4 Simple Ways to Avoid Procrastination When You Work from Home

Working from home is every office worker’s dream, right? But how do you stay on track and not get caught up in those endless procrastination loops? When you don’t have to go into the office, it’s easy to get distracted by all the comforts and demands of home life. Whether it’s a sudden urge to do housework or the immediate need for snacks, before you know it, you’ve frittered away a couple of hours and not got any paid work done. 

So how can you take back control and avoid procrastination when you’re working at home? 

 

1. Make an Office Space

 

Part of your procrastination problem is that your home is a relaxation space. When you’re in an office, everything is geared towards work and getting the job done. Home is about chillaxing, housework, familial responsibilities. You need to carve out some space that is just for your work. A separate home office is a perfect solution, but having a proper desk setup also works. Set yourself up with a water bottle and a bowl of fruit for healthy snacking and to stop those regular trips to the kitchen!

 

2. Learn to Prioritize

 

Be professional in organizing your time. Use a planner or a diary for deadlines and allot time in your day for particular tasks. If you’re a morning person, get your demanding or thought-heavy tasks done in the first half of the day. Conversely, night owls can choose to work late or use morning time to sort emails or do admin. Make a daily task list and check things off as you achieve them. That last achievement will feel like a slam-dunk!

 

3. Stay Motivated

 

Research has shown that lack of motivation is a crucial driver of procrastination. If your motivation is low, there’s little reason to get on with your work. 

 

If you find it hard to stay focused on your work, consider using rewards to boost your motivation. It can be as simple as choosing to do a work task before you check social media or have a movie night to celebrate hitting a milestone. If you’re struggling, try reframing each piece of work as money in your pocket.

 

4. Use Apps

 

Technology can be your friend in defeating procrastination. You can choose from several apps that will freeze distracting social media while you work. You can also choose to have a separate browser that is only used for work. Time tracking apps will help you see what you’re achieving, and as they generate reports, it will also help when it comes time for billing clients. 

6 Changes to Your Schedule to Help You Manage Your Time Like a Pro

You’ve learned some tricks on how to manage your time, whether you’ve learned from a boss, a friend, or on your own. Yet putting those tricks into action is a different story. You have to learn how to make a schedule for yourself, which sounds about as daunting as being your own boss. Take out your self-starter hat and get ready to learn how to manage your time all on your own with these six hacks!

 

1. Leave Wiggle Room Between your Time Blocks

 

Friends, meet buffer-time. No one should have a fully stacked calendar with no time in between for a break. Block out buffer-time on your calendar in between meetings and tasks. Your future self will thank you when your days are more productive, and the hours are less exhausting. 

 

2. Organize Yourself

 

This is a big life change for some people because organization habits don’t always come easily. At first, it may feel like you are spending extra time trying to stay organized, but the payoff is worth it. Here’s a staggering statistic: On average, Americans waste about 2.5 days a year looking for misplaced objects. Don’t be part of that statistic! Find a place for your belongings and always put them back where they belong. This goes for computer files too! Create a simple filing system and save new documents to the correct location. 

 

3. Make Use of the 80-20 Rule

 

Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? Otherwise known as the 80-20 rule, this principle says that you can get 80% of the work done in 20% of the time. Similarly, 80% of the results come from 20% of the actions. It can be applied to many things in life, so it’s a great concept to apply to your usage of time. Get in the habit of noticing what tasks get the most results. Spend more time on those actions and cut out some of the responsibilities that take up time but don’t produce the outcomes you are looking for.

 

4. Stop Waiting

 

Every once and a while, you’ll inevitably have to wait for something: at the grocery store, in the doctor’s office, in traffic. Instead of actually waiting, or deferring to your phone for entertainment, do something productive with your time. Listen to a podcast you’ve been dying to try out, read a book on an interesting topic, or write in your journal. Turn waiting time into productive time.

