Most people who struggle with debt have more than one creditor to deal with, and possessing 4, 5 or 6+ credit cards is not uncommon for the average household in the western world.

The main advantage of getting a debt consolidation loan to pay off all your personal credit cards debt, is that the Annual Percentage Rate (APR) of a typical consolidation loan will be lower than the APR of your credit cards. If you do the math, you’ll notice that this can save you quite a bit of money in the long run and allow you to pay off your debt faster than you would be able to do otherwise. On top of that, you’ll only have to pay one creditor, instead of needing to deal with several bills, different due dates, minimums and so on each month. If you’re able to get a fixed rate term loan, you’re also guaranteed that the interest rate won’t increase over time – something that credit card companies are not usually able to promise you.

On paper it seems like a great plan: cheaper, faster and convenient. There are however a few hitches to keep in mind before going ahead with this plan of (debt) attack. The first issue concerns the lending institution where you get such a loan from. If your credit is excellent and the amount of debt that you have is relatively small, you can probably obtain a simple personal loan, which won’t affect your credit score too much. In most cases though, if you are heavily in debt, chances are that your credit score is not that great to begin with. If you apply for personal loans which in turn get rejected, you credit will be affected negatively, making your financial situation slightly worse off than it already is.

You may be able to obtain a loan for the specific purpose of debt consolidation by talking directly to your credit union or banking institution, or by first seeking debt counseling with any one of the many non-profit companies who specialize in this field. There are two inconvenient aspects however, if you opt to go this route though. Firstly, in most cases you will have to provide a co-signer or some form of substantial collateral such a car, as well as a budget that’s outlined to the last penny and which shows that you are able to handle the monthly payments. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, a debt consolidation loan is a glaring red flag in your credit history. Taking out such a loan is not a decision which you should rush into lightly, it truly affects your credit and is best viewed as being something of a “last resort” option.

Perhaps the biggest problem with debt consolidation loans has to do with the psychology of the debtor (the person who is carrying the debt load). While such is not always the case, some people who are in debt are there due to poor impulse control and spending habits. What do you think it’s going to happen when the credit cards are freed (thanks to the consolidation loan) once again? You guessed it, many people end up accumulating further debt, because they haven’t broken free from their addiction to buying on credit yet.

These are all important aspects to keep in mind before proceeding to apply for a loan. There are times where debt consolidation is the only solution, short of filing for bankruptcy. Only you know your own personal financial situation well enough to be able to judge if this is the case. In many situations however, applying the debt-avalanche method, sticking with the goal of paying off your balances, and the determination not to rebound into consumer debt is what it takes to become debt free.

Photo credit: Lotus Head.

An incredible example of someone thinking, “screw the rules” is Dr. Malcolm Coulthard. BBC has an article that reports on how he and a nurse, Jean Crosier, saved the day by going against the rules and acting, not just thinking, outside of the box. A baby, Millie Kelly, experienced kidney failure during surgery. Her 6lb body was too small for the conventional dialysis machine so doctors informed the mother that the child was unlikely to survive.

This amazing doctor decided to create a scaled down version of the dialysis machine in his garage. According to the mother of the baby, the result was less than standard looking, “It was a green metal box with a few paint marks on it with quite a few wires coming out of it into my daughter”. This home-made machine saved Millie’s life and she is now a happy, healthy 2 year old. The machine is still in use at that hospital, saving the lives of many babies who are too tiny for conventional machines.

Doctor Coulthard is now asking that a proper, official version be created and distributed in order to save many lives that are needlessly lost. I found this story to be touching and I wanted to share it with you, to remind us of how we can all be heroes by simply going beyond the rules when something more important is at stake.

Are you ready to ignore the rules?

One warning is perhaps in order—-this territory we are entering can become a fantastic time-sink. Hours can slip by, people can come and go, and you’ll be locked into Cyberspace. Remember to do your work!

That really hits home, doesn’t it? More than fifteen years later we’re fully immersed in the information age and those prophetic words have never been truer. We are overloaded with information, so much so that it becomes distracting, harms our ability to select and digest knowledge that matters the most, and ends up killing our focus and productivity.

