This site is on hiatus... Indefinitely

2008-04-20T08:54:00.000-07:00

As the title blatantly shouts out, this site is on hold indefinitely, aka it's in ER and the doctor is about to pronounce it death. This probably has to qualify for the fastest death/quasi-shutdown for a blog.

Why?
Simply put, I had lots of ideas but neither time nor a viable system to organize, write and publish by the dateline I set myself (weekly). 1 month from my 1st post, I have the skeletons for 5 posts, research for 7, and enough books/material to read till I am 60. It didn't help that I work 12-14hr on a normal working day and the past 3 weeks were anything but normal.

Lessons to be learnt

Build a contingency plan for when your writing time is eaten up (by work, family, the cookie monster, whatever) before embarking on an endeavour. That way, you won't be 200 miles from port when your boat springs a leak and you find that you have no bucket to bail with.
Make detailed notes. It gets pretty annoying when I have to refer to a book every other day, particularly when said book is returned in the library. By making detailed notes, I can quickly scan them for reference without having to dig through hundreds of pages of rubbish.
Practice what you preach, or internalize your workings before writing. This may sound pretty hypocritical, but I had just embarked on this project personally only for about 4 months. I am practicing methods that I gleaned from my readings, but the whole system is not in a state where I am consistently getting the results I want (read: more time to do things I want).

This does not mean I plan to end on a whimper. Rather, I will take this time to really work my problems out and finish a few drafts to flesh out my ideas.

Let this be a lesson for my hubris.

The 1st post... More to come

2008-03-24T11:16:00.000-07:00

It's 9pm and you drag your sorry butt through the front door of your house and slump into the sofa after another grueling grind. You wonder why after working your ass off day after day you don't have a dollar to your name. You turn on your 40" plasma TV and wonder how the hell those "working" people in tv dramas ever find the time to two-time their spouses, when you don't even have time for 1 (spouse, that is).

If the above paragraph describes your life, you might want to stop and think. Really hard. About your life, that is. This will be the part where I am supposed to pop up and say I have some great, REVOLUTIONARY idea that will change will your life. Unfortunately, I don't. I do, however, face the same situation above (minus the 40" plasma). If you are interested in my "sob story", you can read the personal profile (it's not done up yet, but I will get to it when it's not 3am in the weekday morning), but my conclusion was MY life can be better, and it MUST start with me.

With that in mind, I spent a good year of my life actually looking through and at my life honestly. I also spent time reading books and blogs, researching, talking with friends and experts in personal finance. This blog is started to develop my ideas on 2 things.

1) Money, and how it should matter; and amazingly, it's not how most people think of it.
2) How we spend our time, and why time and money are equal.

I plan to have a weekly writeup, each week developing a core idea that I learnt. Eventually, I will start a series that focuses on how each idea becomes a system of gradual steps that leads me to start living a better life.

I end off with a quote-worthy sound-byte from 1 of the people I chatted with:
"Anyone can tell you how to live your life, but only YOU can decide how you want to live it."

2 Cents in my Pocket

This site is on hiatus... Indefinitely

The 1st post... More to come