 

5. Organize Your Tasks in Blocks

 

Batch all your similar tasks together. For example, don’t check your email every time someone pings you. If it’s urgent, go right ahead, but otherwise, set a time block every two hours or so to plow through all your emails at one time. This keeps you focused, which is a more efficient way to work. 

 

6. Try to Do Less

 

This may sound like a slacker approach, but it’s not. Believe it or not – we take on way more than we need to, meaning we take on more than is beneficial to our work. If you find yourself planning parties, chatting with your coworkers, and dabbling in another department’s workload, you may have spread yourself to thin. By doing that, you’re not helping yourself or your peers. In the end, you could wind up letting down people because you overpromise and under-deliver. 

 

5 Simple, Yet Effective Time Management Tasks You Should Start Using Today

Are you trying to become an expert time manager? Have you noticed you don’t spend your time well throughout the day? We could keep going with these questions all day, but that would be a waste of time, right? We’re going to jump into five simple, yet effective time management tasks you should incorporate into your daily life. 

 

1. Track your Time

 

If someone asked you how long you spend reading emails every day, what would you say? What about your lunch break? Chances are, you don’t really know how long you spend on certain time blocks of the day. Start tracking your time and learn how to make changes so you can maximize it. 

 

2. Set up Time Blocks

 

When you have a certain set of tasks to do every day, set up time blocks for yourself. Give yourself 2 hours to do one thing and then 1 hour for another. It becomes a competition against yourself because you’ll be rushing to beat the clock, competing against yourself.

 

3. Plan it out

 

Morning person or a night owl, it doesn’t matter. Use the beginning and the end of your day to make a plan and try your best to stick to it. Before you leave work at night, write a list of important tasks to get done the next day. In the morning, prioritize your list and review the items. Then, get to work!

 

4. Get it out of the Way 

 

Eat that frog – Mark Twain said it himself. Pick the most important, and most dreaded, tasks first, and knock them out first thing in the morning. It’s such a relief once you finish them, and then the rest of your day is devoted to tasks that you care more about and find more challenging. 

 

5. Delegate When You Can

 

If you have a task on your plate that a subordinate could do (maybe even better than you could), delegate it to them. Some people worry that this is a bad work ethic, but it’s part of company culture. You’re all on the same team, so it’s a matter of asking for help rather than being lazy. Understand what your point of genius is and use your time for those important tasks while handing off things that you aren’t great at or that are below your paygrade. 

 

We kept it simple with these tasks. Time management is an art worth perfecting, and you’ll get there. Check-in with yourself (and the clock), and make sure you’re really optimizing the hours you get in the day. And if you don’t, fear not! There’s always tomorrow. It’s a constant work in progress, so do your best, and the rest will fall in place. 

 

7 Tips for Creating a Simple Morning Routine at Work

When you want to create a better day for yourself, you need to start out where you begin. This means having a morning routine at work as well as at home.

 

Think about this for a moment. A morning routine at home will set you up for success by getting you out of bed and ready to transition into wakefulness. 

 

Likewise, a morning routine at work can get you settled into a mindset of getting work done and ready to face the work world. Think of it as a series of steps designed to transition you into productivity.

 

How can you do this?

 

Start with How You Get There

 

Don't arrive stressed out at the very last second. To set yourself up for success, it's important to arrive with time to spare after a relaxing commute. Strategize to make this happen by allowing enough time to get where you need to go. Also, consider your route. Heavy traffic or construction is always more stressful in the long run, so you might want to adapt your route to a quieter one to reduce unwanted stress.

 

Schedule Check

 

What do you have going on today? What work is expected from you by what time? Get a mental picture of the day by noting what needs to happen when.

 

Set-Up

 

What needs to happen so you can get your work done? Are you lacking supplies or resources? Are there things you might need to delegate? Taking a few minutes to track down these items will help the rest of your day run more smoothly.

 

Habit Check

 

What detractors are already pulling at you, trying to derail your day? If you're someone who checks your phone often or can get caught up socializing with coworkers, think about how you can limit these activities as part of your routine. For example, you might want to schedule email checks at certain times or limit socialization to break times.

