5 Tips from Billionaires to Help Achieve High Productivity

5 Tips from Billionaires to Help Achieve High Productivity

By Will Chou

There are a ton of viral articles out there that are about “habits of millionaires” or “habits of successful people.” Quite frankly, they are a bit plain and overdone.  This advice comes directly from dozens of interviews and books by billionaires I have consumed. I decided to get advice from only the best of the best.

Here are 5 tips from billionaires on how to achieve high productivity:

 1. Keep Your Calendar Simple

Keep your calendar clear and organized. Rather than having hundreds of complicated tasks on there, simplify it to the most important. Drop the rest. 

The average person has many low-priority tasks that distract them on their calendar. It’s not a good idea to stuff your calendar with a thousand, small random tasks.

Warren Buffett has mentioned this many times in interviews.

Bill Gates has remarked about how amazing this is after learning it from Warren. Bill has used it himself since then.

2. Do What’s Most Important First

Your most important task should be done first when you start the day.

Average people fill their day with unimportant tasks. The start of their day is filled with tasks that could have gone undone and had minimal impact.

By the end of the day, their most important tasks are still incomplete and often pushed off until tomorrow. This leads to further procrastination and small results.

They were busy but not effective or impactful. You don’t want to be the person who does busywork to look busy rather than strategic, smart work.

Warren Buffett’s pilot, Mike Flint, learned this lesson after talking to Buffett.

Mike learned that the biggest threat to finishing the #1 most important task on your list is #2, #3, #4, #5, and so on. Throw out the other tasks until you finish #1.

3. Delegate Lower Priority Tasks

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://wealthygorilla.com/5-tips-billionaires-achieve-high-productivity/

How to Prepare For a Recession

How to Prepare For a Recession

Posted March 17, 2022 by Ben Carlson

A reader asks: What are some moves you’re making to prepare for the recession?

There seems to be a growing consensus among smart people I follow right now:

Inflation was already high and is only going to get worse because of the war. We could easily see a 10% inflation print this year.

The war is going to cause massive food shortages in the next year since so many agricultural commodities come from Ukraine and Russia.

Supply shocks were already bad and are only going to get worse. Tack on China’s Covid outbreak that’s shutting down entire cities and the supply chain is in trouble yet again.

Therefore, a recession is now inevitable. 

Last week I even hopped on this bandwagon by showing how a recession is the only way we’ve seen high inflation fall in the past.

I do believe the probability of a recession is higher now than it was a month ago.

However, when dealing with probabilities, you have to look at both sides of the argument. Nothing is 100% certain in the markets or the economy.

Let’s look at the other side of this argument to show what could keep us out of a recession for a while longer.

There is a ton of pent-up demand.

Delta’s CEO said the airline just had its busiest two days in history in terms of sales. Travel spending is booming right now.

I was at Disney last month. The parks were packed every single day. My Disney insiders tell me they think sometime in March could see the busiest week ever for their theme parks. And I know from experience — Disney is not cheap. Inflation is not holding back spending at the parks.

The housing market remains scalding hot, even in the face of rising mortgage rates. Logan Motashami posted this picture of people lined up down the street waiting to see a new listing in California last weekend:

This is not exactly recessionary behavior.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2022/03/how-to-prepare-for-a-recession/

7 Sacrifices Successful Entrepreneurs Make to Succeed

7 Sacrifices Successful Entrepreneurs Make to Succeed

Dan WesternBy Dan Western

You can’t have success without sacrifice; If it was easy enough to become one of the greats without making sacrifices, every tom, dick and harry would skate by through life putting in the bare minimum, and still living they’re dreams. They wouldn’t have earned it.

Every successful entrepreneur has made sacrifices in order to build themselves great wealth and success. But they won’t just make one. They’ll make several in order to maximize their entrepreneurial growth.

Here are 7 of those sacrifices successful entrepreneurs make:

1. Security

If you’re planning on ‘starting from the bottom’, in the business world so to speak, then your job security is a sacrifice you need to think about making.

The only way you gain job security in the first place is by dedicating the majority of your time each day working for someone else. Starting a business at the same time can be incredibly tough, and in many circumstances almost impossible.

So you need to sacrifice the security in order to work towards bigger things. It’s both a difficult risk and sacrifice since income will be tight, but you’ve got to be willing to give up the good in order to shoot for the great!