Humans are not multitasking machines, because there really wasn’t a strong evolutionary reason for us to be. We perform better when focusing on a single task, it’s hard-wired in our individual brains, and the context switching required to jump from one task to another is far too “expensive” for our minds to continually deal with.

The solution is to put yourself on an information diet. These are a few strategies that can really help to limit your daily information intake, simplify your life and get things done.

1. Limit recreational Internet surfing

Sites like StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter can be fun, interesting, informative and even teach you many useful things, but they are time-sinks. If you aren’t careful, several hours of your personal time can end up being wasted, when perhaps you’d like to put them to better use. Decide what the amount of time is that you’d like to spend on such sites, and stick to it. One hour of your personal time is usually a generous compromise. Remember that you can use RescueTime or similar tools to keep track of how much time you spend browsing and using certain applications.

2. Syndication is your friend

There are information sources that truly matter to you and rightfully, that’s fair, we each have our favorite areas of interest. Rather than checking them regularly and getting lost in the Internet in the process, use a good RSS feed reader. It will make your life much easier, allow you to follow the type of content that you really need or want to read more closely, and prevent you from jumping from site to site in boredom. Read your feeds once or twice a day, and then get on with your life.

If you are using a Mac OS X I suggest the excellent NetNewsWire, while Windows users should take a look at FeedDemon. If you prefer to use your browser, as opposed to a standalone desktop application, Google Reader is definitely worth a try.

If you already use a feed reader, don’t forget to put it on a diet as well. Do you really have time to read hundreds of regularly updated feeds?

3. Don’t obsess over your email

Check your email inbox two (or three times maximum) during the day. Some people tend to frenetically hit “refresh” while waiting for new emails to show up or they check every email notification that appears in programs like Outlook, Lotus Notes or Thunderbird. Unless you work in customer service relations, disable pop up notifications, blip sounds, and only check your email every few hours. You can read Inbox Zen with the three folder email system to learn more about a good system I use to stay on top of emails without stressing over them.

4. Limit IM chats

Instant Messaging is a very immediate form of communication and it’s rapidly taking over the use of emails, even in the workplace. My suggestion is to limit its usage though, because you can easily end up wasting both yours and other people’s time. The easiest way to accomplish this is to put yourself in “Do not disturb” mode. If it’s truly an emergency, you’ll get contacted regardless of your status. But you’ll also avoid all those “So what’s up, Tony?” type of chats. Note that I’m not advocating getting rid of social interaction. On the contrary, I’m suggesting more social interaction when appropriate (in the form of taking to someone in person). Most people will agree though that being interrupted by IM messages when you are in the middle of working on something brain-intensive is a surefire way to lose focus.

5. Skip unnecessary meetings

There are meetings you don’t really need to participate in. So why are you still going? If your presence at a given meeting doesn’t benefit either yourself or your company, I’d argue that your time is much better spent on actual work. Of course, I’m not advocating that you stop attending meetings all of a sudden, that’s a good way to get fired. Rather I’m suggesting that you discuss with your manager about whether or not your participation in a meeting is required and of any actual advantage to the company. Meetings can be very useful, but let’s be frank, many of them aren’t.

6. Keep it short on the phone

Don’t chit-chat on the phone. Get to the point quickly and politely and always encourage the person on the other side to skip ahead to the real reason behind their call. If a follow up is required, try to see if this can be arranged by email instead.

7. Cut the number of hours in front of the TV

Try to limit the amount of time that you spend watching TV. If you read the news online, you don’t really need to view it again in the living room. I don’t dislike TV, there are a few interesting programs that I feel are really worth watching, but if you’re not careful, TV can become a big source of information overload and equate to time spent in a less than productive manner.

Some people watch 4 hours of TV a day. Is that too much? Too little? I like to think in terms of percentage of one’s over-all life. On average, we have 16 waking hours a day. If you consistently spend 4 hours watching TV every day, then TV ends up “wasting” a quarter of your adult life. Is it a waste? It depends, on your deathbed would you regret having spent a quarter of your life watching TV? I know I would.