 

Make a List

 

Jotting down the 3-to 4 big items you want to get done today will help give you a clearer view of what needs doing and set up your goals.

 

Get Comfortable

 

Before you buckle down to work, do you need coffee? A Bathroom break? Do these things now, so you don't have to break concentration later. Also, take a minute to stretch if you haven't yet.

 

Begin

 

Time to get going. Take the first item on your list and dive in, concentrating fully on what you’re doing.

 

Of course, adapt your routine to fit whatever you need to get started for the day. The key here is to be intentional in your actions, shift your mindset, and set yourself up for success. Do only what works for you.

 

Avoid Burnout with These 3 Tips

Burnout is a real and quite damaging condition. Once you find yourself suffering from burnout, it can be difficult to turn your life around. This is why it is necessary to take steps to try and avoid burnout. 

 

1.    Set Boundaries

 

No matter what your profession may be, it’s important to have boundaries. You can’t be available around the clock; this is simply impossible. So, to prevent burnout, it’s critical to establish boundaries of times you will not be available. This means that you won't be in the office or available by phone or email during these times. If you are in a management position, it might help to post these hours somewhere or adjust your email auto-reply, so people know you will answer as soon as you are available.  

 

2.    Have A Work-Life Balance

 

Besides just setting boundaries, you need to have time to do things that aren't workplace-related. This means you have time for your hobbies, your family, and just doing what you love. This doesn't have to be complicated, and it could be as simple as taking one afternoon a week to go for a walk in your favorite park. Whatever it may be, it needs to be something you want to do, and you need to put your foot down if work ever tries to interfere with your time.

 

3.    Put Yourself First

 

Whatever could be going on at your job, if you start not to feel well or feel overwhelmed, you need to put yourself first. This means that, even if your group just started a new project, if you need a mental health day, you take one. You will be no use to your group if you begin to feel burnout and your mental abilities begin to deteriorate. 

 

Putting yourself first is especially important when you start to feel the symptoms of an illness. Although it may be tempting to say it's just a cold and go to work anyways, this will only make you feel worse and put yourself closer to burnout. Stay home and rest instead. 

 

Overall, in this day and age, it may seem difficult to avoid the condition of burnout. But you can—as long as you remember to set boundaries, have a work-life balance, and put yourself first. And if you follow these tips, not only will you avoid the damages of burnout, but you'll also go through life feeling less stressed as well. 

 

It's Never Too Late to Learn That Tomorrow Never Comes

If you have a few dirty dishes in the sink, no worries. You can always get to them tomorrow. You don't feel like doing them right now, and that's okay. There's always tomorrow. Wrong! Tomorrow never comes. All you ever have is the present moment. There's this moment in time right now, and that's it.

 

You're probably thinking that tomorrow is almost on the horizon already. If today's Monday, you know tomorrow is Tuesday. We get that. What we mean is that if you regularly adopt the policy that you can do today's tasks tomorrow, you will eventually see a tomorrow with too much to accomplish. You'll have tons on your plate because you kept procrastinating, and your responsibilities have piled up.

 

The Negative Power of Procrastination

 

SolvingProcrastination.com is a website all about, you guessed it, procrastination. They want to share a lesson that time eventually teaches us all. Procrastination is dangerous.

 

If putting things off hasn't caused any real harm in your life, good for you. The problem is, that scenario might be telling you that if you procrastinate every now and then, what's the big deal? Don't fall into that mindset, that way of thinking.

 

The negative effects of procrastination are plenty. How serious are they? Check out this warning published on the website we just mentioned.

 

"Procrastination is associated with a variety of dangers and negative effects, including worse academic performance, worse financial status, increased interpersonal relationship issues, reduced well-being, and worse mental and physical health."

 

That's rather scary. What's even more bothersome is that the person who procrastinates often gets dealt with several of those issues simultaneously. They're closely related because of certain behaviors. 

