As part of #5 and in an attempt to not overly annoy my wife with random babblings about the books I am listening to, I will begin posting more frequently in this blog. I also feel that this will show my progress in much the same way Maxwell demonstrated his. Without further ado, the daily dozen:

1. Attitude --> Possibilities
2. Priorities --> Focus
3. Health --> Strength
4. Family --> Stability
5. Thinking --> Advantage
6. Commitment --> Tenacity
7. Finances --> Options
8. Faith --> Peace
9. Relationships --> Fulfillment
10. Generosity --> Significance
11. Values --> Direction
12. Growth --> Potential

Now get out there and live them every day...because Today Matters!

Winning in the Margins--50 cents = $434,124

Winning in the Margins!! 

Richard Paul Evans wrote the book The Five Lessons a Millionare Taught Me. Lesson four is "Winning in the Margins". It's been several years since I read his book and I don't truly remember how he explained the principle, but this principle is one that has stuck with me and somewhat haunted me. Though this isn't exactly how he meant it, if I remember correctly, I'm beginning to see that we need to "win in the margins" of every part of our life and business. Said another way, it's the great magnitude of little things.

 

I’m convinced that this is the primary reason for business success or failure. Success in business finances and personal finances isn't a matter of doubling income, it's a matter of doubling net profits! This can be done in several ways. A failing business and successful business are usually not that far apart. Understand that if I make $4,000/month and I am saving $400/month. I only need to make $4,400 and save the extra $400 to DOUBLE my retirement income. In other words an increase of 10% in salary can increase your retirement savings by 200%! And if we take the same principle into retirement things get even better! If you can retire on 100% of you retirement savings (and I hope you can, otherwise you probably should think three times about retiring, and then keep working instead) then you can blow the extra on whatever floats your boat (how 'bout buy a boat and then buy what floats it to the little island that you also will own one day) or retire a lot sooner! Or realize that your time is freed up to make some real money and make a real difference in the world and your world.

 

All the little things matter a ton! It’s the last little push that makes all the difference. Your salary pushes you up the hill, the margin pushes you the last 3 feet so you can coast down the other side. Once you've paid for all of your expenses, every dollar you earn goes in your pocket (after Uncle Sam picks your pocket of course).The little things--the extra dollar you earn (Richard Paul Evans' mentor's meaning), the extra dollar you don't spend, the extra smidgen of a percentage point added to a loan, the extra smile you give your customer, the extra perk you give to over-perform, the extra flair you give your marketing, the extra thanks you give your employee, the extra few dollars negotiated in a business contract, the extra $1/hour you negotiate in your salary which equals $2080 if you work full time. If you can’t get an extra dollar try an extra 50 cents for $1040, or even 25 cents for $520. Ask your boss for an extra 25 cents when you are negotiating your salary--who can say no to that?--and you get yourself a nice Christmas bonus of $520. You may even get a Christmas bonus from work too!

 

In addition to skills and attitude (much of which depends on your upbringing and social construct and much of which depends on what you are willing to work for), I bet this largely accounts for the disparity between classes--at least between low and upper middle class. If you and I both live on $50,000 to pay all our bills and you make $50,000 and I make $55,000 and invest the extra $5,000 at 7% per year interest in a Roth IRA from age 20-65 (check out bankrate.com for many easy financial calculators). I will have over $1.5 million dollars when I retire and you will have $0. If I want to double my retirement to over $3 million, I need only make $60,000 per year instead of $55,000. Or perhaps I ask for an extra 25 cents/hour when we get hired and I make $50,520 per year. That 25 cents ($520/year) invested = $158,991 in retirement. You could go on a SWEET 25 cent vacation for $158,991 even factoring in inflation. Or blow it on Christmas for the next 45 years, that works for me too. If you can make an extra 1% (8% instead of 7%) on your interest, you get an extra $58,071. Two simple tiny changes: 25 cents and 8% = $217,062. May as well ask for a dollar, you may get 50 cents and then you’re well on your way to half a million!

 

As a business owner, if you negotiated 25 cents lower, you could give out some sweet $520 bonuses to all your employees every year! Or if you are an owner of a company with 1924 employees, you could pocket an extra $1,000,000 a year. Of course you’d have to consider whether that extra 25 cents would lose you some good employees or morale which may cost you more. But most studies show there are better ways to say “thank you” to your employees than an extra 25 cents an hour...like saying "thank you"…though a $158,991 Christmas retirement check wouldn’t hurt either.