TurboTax 2011 Review: My Experience and Comparison With TaxACT
March 6th, 2012 | Posted by Global InvestorsI just finished filing my federal and state income tax returns (again) using TurboTax Deluxe Online edition. This is the 2nd part of my series comparing the three major tax preparation websites: TurboTax, H&R Block At Home, or TaxACT.
You can see my TaxACT 2011 review here.
Tax Situation
Again, here’s a quick summary of our personal tax situation.
Retail Price
Although their website shows a “retail” price of $49.95 for TurboTax Deluxe, anyone who visits the site will at most pay $29.95 for Federal including e-File. TurboTax State is $36.95 including e-file. If you are a Vanguard Flagship Services or Asset Management Services client, you get a TurboTax Online Federal Deluxe + State + efile for free. All other clients get discount of about 25% off; you must log in to get your discount. There is also a Free Edition available if you have a very simple tax return – no itemized deductions, investment income, but remember that State is $27.95 extra in that case.
TurboTax Premier offers “additional guidance” for investment income from stocks and bonds and also rental income. However, I had the usual stock and bond sales and was able to complete my return without upgrading to Premier. I did not feel I needed any extra guidance, but if you do it will run an extra $20 for a total of $49.95. Finally, Turbo Tax Home & Business ($74.95) offers “additional guidance” for self-employment income including dealing with business expenses. However, if all you have is a couple of 1099-MISCs to report as I did, you can get by with Deluxe.
With all these tax sites you can start your return for free, and only pay when you file. Since I had already input all my tax data into TaxACT.com, I simply opened that up in a web browser tab side-by-side and start filing things out. The Q&A interview questions are in roughly the same order, but there are enough differences to make you jump around a bit.
Import from TaxACT & H&R Block at Home
Last year, I used TurboTax for my tax return. Thus, this time around TurboTax had all my old tax info pulled up immediately. Filing status, dependents, address, DOB, SSN, etc. They also had all my old W-2 and 1099 providers to reduce my data entry needs a little bit more. For example, all my Employer Tax IDs and addresses were pre-filled. This did feel rather convenient, and it helped make sure I didn’t forget any 1099s from old bank accounts.
However, as a result I was never asked if I wanted to import a previous year’s return from another provider like TaxACT or H&R Block. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this in the comments?
W-2 and 1099 Direct Import from Providers
One of the strengths of TurboTax is that you can directly import your W-2 and 1099 information from a number of partner providers. However, the W-2 part didn’t really impress me. Our W-2s came from Ceridian and we had to enter some sort of username and password which I’ve never set up before. It was faster to just type in the 10 numbers and get on with it.
1099s were a different story, at least for me. I was able to provide my Vanguard username and password and have my 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, and 1099-B data imported in seconds. Other partners that I was able to use included Betterment, Chase Bank, ING Direct (Sharebuilder), and Pentagon Federal Credit Union. USAA, TD Ameritrade, E-Trade, and Wells Fargo were also available. For those with a lot of transactions, this is a great time-saver.
In addition, after comparing with my TaxACT data, I found that I had made a data entry error of $300 with one wrong digit when manually entering all those capital gains and losses from stock sales. The TurboTax import would have help me avoided that mistake, which I don’t think I would have caught otherwise.
Finally, a cool feature is that if all your accounts are linked to the aggregation site Mint.com, you can simply log into your Mint account and have all your available forms imported with one login (Intuit owns both TurboTax and Mint).
The Small Stuff
This time around, I did notice that TurboTax has something called “Flags” that are the same as Bookmarks with TaxACT that allow you to mark confusing questions to come back to. The icon is small and there is no text, so I probably would have missed it again if I wasn’t looking for it. A minor positive I noticed is that TurboTax automatically enters commas when you reach thousands (ie. 3,459 instead of 3459). It helps with data entry, as I have already shown that I am error-prone!
A minor negative is that TurboTax had many more server delays where the page would not load or would be blank and I had to refresh the page. I did not have any such problems with TaxACT, which I was using simultaneously on the same internet connection and computer.