 

Frequently putting things off can be very stressful. That stress attacks the body internally. Your overall health and well-being worsen, and you might have self-esteem issues because you never accomplish everything.

 

Do It Today or Write It Down

 

If you've got something small to do, something that doesn't take much time, do it. Stop reading this right now and go and do it. If it requires more time, planning, or the accumulation of resources, break out your day planner. Write it down. Schedule it. You get much more done in your life when you write things down. This has been proven in several studies.

 

Stop procrastinating. It can wreck your mental and physical health. Procrastination ruins relationships and does damage in so many other ways. Stop putting things off unnecessarily. This is a lesson life's ticking clock eventually teaches all of us, but you were reminded of it today, so you've got a jump on Father Time.

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Wondering Why You Are Not Getting Rich Quickly

The one thing I have learned, when it comes to building wealth, is the fact that there are no short cuts to instant riches. While there have been a few high profile incidents of extreme wealth being created almost overnight, as in the case of Google and a few other "instant" successes, even in these cases there has been huge risk and extensive capital expended in order to create the wealth. In fact the most important factors which lead to success in business are the willingness to assume risk, willingness to expend capital, the ability to focus on an idea and bring it to fruition and some good old fashioned luck.

 

While I'll be the first to recognize there are some people who just seem to stumble into a situation and are in the right place at the right time, or that some folks will win the lottery, sell a stock at just the right time, or buy and sell real estate for a quick profit, most people who have built wealth have done so over time. Furthermore, they approach investing with a disciplined plan and the relentless pursuit of their dream. I will focus the rest of this article on the people who build wealth through a disciplined approach. Following this model is more likely to lead to the desired goal of financial security.

 

Many people wish to own their own business and be an entrepreneur, but many of us don't have the "brainstorm idea" which leads to a blockbuster business, or one that totally changes the dynamics of a business model. Luckily, this is not necessary in order to succeed as an entrepreneur. While it would be nice to come up with one of these blockbuster ideas, there are plenty of other ways to become the owner of your own business. Purchasing an existing business is one such way to join the ranks of the business world. There are individual businesses and franchises which can be purchased outright, or financed by various means. This is usually an expensive endeavour, and usually requires leaving your full time job in order to manage the business. This also involves a degree of risk, but if you do your homework, and devote the time it takes to manage the leverage of the purchase price, plus the day to day operations, it can be an excellent way to build long term wealth.

 

If the idea of owning a business while maintaining a full time job is more your cup of tea, there are many business models which can facilitate this. Again, there is no free ride, because nobody is going to provide you with all of the tools to run a profitable business, without some cost. Unless you are strictly interested in doing a specific task at home for a fee, most of the business models I've reviewed for an at home or online business require money to be spent for hosting a site, joining affiliates and marketing. These are reasonable expectations when you utilize an existing franchise, or affiliate program. Developing multiple streams of income is very desirable and can be achieved by developing a home business along with your full time job. While your goal may be to eventually quit your full time employment, or augment retirement, developing an online or home business can be a rewarding way to be an entrepreneur.

 

So, if getting rich quickly is your main goal, then there is a good possibility you will continue to go from one "cocktail party conversation" trend to another, such as day trading or real estate flipping. We all know where those bubbles have led. This is the equivalent of gambling, and while I know full well sometimes people do quite well gambling, I don't recommend it as an investment technique. If building real wealth is your goal, then developing streams of income and systematically investing in diversified assets will lead to ever increasing equity and financial security. One day you'll look at your portfolio of investments and realize you've built wealth faster than you thought you would.

 

Wealth Building: An Advantage of Home Ownership

As you grow older, the issue of wealth building comes front and center. Wealth building simply refers to increasing the net value of your total assets. Wealth building over time is one of the advantages of home ownership.