Enjoy your free time

These 7 tips for reducing the information overload outlined above are a mix of things that can be applied to your personal and professional life. They’re not intend to be a guide for making you a productive, unstoppable machine. Productivity and focus at work are the main effects of these techniques, but there is more to them than that.

What would you do if you had 16 extra hours a week that could be obtained by eliminating unnecessary, time-sink types of activities? You could hang out more with the people you care about, take up a hobby, get a dog, go out more or work towards your goals. Regardless of how you choose to spend your newly obtained time, your life will likely be much better off because of it.

A witness was able to put out the flames using an extinguisher, therefore saving Mitchell’s life. He woke up in atrocious pain in the burn victim unit of San Francisco General Hospital. He had second, third and fourth degree burns on 65% of his body. Fourth degree burns are ones so severe that the bone has been consumed by the fire. His face was burned off, and his hands were irreparably destroyed. Doctors didn’t know at first if he was going to make it or not.

We can only imagine the kind of excruciating, incessant pain he experienced, as doctors agree that the pain associated with this kind of burn is essentially the highest level humans can perceive. Yet, he was unusually motivated to keep going and embrace life. The first thing he said to a surgeon upon learning that most of his hands were gone was, “this is gonna really screw up my pool game”. His courage and determination were clear from the get-go.

After 4 months he managed to get out of the hospital. Disfigured, his return back to city life was far from pleasant. The constant stares and reactions lead him to decide to move out of town. He relocated to the historic town of Crested Butte, Colorado where his upbeat spirit lead him to quickly make many new friends. It didn’t take much longer for Mitchell to co-found a multi-million dollar business, buy a beautiful Victorian house, obtain a pilot’s license and even own an airplane.

Despite the huge challenges, his courage and proactive attitude enabled him to live a successful, fulfilling life. Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of the story though. One winter’s day he set off to fly his airplane with some friends. Ice on the wings made taking off very difficult, and the plane essentially tumbled to the ground. Everyone managed to get out of the plane immediately, except Mitchell. His first thought was that his feet were stuck. Then he couldn’t feel his legs. His back suddenly started to hurt sharply. When the ambulance arrived he was rushed to the hospital where he would later learn that his spine was broken and that he would never be able to walk again.

This man had experienced his second life-altering accident, which combined with the first one, left him paralyzed from the waste down, in a wheelchair, disfigured and with good part of his hands missing. Try to imagine the emotional state of this person in the face of such unbelievable adversity. Once again Mitchell worked hard to continue his pursuit of life. His incredible attitude is summarized in a quote from his time in the hospital: “Before I was paralyzed there were 10,000 things I could do; now there are 9,000. I can either dwell on the 1,000 I’ve lost or focus on the 9,000 I have left.”.

While at the hospital he rushed to get out because he learned about a mining company that wanted to dig a huge, ugly hole in the beautiful mountain that watches over his town. In order to stop them he decided to run for mayor of the city, where he would eventually serve for two consecutive terms. Eventually he was able to convince them that drilling the mountain wasn’t such a great idea after all.

He’s fond of saying, “It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you do about it” (also the title of his book). We can learn so much from these words especially when the reminder comes from a man who lived them to the extreme. W Mitchell is a living example of what will power, courage and determination can achieve, against all odds. His body may be in a wheelchair, but he’s clearly free of mental wheelchairs. I find his story extremely inspiring and it reminds me of how your current condition only partially affects the outcome of your life. What truly matters is your attitude.

Today he owns several successful businesses and is an exceptional motivational speaker, who’s gathered worldwide acclaim. He even enjoys adventurous actives such as water rafting and skydiving. After all there are still 9,000 things left to do.

No matter how smart, skillful or prepared we are, we are human and we’ll always fail sooner or later. What counts though is the ability to learn from our mistakes and get back in the game again. This attitude sets apart those who succeed from those who never become what they’d like to be.