2. Free Time

There comes a point in every entrepreneurs life time where they can slow down on the hours they’re putting in and begin to gain back their free time.

But to begin with, and certainly for a long period of time, they’ll sacrifice their free time to spend more hours working and building something they can truly be proud of.

All that time you’d normally spend watching T.V, chilling and doing unproductive activities will need to be sacrificed, and extra sickening work ethic needs to be put in.

As soon as you step into the wide world of business, the level of competition hits an all time high and becomes a major factor in determining your success.

If more hours put into a business correlates with larger progress made, and every other entrepreneur is working 15 hour days, does that make your situation different to the rest? They’re your competition. Stay on their level, otherwise you won’t survive.

3. Money

Mark Cuban once said that people who start businesses on loans are fools, and I agree with him to a certain extent.

Obtaining a loan for a startup gives you a little more financial stability in the short term, and that cash isn’t something that you personally have to sacrifice, not all in one go anyway.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://wealthygorilla.com/7-sacrifices-successful-entrepreneurs-make-succeed/

32 Absolute Best Frugal Living Tips

32 Absolute Best Frugal Living Tips

November 19, 2021 by A Dime Saved

Are you looking for the best frugal living tips? You have come to the right place!

I am all about Frugal Living. I live frugally. I blog about frugality. Frugal, I am thee.

I hope some of these frugal living tips help you be frugal- whether you choose to live frugally or you live a life of frugality out of necessity.

Living a frugal life is not only about not spending too much money, saving for retirement, stocking up an emergency fund, or avoiding credit card debt. When you live a life of simplicity, you can spend time and money on what’s important to you. The best frugal living tips are the ones that work the best for you- the ones that will help you start living frugally and make your life easier.

Of course, if I can help you spend less money while you also work to make extra money, then you will be setting yourself up for a lifetime of financial success. Being successful financially can give you options in life, and then you can also help others by giving and using your power (after all, money is power) to help others.

30 Top Frugal Living Tips

Budget. Budget. Budget.

Creating a budget that works and then STICKING TO IT is the best and biggest frugal tip anyone can give you. Creating a budget gives a structure to your spending, which allows you to spend on what you want and not spend on what you don’t want to spend on. That is the definition of living a frugal life.

When You Find A Great Deal, Buy In Bulk.

If meat is on sale, have your butcher cut it up into smaller pieces and then wrap them separately. Label everything clearly! Buying large amounts of meat is usually cheaper than buying individually cut pieces.

Reduce Your Shopping Trips So That You Spend Less Time In Stores.

The more time you spend in a store, the more likely you are to spend money. Make a shopping list of the main things you need so that you have a guide to help you stay on task. (Want to save more on groceries? Here are 12 ways you can save)

Buy what’s on sale and then plan your meals around that.

The number one way to save money at the grocery store? Plan your meals around what you buy, not the other way around.

Eat At Home.

We experiment at home! We don’t go to bakeries; we figure out something fun with the kids from home. You can make so many meals and treats at home with a little planning and creativity.

Stock Your Freezer.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://adimesaved.com/best-frugal-living-tips

10 Questions to Ask Yourself As An Aspiring Millionaire

10 Questions to Ask Yourself As An Aspiring Millionaire

By Anum Yoon

Most accomplished individuals and millionaires often find the best way to navigate to success is by questioning the status quo. This isn’t just about asking numerous, random questions or simply being contradictory. This will only waste time and energy, which are valuable assets that could be better served elsewhere in your business and life.

Instead, remember the key to success is knowing the right questions to ask. These are instrumental in developing positive daily habits that reinforce your goals and objectives.

Formulate the questions so you can revisit them periodically as you grow and change. Reviewing and regrouping will help you develop a positive habit of self-evaluation – a key characteristic for growth, development and advancement.

Here is a list of 10 questions you can use as a daily, weekly or monthly checklist:

1) Why Do I Want to Be a Millionaire?

This may seem like a silly question, but wanting to be a millionaire and really understanding the why of it are extremely different. In order to achieve something, you must really understand the reason you want to achieve it.

Wanting to be a millionaire just to have a lot of money probably won’t provide you with the necessary drive to achieve it. Sorry.

Instead, really work through the why behind your goals:

Do you want to be a millionaire for financial stability?

To travel more?

To have more freedom?

To give back to society?

