Simplifying Life

I’ve found myself to be on a bit of a simplification kick lately. I find that with all the information on the internet, and everything we as a society can get our hands on we’ve sort of fallen into a trap of too much information. Now I’m the last person that would say that the internet is bad, and that Twitter and Facebook are bad. I love both websites and I use them often. They’re great for practicing foreign languages, getting quick headlines, and staying in touch with friends.

I find that taking in all of that information has its negative effects too. Take for instance language learning, there are so many options on the internet and if you use peer to peer programs, there is so much software and material to download and take in. Also there are many polyglots and people who have mastered certain foreign languages that all have their own methods. I found myself reading and studying more about ‘how to learn a language’ than actually learning the languages, which was miles away from my actual goals. I can study linguistics in school if I want to learn about languages, but I want to learn them and know them. So it seems to me the best and simplest way is just to input as much as I can into my brain and the internet can help me immensely. I of course use Lingqs tools and though I’m mostly studying Polish and I don’t have a lot of reading/listening tandems, I use lingq to read and studying as much vocabulary as I can, and I read everything. My biggest problem in life is that I’m too interested in everything. You name it: sports, history, politics, culture. It’s just all too much to keep up with. So I read and I listen and I do it a lot and it’s simple and it works.

What else in my life have I simplified? Well how about working out? Keeping myself fit and strong, has always been one of my biggest goals. I’ve spent thousands of dollars on gym memberships books and supplements and hundreds of hours on the internet, and in books and magazines reading and reading. I’ve decided to simplify it all. I’m going to eat lots of protein and vegetables and fruits, and do push ups, sit ups, jog, and play basketball whenever I can. I just simplified it instead of wasting time and worrying about all this crap about what I should eat and tracking protein. I found a simple push up plan on hundredpushups.com and I’ll follow it.

Another one of my goals is to build a family and great strong relationship with my wife. Now I could bury my nose in all kinds of self help books and try all these tests and whatnot… But why not just spend time together doing things we both like to do? It seems simpler and better to me.

Other goals? Opening a wealth management-financial planning practice? Finish school, that simple. Anyway you get the picture. I’ve needlessly cluttered my life and my thoughts with things that are complicated and things that make reaching my goals difficult. Maybe you don’t have this problem. I did, but I don’t anymore.

One Goal is Getting Bigger than the Others

I think I've become a bit addicted to one of the goals and have started forsaking some of the others. I've been so taken up with learning languages and reading about learning languages and finding the best language learning programs and strategies that things like my health goals and even the finance goals haven't been getting much attention. This of course will have to change. In the near future I'll write a post on what I'm doing for the language learning goals and how I'm studying but after that I need to calm down with studying about learning and retaining a language. I also need to adjust my goals for language learning. With all that said it's time to find a gym, write a post about nutrition and another about a work out plan. Also I need to reevaluate and get more detailed with my finances.

The other piece of the puzzle that has been totally forsaken is the art goal. It's true I'm busy studying and learning languages but I need to make time for that outlet even if it's in a bar with a beer, the writing must be done. I don't like to really count the writing I do in my English class because I don't really get to choose what to write. The other two things I've done virtually nothing about is learning the guitar, I haven't even read through a book on the basics yet, and my travel journal, I have a journal but I haven't written anything in it yet about traveling and where I've traveled, all that's in there are some German exercises I did awhile back. So that's the way it stands now, I gotta buck up or shut up if I want this journey to continue.

A Few Short Term Goals Set and Planned Out

Planning and Short Term Goals

Here are a couple of short term goals to shoot for in each of the goal categories.

Language Goal-

Polish: Finish the Polish in 4 Weeks course by March.

How?

Finish one lesson in full every two days. Write out the “Ćwiczenia” section out separately. There are 28 lessons in the book so finishing by March shouldn't be too hard so long as I stick to it.

Polish: Finish the Lock Superczłowiek manga I bought.

This is a small Japanese manga in Polish I bought. I love reading and I can understand most of what's going on so I should get it done.

Polish: Restart Mnemosyne.

Mnemosyne is a flash card program that tracks how often and how well you know vocabulary. I need to figure out a system so that I don't overload myself with words and phrases, which is what I keep on doing. I think adding 15 flashcards on Sundays only will work there.

Finish a good portion of the Michel Thomas Polish Foundation Course.

Michel Thomas has a pretty good language system and I recently found a Polish version of his system. It's 8 CD's and I'd like to be done with half of them by March.

Business Goal

Talk with Gosia about budgeting and take all the crap I'll get for not previously sticking to it. But I have to have room for hanging out with friends and watching sporting events in places with them or else I won't be able to stick to any budget. The short term goal here is to have 1,000 PLN in a separate savings account by March.

Art Goal

Have 85 pages of the novella re-written by March and have talked to Gosia about my plan for her to read portions of it at a time and write down her comments separately.

Have half of the guitar for dummies book read by March.

How do I do this?

I think I'll keep a short term google calendar to track progress and to make even smaller short term goals to reach these. I may just have to invest in a paper calendar though.

Business Goal- The Opening Plan

Well one of the goals is to be successful in business/financial/investment pursuits and this is most likely to be done if that becomes my major field of study. Also being successful in this pursuit allows to me to be able to finance the others. So here's the beginning of the detailed plan, this is also rough because eventually I'll get more detailed and add, subtract and edit things.

SAVE

First I need to show myself that I can save and be frugal where I need to be frugal. So the objective for this goal is to save 5000 PLN (PLN being the Polish currency where I'll be with my wife on and off until we've decided exactly what we're going to do with our lives) and 3,000 dollars. Now this money will represent the emergency cash that a financially sound person should have in hand for cases of lost jobs or sickness ect. I've not been the best saver in my life. I haven't been terrible either but I think I can be better. So with my financial aid check I should be able to have almost 3,000 dollars but that side will have to wait since I'll be in Poland making złoty for a while. I need to have a definite plan for building 5000 PLN in a certain amount of time. 500 PLN per month starting in the month of Feb should do it. That would give us 5,000 by October assuming we stay in Poland that long. But proving to myself that it can be done would be a huge accomplishment for me and at least being on track would be too.

BA AND MBA in Econ or Finance

Now obviously I haven't made a clear a decision here but it's far enough out that I don't have to yet. But one thing that would help me considerably in making my other goals would be if I were successful in my business/financial/investment pursuits. The best way to do this is to get a master's degree in the field. With that I could always fall back on teaching (though I don't want to) and I can always be producing money. Also I'll be able to gain the skills and knowledge to run my own portfolio and perhaps other people's as well. It's also a strong interest of mine, especially the Econ side and this will also help in my pursuits in making advancements in Economic and Political theory.

Doctorate

After the MBA and after getting a job and producing real money I'd like to get into a doctoral program maybe in the Economics school in Wrocław. There's a good chance that we'll end up in Poland and I'd love to have that specialization in Eastern and Central European Economies and Financial systems. But this part of the plan is very loose and something I may look into when I'm on more stable financial ground. This would also with the advancements in Econ theory goal I also have.

Now that's the rough plan for the business goal. There's a lot to add and a lot of planning within the planning to do. But that's the journey.