I found the following two videos about famous failures to be quite well made and I encourage you to watch them. The greater the odds, the harder the challenges, the higher your satisfaction will be.

1. Buxfer

Description: Easy to use and with a clean UI, Buxfer allows you to easily track your income and expenses, and set up budgets. Unlike other similar sites, you don’t have to provide your online banking credentials if you don’t want to. It also has support for Google Gears to work offline and store your financial information locally.
Why: Stress free personal finance management.
Honorable mention: mint.com
URL: buxfer.com

2. Remember the milk

Description: A feature-rich task management application full of bells and whistles, including support for tagging, priority, scheduling, sharing, and so on. It works very well for those following the principles behind Getting Things Done (GTD). Despite its many features, the UI is clean, fast and well thought-out, so it’s fairly easy to make it work for you. Several keyboard shortcuts are available, minimizing the amount of time you need to spend entering data. It integrates with Gmail and Google Calendar as well.
Why: Smart TODO management.
Honorable mention: tadalist.com
URL: rememberthemilk.com

3. RescueTime

Description: Upon installing a client on your computer (Mac or Windows), your application and website usage will be securely tracked. Reports are available online and by email. Privacy cautious users can define what gets tracked and what doesn’t, through a whitelist mechanism. By using tags is possible to group applications and sites in order to track the amount of time spent, for example, on a given project.
Why: Keep track of where your time goes.
Honorable mention: 8aweek.com
URL: rescuetime.com

4. Joe’s Goals

Description: They say that goals are dreams with a deadline. Achieving goals requires clarity of what you want to accomplish and tracking your progresses. Joe’s Goals has an extremely simple interface to track whether you worked towards a given goal or not, on a daily basis. It couldn’t get any easier than this, but it can be very effective in reminding you of your “resolutions”.
Why: Stay focused on your goals one day at a time.
Honorable mention: daily-actions.com
URL: joesgoals.com

5. SparkPeople

Description: A great social network of people who are interested in dieting and living a healthy lifestyle. The site offers diet plans, diet and exercise tracking, great articles, daily newsletters and blogs. It’s by far the best of its kind.
Why: Encouragement and tips for healthy living.
Honorable mention: traineo.com
URL: sparkpeople.com

So what do you think about them? What are some other sites that you find truly invaluable to aid you in organizing your life?

1. Inbox Zen with the three folder email system
2. Randy Pausch’s most inspirational quotes
3. The credit card minimum payment trap
4. Saying goodbye to a man who inspired the world
5. 7 unusual pastimes to try this summer
6. Strategies for getting out of debt: Debt Snowball Vs. Debt Avalanche
7. Let’s get started

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The sad news of Dr. Randy Pausch’s passing, has touched many people who had an opportunity to learn about him and his famous last lecture before his death. I already made a brief farewell post, but great men are best remembered through their own words. These are 20 of what I consider to be great Randy Pausch motivational quotes.

1. Never underestimate the importance of having fun. I’m dying and I’m having fun. And I’m going to keep having fun every day, because there’s no other way to play it.
2. We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
3. We don’t beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well.
4. It’s not about how to achieve your dreams, it’s all about leading your life. If you lead your life in a right way, karma will take care of itself. And dreams will come to you.
5. If I only had three words of advice, they would be, tell the truth. If I got three more words, I’d add, all the time.
6. The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!
7. Be good at something. It makes you valuable. Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.
8. Better to fail spectacularly than do something mediocre.
9. Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
10. When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him.
11. Be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.
12. Find the best in everybody. Wait long enough, and people will surprise and impress you. It might even take years, but people will show you their good side. Just keep waiting.
13. Apologize when you screw up and focus on other people, not on yourself.
14. Don’t complain. Just work harder. That’s a picture of Jackie Robinson. It was in his contract not to complain, even when the fans spit on him.
15. Get a feedback loop and listen to it. Your feedback loop can be this dorky spreadsheet thing I did, or it can just be one great man who tells you what you need to hear. The hard part is the listening to it.
16. When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.
17. If you’re going to do anything that pioneering you will get those arrows in the back, and you just have to put up with it.
18. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. You’ve got to get the fundamentals down because otherwise the fancy stuff isn’t going to work.
19. I probably got more from that dream and not accomplishing it than I got from any of the ones that I did accomplish.
20. I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.