Simon Sinek gives a great TED talk about the importance of a well-defined why in successful business, and the difference it makes. It may help you sort out your own.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://wealthygorilla.com/10-questions-ask-aspiring-millionaire/

Living a Frugal Life and Enjoying It

Living a Frugal Life and Enjoying It

August 28, 2020 by A Dime Saved

What does it mean to live a Frugal Life? I think there is an inherent positivity in choosing a Frugal Life, even if that decision is not based on money.

I live a frugal life. I talk about living frugally and how to save money because that is my life. That is how I live. Living a frugal life is more of a mindset than having to do with money. You can live a frugal life even if you have all the money in the world. Of course, there is a world of difference between choosing to live frugally and being forced to live frugally because of your circumstances. 

To be living a frugal life and enjoying it means you need to have the proper mindset in place. Living a frugal lifestyle is about more than cutting corners or making your own vegetable stock. To live a frugal lifestyle is to have a frugal mindset.

What does it mean to live a Frugal Life? I think there is a an inherent positivity in choosing a Frugal Life, even if that decision is not based on money.

Living frugally does not mean that you have to deprive yourself of every joy in the world, I think everyone is sick of all the articles and memes telling us to stop spending money and coffee. We get it. Coffee isn’t frugal. Starbucks is the devil blah blah. That’s not the point of frugality. Frugality also doesn’t mean never spending money or always buying the cheapest thing.

The Frugal Life isn’t The Cheap Life

I have an uncle who always buys the cheapest things. They can afford to spend more but he doesn’t want to. An appliance breaks- he goes to the store and buys the cheapest one. Unsurprisingly, they go through many, many appliances. Their appliances are always breaking. In fact, they have bought more microwaves in the past 2 years then I have bought in my adult life. (I only ever bought one).

That is not particularly frugal. Frugality would mean choosing the best option even if it means spending more money. Besides for probably saving money in the long run, the aggravation of constantly having broken appliances does not lead to a peaceful life.

Being frugal doesn’t mean picking the cheapest option always. It means choosing the frugal option always.

What does that mean?

Living a Mindfully Frugal Life

Living a frugal life and enjoying it means allowing yourself to spend money on what matters to you and you alone.

Living a frugal life means being mindful of where your money is going. It is choosing to spend your money in places where it matters and not spending your money in places where it doesn’t matter. Now, most people who live a frugal life tend to agree about what matters to them and what doesn’t. Designer handbags and fancy clothes are usually categorized under the “doesn’t matter” category.

 To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://adimesaved.com/living-a-frugal-life

Stop! Don't Make These 6 Dumb Mistakes With Your Financial Windfall

Stop! Don't Make These 6 Dumb Mistakes With Your Financial Windfall

By Kentin Waits

Maybe your lottery numbers finally came in. Maybe a favorite aunt remembered you in her will. Heck, maybe one day while you were shootin' at some food, up through the ground came bubblin' crude — oil that is! Texas tea! (See also: 50 Smart Things to Do With Your Tax Refund)

Whatever the source, you're the lucky beneficiary of a financial windfall. Revel in it and protect your new-found wealth by avoiding these six dumb moves.

1. Act Impulsively

Receiving money unexpectedly is exciting, and it can send even normally down-to-earth folks straight into the stratosphere. In those dizzying weeks and months following a financial windfall, we're really not ourselves, so making big decisions during that time is usually a terrible idea. 

Instead of spending or investing immediately, take a time out. Collect yourself. Adjust to your new wealth for six months or a year and just let the cash sit in a money market account or CD. Remember, high emotion and sound decision-making usually don't mix.

2. Buy a New Car

Even if you're paying cash, there are many reasons to avoid buying a new car. Not only is it the most cliché thing you can do with a windfall, but it's also one of the quickest ways to lose roughly 25% on every dollar you spend.

The minute you sign the paperwork and drive off the lot, that new car becomes used. Depreciation takes a quick and silent bite out of your new ride. Let someone else absorb that financial hit; buy a pre-owned late-model car that's still under warranty.

3. Loan Money to Friends and Family

Making loans to friends and family is a sure way to take the wind out of your financial windfall. Loans have a curious way of never getting repaid, and once your bank balance dwindles, hard feelings can set in and slowly erode relationships.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.wisebread.com/stop-dont-make-these-6-dumb-mistakes-with-your-financial-windfall?ref=seealso

37 Life Hacks That Will Save You Money

37 Life Hacks That Will Save You Money

There are easy things you can do to reduce your monthly budget.

