Procrastination Is An Enemy to Simplifying Your Life

Simplifying your life means changing your lifestyle. Changing your methods of living life can be very difficult, even when you are proactively wanting to alter things.

When you are involuntarily simplifying because of a lost job or unexpected expenses, it gets even harder. It's easy to procrastinate. Especially when things seem overwhelming. When you're afraid, it's easy to be a deer in the headlights - thinking that if you do nothing, maybe it will all go away.

Procrastination is Your Enemy

Procrastination, however, is your enemy. Don't put off things that will ultimately benefit you and your family. Nothing good can come from it.

Hara Marano's Great Article

There's a great article by Hara Marano over at Psychology Today discussing the evils of procrastination, and I encourage you to jump right over there and read it. It contains such jewels as:

• Procrastination is a "profound problem of self-regulation." I never thought of procrastination this way before, and it makes good sense.
• Procrastination "is one response to an authoritarian parenting style ...," where controlling parents prevent the kids from "developing the ability to regulate themselves, from internalizing their own intentions and then learning to act on them." Without judging anyone's childhood, I like the idea that identifying your own intentions and learning to act on them is a kind of self-awareness and I especially appreciate the phrase "self-regulation." Regulation of one's self, instead of having advertising agencies regulating one's behavior by set society standards, is a key component to successfully simplifying your life.
• "Procrastinators "actively look for distractions, particularly ones that don't take a lot of commitment on their part." The example that was given was reading (or checking) e-mail, but I'm thinking video games and watching mindless television also count. Why do this? "They distract themselves as a way of regulating their emotions such as fear of failure."
• Procrastinators aren't all the same. There are the "thrill-seekers, who wait to the last minute for the euphoric rush;" the "avoiders, who may be avoiding fear of failure or even fear of success, but in either case are very concerned with what others think of them; they would rather have others think they lack effort than ability;" and "decisional procrastinators, who cannot make a decision ... [which]absolves procrastinators of responsibility for the outcome of events."

How to Change?

How to change? The Marano article suggests "highly structured cognitive behavioral therapy," whatever that is. Personally, I think that the power of prayer is of great use here, too. It's been my experience that faith can conquer procrastination:

• “If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done.” -- Ecclesiastes 11:4 (The Living Bible)
• "For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control." -- 2 Timothy 1:7 (CET)

Freebie Dangers: Getting Your Yahoo Email Hacked

Yesterday and today, the news is filled with Gov. Sarah Palin's Yahoo E-Mail account being hacked, and the contents spread over the web. Last night on TV, I heard that even her teenaged daughter's cellphone number was revealed - and that she was getting calls from strangers.

Look, I don't care how you're voting -- there are mentally ill people out there, surfing the web, who don't need to have personal contact information for the minor children of politicians, celebrities, and the like. That's just dangerous and children should be protected no matter how famous their parents are.

Okay, enough of the soapbox.

Freebies are great, but ....

Freebies are great. Simplifying life means taking advantage of freebies whereever you find them.

And one of the great free services that's out there is Yahoo Mail. I use it everyday -- along with Yahoo Calendar, and I'm very happy with the service.

But is it safe? Can my Yahoo E-Mail Be Easily Hacked? Just how private is my Yahoo mail?

Well, I went and found a blog with a detailed explanation of how Sarah Palin's email was hacked (go here for details) and discovered that you're only as safe as the hacker's access to your personal information.

In Palin's case, he (or she) had the opportunity to surf the web for all sorts of personal information (where Sarah Palin went to high school, her residence's zip code, etc.) which he/she then used to start playing around with the secret questions that Yahoo asks when you report to Yahoo that you've forgotten your password.

So, once the hacker had her username -- not sure how he/she got that -- he/she started playing around with the Secret Questions until he got to change the password himself. And then, the hacker took over the mailbox after changing the password to "popcorn" -- reading it, disseminating it.

What Can You Do to Protect Your Freebie Email Account?

Yahoo has some security suggestions -- they seem inadequate here. As of this posting, I did not find any clear, easy-to-follow article or post that provided clear guidance on how to protect your Yahoo E-Mail account from being hacked just like Sarah Palin's.

I did find these suggestions:

1. Use a long, strange password and change it often. Nothing connected to your personal information. Letters and numbers.

2. Use different emails for different things. Have disposal emails. (I do this -- I have an email address for newsletters and the like, not only a separate account but on a separate service. No personal information goes thru here.)

3. Protect your computer with firewalls and a good anti-virus software (me, I use AVG - it's free and it's good).

Two things I would add:

(1) have your own set, bizarre answer to any secret question - your mother's maiden name? Manufacturer or Llama ... name of your first pet? Lawn or Expense. Why? Even if they can get your username, no amount of personal information is going to give them your zany answer to the secret question; and

(2) change your IP address via your ISP periodically -just call and ask, they can do this remotely.

Maybe we'll get some good techie advice soon - and maybe Yahoo will even go public with some more advice on this issue. If I see/hear anything more, I'll post it here in the Comments.

Examples of Excess-7: "Excessive Leverage and Greed"

Eric Fry over at the Rude Awakening offers the following quote today in his post:

“Looking back, what was the cause of this credit crisis?” CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo asked Bank of America’s CEO, Ken Lewis, during an interview yesterday morning. “What caused this whole mess?”

“Excessive leverage and greed,” Lewis responded.

Wow. At least they know who they are -- I've always thought Richard III was less evil than Iago, when comparing those two great Shakespearean villians, because at least Richard III was honest about what he was doing.

Today's News - Lehman, AIG, and Merrill Lynch

In today's news, banks are pack-ratting their cash in a way that would make Ebenezer Scrooge proud -- Bloomberg is reporting that the cost of borrowing money doubled overnight -- to the highest rate since the fears right after 9/11 - and there's rumors it's not just Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and American International Group Inc. that are in serious trouble. (AIG stock has lost 94% of its value over the past year, and Lehman just filed bankruptcy.)

In response, the Federal Reserve added $70 billion to reserves - and news is still breaking by the hour on what's happening with the Dow and when the other shoe is going to drop (or if it's going to drop, or if there is another shoe ...).

The Big Kahuna Meeting

The Scotsman has a good read on the Lehman story -- the Big Kahuna meeting on Sunday where Lehman wasn't saved by Fed Reserve Chairman Bernanke (the stuff of movies, who will George Clooney play?), how Lehman began as a small little business in Alabama to become the "biggest overseas bank in America," ....

That was a big meeting on Sunday, by the way -- as The Scotman describes, not only was Lehman's fate decided, but so was AIG's and Merrill Lynch ... who had a happier ending to the day: Bank of America (remember that quote at the start of this post?) rode in like the cavalry and tookover the stockbrokerage firm for $50,000,000,000.00.

And it was just last week that we were reeling from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Long ago, in a time far away, I studied finance - and I remember my professor being almost in despair at the continued deregulation of the banking industry. He foresaw doom, he valued frugality, and he bought gold. To give you an idea, back then the market hadn't hit 1000. That's right: 1000. That wasn't so very long ago, you know.

Today, I see his face clearly and I remember his concerns: money is a temptation best left in different pots, and we're so far from being out of the woods. Letting a major national bank takeover a stock market firm is troubling to me. Should banks own brokerage firms?

"Excessive leverage and greed. " Indeed.