Foreign Tax Credit
After everything was entered, there was a difference of less than $50 in my total calculated refund between TurboTax and TaxACT. After some research, I found that it was due to my treatment of my foreign taxes paid as a deduction vs. credit. TaxACT appeared to be more aggressive and just allowed me to take it as a credit, while TurboTax seemed to require more information and otherwise steered me towards taking it as a deduction. This was partially my own fault, but the two questionnaires definitely had a different approach. In the end, I got everything to match up between them. (Take the credit if you can.)
Upselling and Price Tricks?
There are some upsell attempts during the tax return to upgrade to Premier or Home & Business, however it was only a couple times and didn’t feel overly pushy. At the end, the price total was as expected with no bogus charges. There was a final pitch for a product call Audit Defense for $39.95, which provides you “professional representation in the event of an audit” and covers both federal and state returns. As before, I am not convinced of the quality of such representation.
Recap
In the end, I felt that TurboTax.com showed why it remains the best-known and popular tax software. That is, it covers all of the tax aspects about as equally as well as the others, perhaps with a bit more thoroughness (anality?). However, where it separates itself is the importing of data from financial institutions. It is indeed more expensive – for most people TurboTax will cost $30+ more than TaxACT – but if it saves you both time and effort in data entry (and potentially prevents errors), then I can definitely see how people would be willing to pay a premium.
There is also the familiarity factor. I definitely kept feeling the benefit of using it last year and again this year. It compared all my 2010 and 2011 numbers side-by-side, which was nice for us financial geeks. It also remembered little things like my old IRA basis, so I wouldn’t have to look it up again. On the other hand, if my return was simple and would not benefit much from automatic importing, I would probably rather stick with TaxACT.
Related posts:
TurboTax 2011 Review: My Experience and Comparison With TaxACT from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.
View full post on My Money Blog
TaxACT 2011 Review: My User Experience With Screenshots
March 2nd, 2012 | Posted by Global InvestorsAccording to my tax software poll, it appears that the vast majority of readers are using one of the “big 3″ tax filing software: TurboTax, H&R Block At Home, or TaxACT. This matches industry-wide estimates; Did you know that H&R Block tried to buy TaxAct last year but was blocked by the Justice Department to as it would hurt competition and basically create a duopoly?
Here is my hopefully-useful review of TaxACT.com, the first part of a series to try out each of these three products to do my real-life taxes and then compare each of them.
Tax Situation
Here’s a quick summary of our personal tax situation, which I think should cover the most common features of tax software. We don’t have any rental income, however.
Retail Price
Of the Big 3, TaxACT regularly has the lowest retail price. I will be using the online version of TaxACT, of which there are two editions:
Both versions include all Schedules and all e-fileable IRS Forms. Reasons for upgrading to Deluxe (basically an extra $3 for Fed + State) are the ability to import information from your 2010 TaxACT return, import info electronically from Gainskeeper, help with valuing donation items, as well as free phone support. If you are not subject to state income tax, then you can indeed use TaxACT completely free including efile regardless of income level or complexity of return. Nice! There is also a desktop version available on CD and via download for Windows only.
So I gathered up all my tax documents (W-2, 1099-INT, 1099-B, 1099-DIV, 1098) and started my tax return. One aspect to remember is that you can start your return for free at any of these sites, but they’ll only ask you to pay just before you efile to the IRS or print out your return. I guess they figure if you commit that much effort already, you’ll probably pay to file your return.
Import from Turbotax & H&R Block at Home
Since I didn’t use TaxACT last year, I was planning to go with the Free Edition since I didn’t have anything to import. However, even the Basic edition has something called QuickConvert that can import data from the PDF generated from other tax software. It scans and imports basic things like personal information and your AGI, but for example you won’t get last year’s W-2 employer data brought over.