 

Building Equity

 

Owning a home can help you build wealth in two ways. First, you build equity by paying down your mortgage. A certain percentage of each mortgage payment goes towards a reduction in the total amount owed. Typically, payments in the first few years of the mortgage are primarily applied to interest on the loans. As time passes, however, more and more of each payment is applied to the outstanding loan amount. Before you know it, the $300,000 loan is down to $50,000 and you’ve gained $250,000 in wealth.

 

Appreciation is the second wealth building advantage to home ownership. Each year, the value of your home will increase or decrease slightly based on market prices. Over time, real estate has always appreciated in value. In the current market, homes in some parts of the country are appreciating at rates as high as fifteen to twenty percent! Appreciation is a very popular subject with homeowners.

 

Wealth Building Example

 

Let’s look at a simple demonstration of how advantageous home ownership can be. Assume you buy a home in 2005 for $400,000 and, for the purpose of simply mathematics, pay no down. Over the next 10 years, your mortgage payments reduce the outstanding mortgage by $100,000 and the home increases in value to $600,000. The value of your home as a net asset has grown to $300,000 [$600,000 minus $300,000]! If you had rented during this period, you would have missed out on $300,000 in wealth. This simple example should show you the advantage of home ownership.

 

Historically, home ownership is one the best ways for families to build wealth. If you don’t currently own a home, you should start looking for one.

 

Wealth Management Solutions: Options Abound

Wealth management is a difficult concept to grasp for many people, especially in terms of investment and savings for the future. With options like stocks, bonds, 401K’s, 529’s, and more, choosing the right wealth management option can be tough at best and impossibly confusing in many circumstances. That’s why there are wealth management firms who are experts in these services and exist solely to help guide high net worth individuals through the aches and pains of wealth management and private banking, as well as educating people on where to put their money and how each investment will help their finances grow.

 

Private Banking

 

If you are interested in learning more about the various ways to invest your money or plan for retirement, you should perhaps look into private banking options. In private banking, you have a direct account manager that you can contact any time with any questions regarding your account and how your assets are being handled. There are many options for investment through private banking, and most are fairly simple to understand, making this a preferred option for many individuals who are unfamiliar with wealth management.

 

Wealth Management Services

 

For those who don’t quite understand the concept behind wealth management services are available from a number of avenues to assist in the determination of how to handle finances. Wealth management means more than sticking to a budget; it also means planning for the future, and various institutions can assist in teaching individuals how to manage their money, as well as in providing complete wealth management services.

 

Wealth Management Firms

 

Have you considered a wealth management firm? You’ve spoken to private bankers and don’t like the options they provide for wealth management. You aren’t a fan of computers, so you don’t want to invest in wealth management software. However, you need a customized solution for your assets to build at a greater rate, and you have no idea where to invest. Wealth management firms are built on the basis of helping you to follow the right avenue. With a personal advisor, you’ll be able to configure your investment options to achieve your specific goals with as much or as little input as you feel is necessary.

 

Wealth Management Software

 

You may also consider the benefits of wealth management software. Many people have a hard time managing their finances enough to plan from pay check to pay check, much less to have a goal for the future. When it comes to wealth management, most people are completely flustered by the thought of having a budget that considers not only the groceries to buy tomorrow, but also the ones you’ll need to buy after retirement in 40 years. Wealth management software is a helpful tool in building your financial plans so that you can feel comfortable with your current lifestyle, be assured that you’ll have the assets you need in the future, and can fulfil some of your dreams in the interim.

 

The Ultimate Wealth Building System

Most people search for the ultimate wealth building system for most of their lives. It may surprise you to know that you own half of it the day you are born.

 

What half do you own? It’s your ability to make money. No matter what your education level or skill level, you have income earning power. Want to hear the good news about that and how it connects you to the ultimate wealth building system?

 

It’s not how much you make; it’s what you do with it that determines your financial condition.

 

The second half of the ultimate wealth building system is what you do with the money that you earn. There is a system to controlling the flow of money to create wealth. Very rich people know this system. It works whether you are an employee who works for someone else and you are using the system to control the flow of your personal income, or if you are a business owner using the system to control the flow of the company’s income. It is an amazingly simple system.