If you haven’t done so already, watch the last lecture and read the book which provides a bit of background information to better understand the man and his story.

Upon the tragedy of learning of his future death months in advance, Randy didn’t allow the sword of Damocles hanging over his head to take the smile from his face. He had fun until the end, he truly lived until his last moment. In the process, with his Last Lecture, he managed to touch the lives of millions of people worldwide.

In that sense, he never died. He continues to live inside the hearts of those who were deeply inspired by his message of living life to the fullest, with joy. Randy is a continuos reminder of the importance of working hard to achieve your dreams, of not complaining about petty things, of having a positive outlook towards life.

I always wanted to get in touch with Randy and thank him for the many ways he ended up inspiring and changing my own life. But I never wrote to him, not even an email. It wouldn’t have been fair for me to take that time from his family, to read yet another thank you note amongst the thousands that he received.

Last night I started writing a post about the lessons I learned from Dr. Randy Pausch. I thought about it after reading a status update page that tragically mentioned he was no longer able to post updates, due to the advanced state of his pancreatic cancer. My post was going to be titled “The lessons I’ve learned from a dying man”.

That post, with an aptly renamed title, can wait. Instead this is my farewell. Goodbye Randy.

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I tried several systems to maintain a tidy inbox and keep up with the fairly large amount of emails I receive, but after a short period of success I would usually end up reverting to my old ways. The increasing entropy level of my inbox surely didn’t contradict the second law of thermodynamics.

I finally found my Inbox Zen thanks to a system of three folders. I read about something similar somewhere and customized it to my needs. It works like this: I have three folders, Follow up, Keep and Archive. I check my email once every 3 hours or so, and I process each of the emails lying in my inbox starting from the bottom up, following this algorithm:

1. The email doesn’t require a reply and I won’t ever need it again. I delete it;
2. The email doesn’t need a reply but could be useful in the distant future. I move it to Archive;
3. The email doesn’t require a reply but it’s the kind of information that I will need within a week. I move it to Keep;
4. The email requires a reply which can be provided in 2 minutes or less. I reply right away and move the message to Archive or Keep depending on when I’ll need it again;
5. The email requires a reply, but it will take some time to formulate one. I move the email to Follow up.

The figure below shows my workflow for each email (click to enlarge it). Note that I don’t normally delete the emails that I replied to.

This way, my inbox is empty or almost empty at all the times. Later at night I go through the emails in the Follow up folder and work my way through, giving priority to the most important and urgent ones. When I need an important email like the confirmation email for a trip that I’ll be taking in 3 days, I can find it in the Keep folder. This folder is by far the least used and it’s routinely cleaned up.

When I first started this system, I had about 600 emails in my Gmail inbox and had to spend a whole weekend catching up. But it was entirely worth it. There is no need to add further stress to our lives.

Gmail users

If you read your gmail account through the browser at gmail.com, you will need to create 2 labels only, Keep and Follow up. The Archive function that’s built-in in Gmail will be your third folder. You may even decide to use “Starred” as your “Follow up” folder. Those of you with a Gmail account, using programs such as Thunderbird, Outlook, Entourage or Evolution, may have to create an Archive folder in any case.

I found this system for handling emails to be a very productive one, that I can stick to, and that helps fight off any form of email procrastination. That said, lately my follow up folder has become a little too fat, but that’s due to the fact that beside my regular work, I’m writing a technical book for a major publisher, I write for three blogs, and am currently planning a move from Markham to North York, which will happen at the beginning of August. In other words, it’s an excellent system, but not a magical machine that creates additional time.

What email system do you use to reach the mythical Inbox Zero? How do you cope with mailbox stress?