Bookmarks
One nice feature allows you to assign “bookmarks” to any questions that you may be unsure of and want to revisit later. This saves you from wasting time searching around for that one little question that you weren’t totally sure about…
W-2 Import
The W-2 import feature that tries to save you some time by downloading your information directly from the internet only works if prepared by “TALX W-2 Express”. I believe that TurboTax imports from some of the larger payroll providers like ADP.
Investment Income
As I’ve started to invest more money into taxable brokerage accounts and not just tax-sheltered accounts like IRAs and 401ks, I’ve had to spend more and more time keeping track of capital gains and losses. Let me tell you, it’s almost enough to stop me from trading. I’m going to seriously look into GainsKeeper software to automate things for me. TaxACT Deluxe allows you to import from Gainskeeper as well as import transactions via .CSV file.
Alerts
As with the other guys, TaxACT will run a screen on your tax return information when you’re done to catch any errors or discrepancies.
Upselling and Price Tricks?
With a base product that is free, you would expect TaxACT to try and upsell you to a higher-priced product. Well, they do try and upsell the Deluxe version throughout the interview when there is an available feature that you may want to use. Honestly, I ended up upgrading to Deluxe just to see what you get, but in the end I don’t think I used any of the features. After upgrading though, I was not able to find a way to downgrade back to the Free Edition. So watch out for that. However, if you do have a State tax return then the extra $3 is probably worth it if you use any of the import feature to save you some time and effort.
Other than that, the only other upsell is for something called the TaxACT Data Archive Service (DAS) which provides access to a backup of your return for 3 years for $5.95. Actually, I would prefer they didn’t keep my personal information at all.
Overall Q&A Interface
I’ve used all three of these major brands over the years, and the question-and-answer interview style is pretty consistent across all of them. TaxACT does not feel relatively unpolished or inferior in any way.
Guarantee
TaxAct provides a “maximum refund guarantee”, where if you find a “larger refund or smaller tax due from another tax preparation method with the same data, we will refund the applicable product price you paid for your TaxACT Deluxe federal return. TaxACT Free Edition customers are entitled to a payment of $4.95.” Rather wimpy, but hey, it’s free.
Recap
TaxACT.com worked as advertised, and it provided a full-featured free Federal return at any income level and for all tax forms. Many other providers have “free” editions that are restricted to certain income levels or are only for 1040-EZ forms with no investment income or business income. At $17.95 for their top version including Federal + State with efile for both, I like the straightforward pricing and the software itself is pretty indistinguishable from the competitors. One thing they don’t provide is audit support, although I don’t know if I’d want generic support in the event of an IRS audit anyhow.
Related posts:
TaxACT 2011 Review: My User Experience With Screenshots from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.
View full post on My Money Blog
Portfolio Asset Allocation & Holdings Update – February 2011
February 21st, 2012 | Posted by Global InvestorsI took some time this weekend to check on my investment portfolio, including employer 401(k) plans, self-employed plans, IRAs, and taxable brokerage holdings.
You can view my target asset allocation here, along with links to other model asset allocations. Despite the headlines, I still like to buy, hold, and rebalance primary in low-cost index funds. Here is my current asset allocation:
I continue to rebalance continuously with new cashflow. Everything looks okay; stocks have been on a pretty good run recently for whatever reason and bond yields are still kept low by central bank policy. My personal outlook for the world economy is still uneasy. My current ratio is about 75% stocks and 25% bonds, but my goal is to get closer to a 60% stocks and 40% bonds setup, the classic balanced fund ratio within the next 5-7 years.
The main change since last time is that I dropped the stock funds in my 401k plan and moved them all to my taxable accounts for tax-efficiency reasons. I needed for space for bonds. I also stopped buying shares of the stable value fund in my 401k because new purchases only earn 1.25% interest. Instead, I am buying the only other bond option which is the behemoth PIMCO Total Return (PTTRX) which has a relatively low 0.46% expense ratio due to it being an institutional share class. This fund is actively managed and includes various types of bonds, but since the portion is so low, I’m still classifying it under my short-term nominal bond asset class.