 

1) SPEND LESS THAN YOU MAKE - Cut your expenses back to operate within your income.

 

2) PUT 10% OF YOUR INCOME AWAY IN SAVINGS and don’t ever spend it. Set aside regular amounts of cash from your income for the future - always pay yourself first and put the money in savings toward gaining financial freedom. The ultimate wealth building system requires a minimum of 10% of income into savings out of every dime you earn. Just sock it away and forget you even have it. As it builds up, move it to places that earn better interest than the bank savings accounts. This includes buying houses and commercial buildings you can rent out to make more money.

 

3) DO NOT BUY ON CREDIT - pay cash instead. Debt is a disease that you should avoid contracting. Figure out what you want to buy and put money away towards the purchase every week until you have the cash. For large purchases like cars, furniture and equipment, buy used instead of brand new. Remember, those items lose value from the moment you buy them.

 

4) FIND WAYS TO MAKE MORE MONEY - the personal cost of living goes up about 3.5% every year, so you need to make more money just to keep up. If you work for someone else, increase your value to the company by taking on more responsibility and learning to do more; then ask for a raise. Be willing to work a second job if you have to in order to get out of debt and start putting money away.

 

If you own a business, look over your line of products and services and figure out how to sell more of the profitable items. Be willing to discontinue items that are not bringing in enough profit for the time, effort and cost to sell them. The secret to making more money is pretty simple if you put your attention on it.

 

5) USE YOUR MONEY TO INCREASE YOUR INCOME - After paying your ultimate wealth building system the 10% into savings and paying your bills, use any money left over in ways that increase your ability to produce more income.

 

Why is controlling the flow of money so important? It is the energy and life blood of a business or household. It is necessary to pump it through the income producing areas first to keep it running well. Everything runs smoother when cash is available.

 

Seems simple, right? And it is simple. The ultimate wealth building system is easily learned, and can be used to gain your financial freedom. It does, however, take personal discipline and commitment to achieve the goal of financial independence so you never have to worry about money again.

 

The really great news is that you have control over this system. Done correctly and consistently, the end result is always having lots of cash on hand, all bills paid, and plenty of money in reserves to finance what you really want to do with your money; not just pay bills. How well you control the flow of your money will determine how well your company or family will survive now and into the future. Correctly applying these five steps will make this wealth building system work for you.

 

The Two Biggest Thieves In Regards To Wealth Building

The two biggest wealth thieves a person will encounter are tax deductions and lawsuits. Taxes work against you by chipping away at your wealth. These include federal income taxes (deducting up to 39% of your income), state taxes (deducting up to 9.6%), and self-employment or social security (over 15.5 %.). The average American is paying 42-55% in taxes. Ironically, the wealthiest people in the U.S. are paying only single digits taxes. Rest assured, because there is something you can do about this, and it won’t cost you the $500/hr that these wealthy people are paying for tax tips from their specialists.

 

Next, lawsuits are the other evil. This is not the slow reduction of your wealth as with taxes. It is the sudden confiscation of the money you worked hard to build. You can literally fall from the top of the totem pole to the bottom of the barrel overnight. I believe there are no winners in lawsuits because even ‘winning’ a lawsuit takes up time and money that will set you back. Once again, you can protect yourself by learning how to structure yourself properly. You can "bullet-proof" your assets. You can even avoid lawsuits all together.

 

Crucial to understanding these strategies is differentiating the concepts of asset and liability. Ask yourself the following: Is a real estate investment an asset or a liability? You may be thinking, ‘It generates income and provides equity; therefore, it has to be an asset.

 

However, the answer is more complex. You must look at how you hold title to that property. If you own it incorrectly and are not properly structured, you could be putting yourself at risk. If you have your home, your car, your bank accounts all lumped together, someone can take them all away in one sweep. Therefore, you must learn how entity structure.