By Jeff Yeager Mar 15, 2022

Savvy shoppers might be the masters of coupon cutting and buying on a budget, but those aren’t the only ways to save money. If you don’t take advantage of all the life hacks available to you, you’re essentially leaving free cash on the table.

With a little effort and creativity, you can cut hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year from your budget. Plus, if you handle a few small items on your to-do list that you’ve been putting off, you can even find ways to earn more money without working more. Take these steps to gain control of your financial future. 

1. Scan Grocery Receipts for Cash Back

You can save money on groceries by using smartphone apps like Ibotta and Checkout 51, which give you cash back on grocery store purchases. All you have to do is scan the receipts after you shop. You could easily earn $5 or more a week for just a couple minutes of your time.

2. Buy Prescription Drugs at Costco Without a Membership

Membership warehouse stores like Sam’s Club and Costco have good prices on prescription drugs — and you don’t have to be a member to buy them. So, take advantage of Costco’s low prices on doctor-prescribed meds without shelling out $60 or more a year to join the club.

3. Make Your Spending Work For You

If you’re spending anyway, why not profit from it? There are a ton of offers out there for cash back, rewards, etc. A great way to maximize your return is with the cashRewards Credit Card from Navy Federal Credit Union. You can earn a $200 cash back bonus when you spend $2,000 within 90 days of opening an account. If you’re spending anyway, why not profit from it?

You’ll also earn 1.75% cash back on purchases when you get a cashRewards Credit Card and enroll in direct deposit. If you don’t enroll in direct deposit, you’ll still earn 1.5% cash back. Plus, the cashRewards Credit Card also has no annual fee, no foreign transaction fee, and 0% intro APR on balance transfers for six months (offer ends July 5, 2022).

4. Get More Ink Out of Your Printer

If your printer is out of black ink or toner, change the text color to dark blue — you’ll be able to print a couple more times before purchasing a refill. Additionally, avoid thick, ink-wasting fonts in favor of slimmer ones like Arial and Courier New.

5. Ditch Your Low-Interest Savings Account

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.gobankingrates.com/saving-money/savings-advice/life-hacks-save-money/

The Biggest Money Mistakes Women Make in Relationships

The Biggest Money Mistakes Women Make in Relationships

By Gabrielle Olya

In today’s “Financially Savvy Female” column, we chat with Shelly-Ann Eweka, CFP, senior director of financial planning strategy at TIAA, about the three biggest money mistakes women make in relationships — plus, how to successfully talk about finances with your partner.

Mistake #1: Not Talking About Finances Soon Enough

You may not want to talk about money on a first date, but it’s a topic that should be discussed before you’re opening a joint bank account. 

 “Discuss finances in a relationship as soon as you believe your finances will become intertwined,” Eweka said. “The person you are in a relationship with will impact how and when you reach your financial goals. In fact, your financial goals may change because of the relationship. The topics that should be discussed include credit scores, debt, estate wishes, goals and dreams. It is also important to understand your partner’s relationship with money.”

Mistake #2: Not Communicating Openly About Expenses

“When it comes to combining finances and dividing expenses in a relationship, mistakes happen because of a lack of communication between partners,” Eweka said. “It is critical to communicate and set expectations of how expenses will be handled.

Dividing expenses is a very personal decision — there is no right or wrong answer. If both partners are working, some couples split expenses evenly and others split expenses proportionally to earnings. The best way to handle this is for each partner to share their comfort level and come to an agreement about how to split the expenses. It is important to be aware that the agreement will probably shift over time — children, job loss or promotions may cause the agreement to change.”

These discussions will likely involve compromise — you can’t demand of your partner what you yourself are not willing to do.

“It won’t feel fair if you ask your partner to skip out on the season tickets if you don’t also show how you are contributing to maintaining the budget,” Eweka said. “Make a commitment to bring your lunch to work and pass on the expensive coffee each day.”

Mistake #3: Keeping Secrets About Your Financial Past

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.gobankingrates.com/money/financial-planning/the-biggest-money-mistakes-women-make-in-relationships/

10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Protect Against Inflation

10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Protect Against Inflation

Looking for ways to put your money to work? Read on.