Stock Holdings
Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)
Vanguard Small-Cap Value Index Fund (VISVX)
Vanguard FTSE All-World ex-US ETF (VEU)
Vanguard MSCI Emerging Markets ETF (VWO)
Vanguard REIT Index Fund (VGSIX)
Bond Holdings
Vanguard Limited-Term Tax-Exempt Fund (VMLTX)
PIMCO Total Return Institutional* (PTTRX)
Stable Value Fund* (3% & 1.8% yield on existing balances, no longer contributing)
iShares Barclays TIPS Bond ETF (TIP)
Individual TIPS securities
* Denotes 401k holdings due to limited choice.
The overall expense ratio for this portfolio is in the neighborhood of .20% annually, or 20 basis points, which is much lower hurdle to overcome than the average mutual fund expense ratio of over 1% annually. This is all self-directed inside accounts held at Vanguard (IRAs, taxable), Fidelity (401k, Solo 401k), and a small retirement plan provider. I have some “play money” assets at other discount brokers that is invested in individual stocks, but the total is less than 2% of our net worth and not included here.
Due to our goals to achieve financial independence early, I use a 3% theoretical safe withdrawal rate on my portfolio for the purposes of my tracking. This means that I expect every $100,000 that I save will provide me an inflation-adjusted $3,000 in expenses forever. However, in reality we will probably adjust our withdrawals based on our personal inflation, continuing income, and market returns.
With portfolio increases and additional contributions, at a 3% withdrawal rate our current portfolio would now cover 50% of our expected non-mortgage expenses. If you recall, I also plan to have the house paid off, and I will be making a lump sum payment shortly to bring our home equity past 50% as well. Hopefully as we cross the 50% hump, things will accelerate as portfolio growth will benefit from compounding returns and our mortgage balance will shrink faster from the opposite effect as more of our monthly payment goes towards principal as opposed to interest!
Related posts:
Portfolio Asset Allocation & Holdings Update – February 2011 from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.
View full post on My Money Blog
Poll: Which Tax Software Did You Use In 2011?
February 4th, 2012 | Posted by Global InvestorsJanuary 31st was the deadline for companies to mail out W-2 forms and 1099 forms involving other income and interest. Coming up is February 15th, the deadline for brokerages to send out 1099-B forms listing stock sale proceeds.
That means you early-birds out there (not me) are probably chomping at the bit to file your taxes! So here’s a question to you readers about last year:
A better question would be why you chose that software – price, convenience, trust, quality of product, or what? Would you have switched if a competitor was $25 cheaper?
Related posts:
Poll: Which Tax Software Did You Use In 2011? from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.
View full post on My Money Blog
PA Casinos Close 2011 With Gross Revenue Nearly 22% Higher Than in 2010
January 22nd, 2012 | Posted by Global InvestorsWith an additional $55.8 million in revenue in December from table games play at the Commonwealth’s 10 casinos, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board today announced that the total combined gaming revenue from slot machines and table games generated in 2011 topped $3 billion for the first time.
The Board reported today that gross revenue for 2011 was $3,024,772,959 compared to 2010 totals of $2,486,408,061, a year over year increase of 21.65%.
Slot Machine Gross Revenue
Table Games Gross Revenue
Total Gross Revenue
Total Tax Revenue
2010
$2,273,934,190
$212,473,870
$2,486,408,061
$1,282,793,739
2011
$2,405,867,897
$618,905,062
$3,024,772,959
$1,411,098,715
Pennsylvania taxes gross table game revenue at 16% and gross slot machine revenue at approximately 55%.