 

The True Determinants Of Building Wealth

Elite Formal Education is Overrated

 

There is a huge myth that going to a great school and getting a great job will help you build wealth. In reality, it’s more likely to bury you in so much debt that you’ll be close to retirement by the time you’re debt free. When I graduated from college (we won’t say exactly how long ago that was!), I had friends that had already accumulated about U.S. $80,000 in debt. And for some of those friends that went to med school or law school at my alma mater, they tacked on another $100,000 of debt, for a total burden of close to $200,000.

 

In today’s dollars, that debt would perhaps be more than $325,000. So in the first year after completing their formal education, some of my friends already had a minimum $2,000 to $5,000 monthly payment that came off the top of every paycheck. Any way you slice it, this is an enormous abyss with which to start your journey of life.

 

I know that many people will have a difficult time believing my next statement, but an examination of history will support my next assertion. The great expense tied to elite institutions serves two purposes. (1) To provide a network/structure by which the moneyed elites can retain power; and (2) To burden the non-wealthy with enormous debt. In the seminal book Education and the Rise of the Corporate State, Joel Spring wrote that ‘the development of a factory-like system in the nineteenth-century classroom was not accidental’. Russell Conwell, a member of the wealthy elite and founder of one of America’s oldest educational institutions, Temple University, voiced sentiments he believed should be integrated into education:

 

‘The men who get rich may be the most honest men you find in the community...Ninety-eight out of one hundred of the rich men in America are honest. That is why they are rich. That is why they are trusted with our money...It is because they are honest men....the number of poor who are to be sympathized with is very small. To sympathize with a man whom God has punished for his sins....is to do wrong.’

 

Elite Jobs that Build Wealth are Rare

 

In essence, elite education builds a caste system financed by debt. There are two predominant scenarios which students of elite educations face upon graduation. There are those that emerge from these schools debt-free and really didn’t need the advantage of an elite education anyway, and those whom are burdened with debt and will become cogs in the machine for the interests of the debt-free. For those that believe that they can dig their way out of this huge mountain of debt by working their way up the corporate ladder in the land of opportunity, think again. In 1965, CEO’s in America earned about 24 times as much as their employees. In 2006, CEO’s in America earned 262 times as much as their employees (Source: BBC News, June 22, 2006).

 

Furthermore, in 2005 and 2006, CEO’s from the 11 largest U.S. firms collected U.S. $865,000,000 in salary at the same time their leadership caused shareholders to lose U.S. $64,000,000,000 in company stock. Whether or not their leadership destroyed billions of dollars of wealth in the stock market was irrelevant. They were still rewarded. Such is how the modern-day caste system works.

 

Unless you will be studying engineering, law, architecture, or medicine, most formal education is not only irrelevant to building wealth, but you are certain to build it much more quickly if you become an entrepreneur and/or learn to invest properly. My opinion on formal education will only change when the majority of schools begin teaching what is truly necessary to succeed financially later in life. And that includes classes on:

 

(1) Investing in stock and non-stock assets

(2) Leveraging money

(3) Leveraging time; and

(4) Building successful networks (it’s not what you know, it’s who you know)

 

As it stands now, one can go to Harvard or Oxford, earn a doctorate, and still be ill- prepared to build wealth. Undoubtedly, the network that one builds at these types of institutions is exponentially more valuable than the education one receives.

 

Saving Money = Losing Money

 

Perhaps an even worse piece of advice is to save and put money away. Putting money away into a savings account and letting it sit there at the 1% or so interest rate that banks give these days just turns your money into dust. Consider that $1,000 in 1980 can only buy less than $500 worth of stuff in 2006 dollars, and it’s easy to see that ‘saving’ your money only loses you money. There are almost always good risk-reward investment opportunities somewhere in the world, not just stock markets. If real estate opportunities in Korea are poor, then Argentina or Iceland may be booming. It’s just a matter of widening perspectives to find them. Having idle cash sitting around and not working for you is never a good strategy when one desires to build wealth.

 

Want to find the land of opportunity? Go look in a mirror and you will have found it.