Adam McFadden | JANUARY 28, 2022 | Updated: March 16, 2022

There’s no doubt about it, inflation is here in a big way. So how can you put your money to work to stay ahead of it? The good news is there are some things you can do to protect and possibly grow your money in an inflationary economy. We cover some of these suggestions below for those who are looking to make the best use of their money during this time of high inflation.

Key Takeaways

Inflation can be a challenge for everyone, especially those with little to no exposure in the stock market or a lot of extra cash sitting around.

Taking steps to lessen the impacts of inflation on your finances is key, whether it’s through investing or cutting costs.

The ultra-rich know that diversification across several different asset classes that outperform the market during inflationary times is key. These could include alternative investments like contemporary art, real estate, peer-to-peer lending, and more. 

Diversify With One of the Most Inflation-Resilient Alternative Assets

Investing in art can provide a hedge against inflation, according to research from Bank of America. That’s because art correlation to other asset classes is extremely low. The firm’s Chief Investment Strategist expects inflation to surge and recommends investing in real assets, like art, as protection. The annual price appreciation of contemporary art has outpaced the S&P 500 by 164% over the last 25 years.

That’s why over two-thirds of ultra-high-net-worth collectors allocate at least 10% of their overall portfolios to art, on average, according to Deloitte. For the rest of us, there’s a new alternative investing platform called Masterworks. Now you can diversify your portfolio with multimillion-dollar paintings1 by artists like Banksy and Picasso without needing millions. With over 350,000 registered users it’s one of the most exclusive platforms to join.

Pay Down High-Interest Debt

Many credit cards have variable interest rates, meaning when the Feds raise the federal funds rate, your interest rate on your credit cards are likely to rise with it. The Feds have already stated they will most likely be raising the rate more than once in 2022 to combat inflation, so now is the time to start paying down any high-interest credit card debt.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:
https://www.gobankingrates.com/what-to-do-with-your-money-during-high-inflation/?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=native&costid=691

The Reason Many Ultrarich People Aren’t Satisfied With Their Wealth

The Reason Many Ultrarich People Aren’t Satisfied With Their Wealth

Joe Pinsker 

​At a certain point, another million dollars doesn’t make anything newly affordable. That’s when other motivations take over.   As the number of millionaires and billionaires in the world climbs ever higher, there are a growing number of people who possess more money than they could ever reasonably spend on even the lushest goods.   But at a certain level of wealth, the next million isn’t going to suddenly revolutionize their lifestyle. What drives people, once they’ve reached that point, to keep pursuing more?

There are some good explanations, I found, after talking to a few people who’ve spent significant amounts of time in the presence of and/or researching the really, really rich. Michael Norton, a Harvard Business School professor who has studied the connections between happiness and wealth, had a particularly elegant model for understanding this pattern of behavior. 

​Norton says that research regularly points to two central questions that people ask themselves when determining whether they’re satisfied with something in their life:

Am I doing better than I was before? And Am I doing better than other people?

​This applies to wealth, but also to attractiveness, height, and other things that people fret about.

 “But the problem is,” Norton says, “a lot of the things that really matter in life are hard to measure. So if you wanted to be a good parent, it’s a little hard to know if you’re being a better parent now than you were a year ago, and it’s also hard to know if you’re a better parent than the neighbors.”

 So people turn to dimensions of comparison that can be quantified. “Money is a terrific one,” Norton says. “If I need to know if I’m doing better than I was, the easy thing to ask is, Am I making more money? or Does my house have more square feet? or Do I have more houses than I used to?”

 This instinct to measure and compare doesn’t disappear once people have an obscene amount of money. “The problem is, Am I doing better than I was? is only [moving people in] one direction, which is up,” Norton says.

​And if a family amasses, say, $50 million but upgrades to a neighborhood where everyone has that much money (or more), they feel a lot less rich than if they had stuck to the peer comparisons they were making tens of millions of dollars ago. Hence the ever-shifting goalposts of wealth and satisfaction.

 The research Norton has conducted illustrating this phenomenon is dispiriting. In a paper published earlier this year, he and his collaborators asked more than 2,000 people who have a net worth of at least $1 million (including many whose wealth far exceeded that threshold) how happy they were on a scale of one to 10, and then how much more money they would need to get to 10.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2018/12/rich-people-happy-money/577231/