“Since one of the… View full post on Live News from PR-USA.net
Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus Summary 2011: Over $2,500 in Free Money
January 21st, 2012 | Posted by Global Investors
Looking back, 2011 was a great year for credit card sign-up incentives. The major issuers rolled out some new cards and features and offered up big bonuses to get you to try them out. By picking up the tastiest offers, you could have reaped thousands of dollars in bonuses even with average incomes and without spending more than normal. If you have good to excellent credit, why not earn some money with it? Here’s what Mrs. MMB and I decided to jump on last year:
Chase Sapphire Preferred: $500 cash or $625 in travel
The Chase Sapphire Preferred Card gives you 50,000 bonus points after you spend $3,000 in purchases within the first 3 months. With this new card, Chase is basically trying to make a premium card that competes with American Express, with their Ultimate Rewards rivaling Membership Rewards. (It’s metal and heavy, too!) For example, you can now transfer Ultimate Rewards points to Continental/United, Southwest, British Airways, Hyatt, and Marriott. This the same system the Chase Freedom card uses now as well.
But my favorite features are the cash options and the 25% bonus towards travel. 10,000 points = $100 cash = $125 towards travel at no markup (same price as Expedia, Travelocity, etc). You can mix points and cash however you like, which means 50k points = $625 towards any airfare or hotel nights. No annual fee the first year, $95 after that. For more details, please see my Chase Sapphire Preferred review post.
Chase Ink Bold: $500 cash or $625 in travel
The small business version of the Chase Sapphire, this card also offers a huge sign-up bonus. The Chase Ink Bold with Ultimate Rewards gives you 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points after spending $5,000 in the first 3 months your account is open. For more details, please see my Chase Ink Bold review post, including details on what constitutes a small business.
Citi ThankYou Premier: $500 in gift card or $665 in airfare
The Citi ThankYou Premier Card is another travel-oriented premium credit card gives you 50,000 ThankYou points after spending $2,500 within 3 months of account opening. The special feature here is that it offers you a 33% premium on when used towards travel. That means those 50,000 ThankYou points can be redeemed for $665 in airfare. They also have their own airfare portal with the same prices as Expedia, and you can also mix and match cash and points if you don’t have enough points to pay for the entire amount. For more details, please see my Citi ThankYou Premier review post.
Delta Gold SkyMiles American Express: 30,000 miles + $99 Companion voucher
The Delta Gold SkyMiles American Express is not a great deal for everyone, but it works out very well for us. (It’s actually our second card, I had one previously.) My wife and I both fly cross-country together to a city primarily served by Delta at least once a year to visit the parents. The sign-up incentive is pretty good – 30,000 Skymiles after just $500 in purchases within 3 months. More importantly, the card comes with a buy-one-get-one-for-$99 companion voucher that saved us $250+ this year since it’s usually during a holiday. We’ve used this voucher before, and the prices are comparable to online travel engines, but you do get stuck with the taxes of $50 or so. The annual fee is free the first year, and $95 after that. You also get a free checked bag on every flight for you and up to 8 travel companions (so one card gets us two free bags as a couple, a $25 value per person each roundtrip). The total one-year value of this card is at least $600 if value a mile at a penny.
Grand total: $625 + $625 + $665 + $600 = $2,515
That’s just for four cards from three different issuers, which is far less than the most cards I’ve applied for in a year on my own. This means a couple could make over $5,000, which is 10% of the 2009 US median household income of $50,221 per US Census. As for us, we plan on making good use of this money to cover future airfare and hotel expenses. This total also does not include any earnings from cash-back rewards credit cards.
If we include the Chase Ink Bold, the required spending total was $11,000. Exclude the Ink Bold, and it goes down to $6,000, which if you use time-shifting techniques like pre-paying bills such as insurance/utilities or buying gift cards for groceries/gas, works out to a reasonable $500 per month. That’s well within our normal spending anyway.
Honorable mentions go out to three other cards:
My psychic powers tell me that some of you are wondering about this 
, so here’s the answer: How Opening and Closing Credit Card Accounts Affects Your Credit Score.
Related posts:
Credit Card Sign-Up Bonus Summary 2011: Over $2,500 in Free Money from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.
View full post on My Money Blog
Estimate Your 2011 Portfolio Rate of Return – Calculator
January 12th, 2012 | Posted by Global InvestorsSome of you may be wondering how well your specific portfolio performed last year. Let’s say you started the year with $10,000 and put in another $5,000 throughout the year, and ended up with $16,000. What was your rate of return? Your main goal is simply to separate the effect of new deposits (or withdrawals) and your actual return from investments.
Figuring out your exact personal rate of return requires you to know the exact dates of all your deposits and withdrawals, along with a financial calculator or software program with an IRR function. However, for an simple and quick estimate of your returns, try this calculator instead:
Instructions
How Good Is This Estimate?
The calculator assumes that the inflows and outflows are spread evenly around the middle of the year. I originally saw this method in The Four Pillars of Investing (review). However, unless the deposits and withdrawals are very large as compared to the initial balance, the estimates are actually pretty good.
For example, let’s say that you start with $100,000 on 1/1/11, and end up with $120,000 on 1/1/11. If you had net deposits of $10,000 during the year, the calculator above would estimate your return at 9.52%. If the $10,000 was actually deposited all at once on one of these specific days, you would get the following exact returns:
| Deposit Date | Exact Return |
| 1/1/11 (very first day) | 9.1% |
| 6/04/11 (middle of the year) | 9.5% |
| 1/1/12 (very last day) | 10% |
| Estimate | 9.5% |
I Want Exact Numbers Too!
For everything you ever wanted to know about rate of return and then some, see Gummy Stuff. I must warn you that it’s very math intensive. If you just want to know how to figure out the numbers, see his XIRR page. You’ll need the exact dates of all your fees, commissions, deposits, and withdrawals.
Like this tool? Check out the rest of my Tools and Calculators. I hope they are useful.
Updated and revised for 2012.
Related posts:
Estimate Your 2011 Portfolio Rate of Return – Calculator from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.
View full post on My Money Blog
2011 Year-End Investment Returns by Asset Class
January 3rd, 2012 | Posted by Global InvestorsI’ve been waiting for some good graphics about the performance of various asset classes for 2011. Got any? I’d try and make one myself, but I’m exhausted from year-end festivities. Below is one from Scotty Barber of Reuters (click to enlarge):
I also saved as a PDF the performance data from all Vanguard mutual funds after the close of the last trading day of 2011 (download link). Selected funds:
| Fund Ticker | Asset Class | 2011 Total Return |
| Stocks | ||
| VFINX | S&P 500 | 1.97% |
| VTSMX | US Total Market | 0.96% |
| VISVX | US Small Cap Value | -4.16% |
| VGSIX | US Real Estate (REIT) | 8.47% |
| VFWIX | International Total Market | -14.41% |
| VGTSX | International Total Market | -14.56% |
| VFSVX | International Small Cap | -20.28% |
| VEIEX | Emerging Markets | -19.18% |
| Bonds | ||
| VFISX | Short-Term Treasury | 2.26% |
| VIPSX | Inflation-Protected Bonds | 13.24% |
| VBMFX | Total Bond Market Index | 7.56% |
As a reminder that being this year’s best performing asset class is no guarantee of for future years, here’s the Periodic Table of Investment Returns from Callan that shows the relative performance of 8 major asset classes over the last 20 years (1991-2010, click to view PDF).
Any predictions for 2012? 
Related posts:
2011 Year-End Investment Returns by Asset Class from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2012.
View full post on My Money Blog
Flexible Spending Account Ideas: Use It Or Lose It! (Updated 2011)
December 29th, 2011 | Posted by Global Investors
Like many of you, we have a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) that allows us to pay qualified healthcare expenses using tax-free money. (Did you know that FSA money is also exempt from payroll taxes in addition to income taxes?) I still think the idea of guessing your future healthcare expenses in a use-it-or-lose-it system is incredibly stupid, but it is what it is. We recently even got one of those FSA debit cards so at least we don’t have to deal with faxing in receipts when purchasing from approved merchants.
If you didn’t exhaust your funds with insurance copays or deductibles, here’s a quick guide to using up all that cash. First, I should say that some plans allow a grace period until March 31st as opposed to a December 31st deadline to use your 2011 funds, so confirm with your FSA administrator.
The go-to product used to be buying over-the-counter drugs like cough medicine or painkillers. But effective January 1, 2011, the cost of over-the-counter medications are no longer eligible unless the medication was prescribed by a doctor. Keep this in mind for 2012 and ask for that “official” prescription for the OTC drugs you buy on a regular basis. In that case, why not order an advanced refill of your existing prescriptions instead.
Don’t forget, Target and Walmart now offer 30-day supplies for $4 and 90-day supplies for $10 on many generic drugs that are also packaged under over-the-counter labels.
FSA Items Still Available Over-The-Counter Without A Prescription
As a reference, I usually check the well-organized lists from health insurers like Aetna or third-party FSA administrators like Conexis. In addition, just about every online drugstore (Drugstore.com, CVS, Walgreens) now has a special FSA-eligible section, but some still include items which now require a prescription under the the new regulations (look for FSA vs. FSARx).
Related posts:
Flexible Spending Account Ideas: Use It Or Lose It! (Updated 2011) from My Money Blog.
© MyMoneyBlog.com, 2011.
View full post on My Money Blog
Did 2011 Suck? Let’s Kill it in 2012
December 29th, 2011 | Posted by Global InvestorsI’m not a fan of resolutions or any of that crap. I think I hate resolutions because my gym gets rammed every January and there’s a plethora of scrawny guys in Affliction shirts leaving their 5lb weights on the bench press. Perhaps it’s because I’m totally annoyed by friends that throw out insane goals, never reach them, and then complain about their failure. How are you supposed to look like a bodybuilder if you never did a pushup in the last 6 months? How are you supposed to reach your goals if you’re too busy complaining?
Alright, before I get too carried away, back to the original topic…
Did 2011 suck for you? If it did then we need to work on getting everything under control in 2012.
What can you do to kill it in 2012 and have a much better year?
You’re not going to get anywhere if you don’t start working on anything. You need to produce something if you want to see real results. You need to actually sit down, focus and start getting real work done. You can consume all of the theory in the world, but it doesn’t mean anything until you finally start to apply it. I used to read about blogging, eBooks, and all of that stuff. I didn’t truly learn anything until I actually launched my own blog and then launched my own eBook a few years later. Doing is the best form of learning in my opinion.
There are no secrets or shortcuts here. Just remember that you’re not going to drown in sweat. If you have no motivation to get any work done, then you’re just in the wrong field. Time to cut your losses and move on to something else. If you have zero energy, then consider improving your diet or exercising more often.
If you fail to plan then you plan to fail. It really is that simple. You need to get your act together. If you’re not organized then you won’t know if you’re coming or going.
How can you get more organized?
I’m slowly working on this one. I gut my room out at least once a month. I want to have the most organized workspace possible. I try to keep all of my notes beside me. I also try to keep track of what I want to do, what I plan on doing, and what needs to be done. This why I’m not just idly sitting away on the compute.
I get caught up with this all of the time. I start reading and reading. I read so much and know so much, yet I do very little. It’s lame. You get nothing done when you’re consuming information and doing nothing about it. It’s cool to know a lot. It’s useless when you don’t do anything with this information. Stop consuming at a certain point. I recommend a steady ratio between consuming and producing.
If you meed the deadline of your new eBook or if you lose those 10lbs by January then you should reward yourself. When you have something to look forward you’re going to want to work harder naturally.
How can you reward yourself more often?
I could go on but only you know how to reward yourself for a job well done.
Negative reinforcement is the kick in the ass that we all need once in a while. I do this to myself all of the time. As I’m typing this it’s a Saturday night and I’m clearly not out. I didn’t hit a few goals and I thought it would make no sense for me to go out. Instead I stayed in to work on my goals and get some work done at the same time. I could’ve easily gone out, used the “it’s Saturday” excuse, and delayed my work again. Screw that. You need to punish yourself.
Those are my observations from the past and tips for moving forward.
How did 2011 turn out for you? What do you have planned for 2012?
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